The creators of a new, artificial-intelligence-assisted publishing effort called hope that offering interactive, personalized guidance and commentary from well-known writers, scholars and celebrities will help bring classic books alive for students.

They’re also aiming to help adults who might otherwise struggle in solitude through these weighty volumes.

In the process, they predict, the titles could capture a much bigger audience, one that someday may be able to talk back to the experts and even influence how scholars interpret literature. 

The challenge is whether they can make the AI work without being creepy or intrusive.

The price: $29.95 per book, with multi-book subscriptions available. They also plan to offer discounts to schools and find philanthropic partners as underwriters. 

Among the key selling points of Rebind’s e-books is that it offers a clever synthesis of original commentary and “lite” AI that seamlessly matches the experts’ utterances to readers’ queries. So a student studying George Washington’s could pose a question to none other than historian — or at least the version of her already pressed between the covers of an e-book on presidential speeches.

The improbable effort grew out of an equally improbable meeting between the philosopher and John Dubuque, great-grandson of the founder of the retail chain Plumbers Supply. Dubuque had spent 14 years as its CEO and sold the company in 2021, at age 38.

Suddenly retired, he set about reading philosopher Martin Heidegger’s famously difficult Being and Time, hiring an Oxford scholar for twice-weekly private tutoring sessions. 

“I had this amazing experience and realized at the end of it, ‘It’s too bad more people can’t access this,’” he said. “This is the only way I ever could have read this book.”

Dubuque also began playing with ChatGPT, asking it to summarize passages from equally difficult books like Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality. He was deeply impressed with the AI, warts and all, and concluded that if someone could tame it for students, cut down on “” and focus it on the books, it’d be a game-changer. 

He shared his ideas with Kaag, who had helped him get through William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Kaag had just published Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life, which resonated with his benefactor. Kaag, who as a kid had been a poor reader with a stutter, recounted to Dubuque how his mother would sit at their kitchen table and help him muscle through assignments. 

They realized that many people want to tackle classics like Moby Dick and James Joyce’s Ulysses, Dubuque said, but get intimidated by big, difficult books. “So they just give up and read things that they can read, not the things that they really want to read.”

‘We’re choosing the people — and they’re choosing the books’

Kaag soon recruited his friend Clancy Martin, an author and professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, who signed on to help find “Rebinders” for at least 100 AI-assisted e-books, offering readers what amounts to a one-on-one conversation with a novelist, critic or historian about the book.

The endeavor already boasts an impressive stable of author-experts: The Irish novelist John Banville on Joyce’s Dubliners, Goodwin on U.S. Presidents’ speeches, novelist on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Deepak Chopra on Buddhism and environmentalist on John Muir.

But there are also some unlikely pairings: Margaret Atwood on A Tale of Two Cities, Roxane Gay on Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, producer, actor and writer Lena Dunham on E. M. Forster’s A Room With a View, and the critic on Romeo and Juliet. 

“We’re choosing the people — and they’re choosing the books,” said Martin. 

To avoid copyright fights, the company is limited, for the moment, to books in the public domain, published before 1928. But Rebind is also in conversation with the world’s three largest publishers about offering contemporary books like 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest.

Kipnis, who last spring wrote a of becoming a Rebinder, has said the endeavor “will radically transform the entire way booklovers read books.”

Acknowledging her misgivings about AI more broadly, she finally admitted to herself that perhaps this particular bet is worth pursuing. “The nihilist in me thinks if humans are going to perish, we might as well perish reading the Classics,” she wrote.

On occasion, Kaag, 44, and Martin, 57, have tried to politely steer a few scholars away from their first choice, with mixed results: When he offered the gig to novelist , for instance, Martin promised he could tackle any book he liked. So Greenwell proposed Henry James’ The Golden Bowl — a classic, but not exactly James’ most widely read novel. 

“I said, ‘O.K., Henry James is a great idea,” Martin recalled. “‘What about The Portrait of a Lady?’”

Sorry, Greenwell said. It was The Golden Bowl or nothing. 

