MetaBook

A book about a book.

The ur-MetaBook line is probably the Cliffs Notes series (to the extent that they can be considered books - I'd says they qualify as Thin Book-s).

A possible example sitting unread on my shelf is The Sign Of Three ISBN:0253352355 . Now I that I notice a Charles S Peirce reference, maybe I'll graze again.

Now I've discovered that Barnes And Noble are starting a series, so I picked up the "companion" (ISBN:1586638637) to Jared Diamond's Guns Germs And Steel since I've never forced myself to buy the original (I'm interested in the argument but whenever I browse it I'm put off by the writing itself).

Hmmm, should really short summaries count? Hmm, the below are business-focused, I wonder whether there's another category that would be viable?

• Joe Wikert has ideas for this format, and like http://www.getabstract.com
• summaries.com charges $100/year to send you 1 summary per week (52/year). (Electronic delivery only.)
• ExecutiveBookSummaries (by Sound View) charges $100/year for 35 summaries (delivered in monthly batches).
• site with some free short summaries
• WikiSummaries is free! http://wikisummaries.org
• update: any single summary is a very constrained lens, reading multiple glosses is probably better, plus maybe a section or two of the original to see if. you like the Clang-Tint.

Do I need to buy a license to the original book to avoid Copy Right issues, if I want to sell a MetaBook?

• nope, just don't copy out chunks of the original without being clear that it's a quote
• but be careful about over-quoting