Books are rubbish. They just sit there with their words and their plots and their characterisation and their background detail. Where’s the fun in that? What books need is… 3D audio clips!

From the press release:

Pan Macmillan Marketing Director Becky Ikin said:

‘We wanted to celebrate the phenomenal global publication of Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants with a genuinely exciting digital offering that built on Ken’s unique ability to take readers back in time to the sights and sounds of his period – in this new epic, World War I. 3D sound is something the games industry is beginning to dabble in, film is investing in 3D visuals and we think it’s exciting for the book industry to be experimenting in this way. So far books have looked at video or audio to sit alongside or after the main text (they force you to switch from reading the book) but this is a genuine ‘enhancement’ and far beyond the usual audio experience. It just hopefully fires your imagination alongside the author’s words.

There’s an iPad version too, where “sound files have been embedded into the ebook”. Personally I can’t think of anything I’d like less, but if you’re interested the website is over here.