Martin threw out a few other titles: The Turn of the Screw? Daisy Miller?

Eventually, he said with a laugh, they resolved it: “He’s doing The Golden Bowl.”&�Բ�����;

So far, only a few prominent authors have opted not to participate — the literary novelist Andre Dubus III, a close friend of Kaag’s, told him he was “dancing with the devil.”&�Բ�����;

Kaag said he’s getting a mixture of “really good” emails and “really serious hate mail” from colleagues fearful of AI. He takes that fear to heart, having spent much of his career . His classes, he said, have always been “very personal and very one-on-one.”

But he shifted his thinking a few years ago, after suffering from heart troubles that culminated in a cardiac arrest at age 40: “I just thought to myself, ‘I really would like to explore things that I hadn’t explored before.’”

Invoking Dubuque’s intimate tutoring sessions, he thought, “You can only scale one-on-one tutorials, or one-on-one conversations, so far.”

If AI can make that happen and bring the joy of reading to more people, he thought, perhaps it’s worth trying something new. “So to me, I don’t think it’s scary.”

‘Basically every question that I could possibly imagine’

Each book begins with a high-production-value video offering a sneak peak of what lies within. In the case of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, we get sweeping drone shots of Walden Pond, complete with the Rebinder — in this case Kaag himself — taking a swim. He lives in nearby Concord, Mass., and has taught the book for more than a decade at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. 

For the Walden Rebind, Kaag recorded 30 hours of audio commentary, answering “basically every question that I could possibly imagine” a college student asking. 

The volume of commentary ranges widely, from 10 hours for Dubliners to nearly 80 for Ulysses by the philosopher .

As for how Rebind will be used, Kaag sees it not as a replacement for class discussions, but as preparation, a tool that can field questions readers might be too embarrassed to ask in class.

The way Rebind works will be familiar to anyone who reads e-books, but with a revelatory twist: Readers can highlight and annotate text, but they can also open up a chat window anywhere and type or dictate questions about a passage or sentence. They can wonder aloud about ideas or passages they’re curious about, or simply type: “I’m lost.”&�Բ�����;

AI analyzes the query and matches it to the pre-loaded commentary, telling readers, if they click on a little icon, which parts of the answer are original and which are the AI smoothing out the syntax to be responsive to the query.

Antero Garcia, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English, said he likes the transparency that comes with that breakdown. “I actually hope more AI does something like that, where you can see the sources of things” it presents to readers.

But he worries that tools like Rebind could draw users more into reading as a solitary pursuit. “If I’m lost in Dubliners, that’d be great to go to my English teacher or to a friend and, God forbid, have a reading group or a book group and just have a conversation about this text,” he said. 

Garcia said he was reluctant to overstate the isolating effects of AI, “but I do think there’s something missing as a result of relying on AI to guide us in our reading, rather than relying on reading being an inherently social thing.”

In the long term, Rebind actually seeks to integrate social elements that allow students in a class to “read and work together” within a text. Eventually, they hope to give teachers space for their own commentary. Future versions may offer Rebinders feedback from readers and the opportunity for deeper discussions via AI-moderated book clubs.

One feature stands out as potentially game-changing: If a reader wants to basically journal within the e-book, revealing his or her personal challenges along the way, that prompts the AI to search for commentary that helps: If you’re reading Walden, for instance, and type in, “This book makes me think of my times of loneliness and depression,” the e-book will reply: “I can understand how Thoreau’s reflections on solitude and the challenges of living authentically might resonate with feelings of loneliness and depression.”

That’s then followed up with a brief discussion of Thoreau’s encouragement “to remain attentive, even when things don’t particularly seem bountiful.”

The new e-books will also allow users to take notes, then use them to challenge the Rebinder to a conversation. While that could easily become a big privacy risk, Dubuque said Rebind will never sell user data, since it’s inviting users to “share the deepest, most meaningful things in their life and really give themselves to these books.” Profiting off those details is “not an option.”

‘Dancing with the devil’?

At the moment, the interactions are all through text, but the Rebinders have all given permission to have their voices reproduced so they can someday “chat” directly with users. “We have voice clones,” Dubuque said. “They’re very good.”

But for now audio remains an open question, an option they’re not quite ready to offer. On the one hand, who wouldn’t want to chat about Dubliners with Banville? On the other hand, that could be weird. A small portion of the conversation wouldn’t be Banville at all, but a crusty, Irish-accented Banville-bot.

Dubuque predicted they’ll eventually end up using voice, but he wants to do it carefully.

“We’re very sensitive to the ‘ick factor’ of AI.”

His plan is to release the first books next month. 

Though it’s a for-profit company, with Dubuque its only funder, Martin said he also sees it as an effort to ensure that more young people get the chance to read great books under the guidance of great teachers. “Most of us don’t get to go to Columbia or to Yale or to Princeton,” he said. Fewer still get to study with scholars like Goodwin, Atwood, Banville or Gay.

But Garcia, the Stanford scholar, urged caution.

“There’s something fraught about this pursuit of scale,” he said. “In trying to deliver good books or good learning experiences to people, we ultimately get funneled into this pathway: The way to get it to the most people is to take away that human element or dilute that human element through AI. It feels like that’s when you lose the spirit of it.”

For his part, Martin wants to make Rebind “the most fun, most dynamic and most interesting way” to read books. It won’t supplant the solitary experience of reading, he said, it’ll offer something different: the choice to read a book in solitude or to “have a whole rich conversation about it with someone.”&�Բ�����;

Or both. 

A lot of Rhode Islanders want to read Kristin Hannah’s latest novel, “.”

The e-book version of Hannah’s Vietnam War narrative had 837 holds across the state’s libraries as of April 12. Nearly a week later, on Thursday, April 18, that number had risen to 900, according to the statewide . At least four physical copies were still available.

Libraries don’t pay what consumers do for e-books — they may pay as much as nine times more, according to the Rhode Island Library Association. They’re also not technically buying books: Libraries purchase licenses to e-books, not the e-books themselves, and licenses expire. Libraries essentially lease books for a set number of checkouts or duration of time, usually one to two years.

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“If we purchased enough book licenses to satisfy even half of the 800 holds, it would cost us $24,000,” said Julie Holden, assistant library director at Cranston Public Library. “For one book. It’s a book that’s going to disappear in two years.”

The costliness of e-books and audiobooks — with limits driven largely by book publishers’ concerns over revenue, copyright and author compensation — inspired the state’s libraries to put their weight behind a pair of bills in the General Assembly: in the House, led by Newport Democratic Rep. Lauren Carson, and in the Senate, led by Democratic Sen. Victoria Gu of Westerly. The bills would leverage state contract law to give public libraries more control over their negotiations with e-book suppliers.

“If a bridge contractor is building a bridge in Rhode Island to replace the Washington Bridge, they have to build the bridge to the specifications of the state,” Holden said. “So that’s what this is saying: If you’d like to sell e-books to libraries in Rhode Island using state money, these are our terms. If the bills pass, and the publishers decide they’re not going to sell e-books to libraries anymore, then we’ll see what happens.”

Some of the protections offered by the bills include allowing libraries to determine loan periods and to buy e-books at prices closer to consumer rates. Licensing models which require libraries to pay a fee for each checkout would be eliminated, and libraries would also be able to disclose their license agreements to other libraries.

Several states aim to rein in prices

, , , , , , and all have similar legislation in process this year. Other states have seen support from lawmakers but opposition from the judicial or executive branches. After Maryland’s General Assembly unanimously passed a bill to protect libraries’ purchasing powers in 2022, the U.S. District Court in Maryland on the basis of it being unconstitutional — an opinion informed by Association of American Publishers’ legal battle to prevent the law’s enactment, Publishers Weekly . In December 2021, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul a similar bill.

Holden, who also chairs Rhode Island Library Association’s membership committee, said e-books are a towering expense in the state’s . Public libraries are essentially paying for items they don’t own. The two major e-book platforms are OverDrive and Hoopla — the former allows libraries to purchase books for a set amount of time, while the latter makes libraries pay per-checkout. What’s consistent to both models is a reliance on licensing.

“Normally a state or municipality would never spend money on something that’s going to disappear. It’s not a good investment. It’s not a good use of taxpayer money,” Holden said.

Around a decade ago, e-book purchases were comparable to hardcover prices, Holden noted. That changed once publisher HarperCollins moved to a licensing model that limited books to 26 checkouts.

“Overall, the prices have risen, and the terms have been restricted,” Holden said. “So now we’re spending money on disappearing products.”

That’s totally different from the consumer space: Look at Amazon’s and you’ll find books under $1 or books at 80% off. Audiobooks, which Holden called “a whole other beast,” also run up costs and libraries pay far more for them than a consumer does. A recent Stephen King audiobook, Holden said, was around $130.

Both time-based and checkout-based licensing have drawbacks, Holden said. With the former, the clock starts running once a book is purchased, meaning libraries are paying for hours, days or even weeks where the book is not being read by library patrons.

The checkout model, meanwhile, means people sometimes have to fight over the limited supply of a book. Holden said Cranston Public Library had to cap its Hoopla expenditures to $1,000 monthly, which translates to roughly $33 a day based on each checkout costing the library around $2 or $3. Most days, the checkouts are already full by 6 a.m., because people are putting in their holds at midnight.

“We’ve had a lot of people emailing us complaining, calling us begging us to fund this further, so that all the books aren’t gone at midnight,” Holden said. “So now our patrons are staying up until midnight, so they can check out the day’s quota.”

Similar e-book bills have emerged several times in Rhode Island’s General Assembly — in , , , and . The Senate Committee on Education did recommend passage of Sen. Hanna Gallo’s of the bill, but the legislation has not progressed much otherwise.

Rhode Island Current reached out to two of the major e-book retailers about the proposed legislation.

“We are not prepared to comment at this time,” said David Burleigh, a director of corporate outreach for Overdrive.

Hoopla did not return multiple requests for comment.

Larry Berman and Greg Paré — spokespeople for the Rhode Island House and Senate, respectively — said in a joint statement via email: “Public hearings have been held on both bills in the respective House and Senate committees. Leadership is reviewing the testimony as the bills travel through the normal legislative process.”

Publishers struggle with shadow libraries

While libraries’ budget concerns over e-books is a more recent trend, book publishers have worried about their own finances since 1908, when the emerged. This feature of U.S. copyright law allows the original purchaser of a book to resell their copy. That’s one reason publishers fretted when the secondhand book market saw exponential growth thanks to Amazon, and it contributes to publishers’ more modern preference for licensing over traditional sales, according to a from the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy.

Brick and mortar libraries must play by the rules of copyright. More harmful to publishers’ bottom lines are shadow libraries — online repositories of pirated e-books and PDFs that are virtually limitless in size. After years of battles over audiovisual content like pirated movies and music, federal attention on illicit libraries has intensified in recent years. A 2023 by the Office of the United States Trade Representative noted that Libgen, one of the more infamous and popular book pirates, has seen legal action from 11 countries — including the United States, who associated with the site in 2022.

The Dublin, Ohio-based OCLC — which maintains WorldCat, the largest library catalog with data aggregated from institutions worldwide  — also against one of these shadow libraries in Ohio U.S. District Court in February.

None of this has stopped Libgen from being mirrored, or copied to different servers. One Libgen mirror and search engine boasted a collection of 31,645,836 books as of this writing.

Rhode Island’s public libraries, meanwhile, can’t even obtain a digital copy of E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web,” a children’s classic that was published 72 years ago.

“We can’t purchase it,” Holden said. “We don’t know why. It’s just not available for libraries…The libraries cannot purchase it.”

The Kindle version is currently available on Amazon for $5.99.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on and .