Stephen Fry gets future publishing with iOS book app

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Apple-lover, raconteur and much-loved public figure, Stephen Fry, this morning jumped into the future of publishing with the release of his new book The Fry Chronicles as a conventional title, eBook and — but of course — iPhone, iPad, iPod touch app.

Publisher Louise Moore described the move as “innovative and groundbreaking”.

She said: “I can’t think of a better author to launch this kind of new publishing – Stephen himself represents everything that we hold dear and value in Britain, yet at the same time has an extraordinary knowledge and love of cutting-edge technology.”

myFry is the bold and beautiful, innovative and thoroughly fun way to explore The Fry Chronicles, Stephen Fry’s new autobiography.

myFry takes the traditional art of the index, plugs it into the mains and brings it twitchingly to life for the 21st century, creating a visual display of The Fry Chronicles that not only looks pleasing to the eye but also proves to be as intelligent, playful and fun as the man himself.

Key features
– Discover a new and utterly original way of reading, through visual indexing
– A non-linear structure allows you to create your own personal narrative
– Navigate by spinning through 112 self-contained sections, view their opening words and follow their tags
– Find your way with a choice of four colour-coded categories: People, Subjects, Feelings and Fryisms
– See which sections you’ve read and store your favourites

Instead of doing something rather prosaic like reproducing the printed book on a touchscreen (though the whole book is here, every delightful word of it), myFry’s unique visual index encourages you to discover and interact with Stephen’s story in new and unexpected ways.

In fact, you choose how you read it.

So forget beginning at the beginning and ending at the end. You can’t. (Or at least not that easily.) Instead, use the scrollwheel to choose what you read by exploring the colour-coded tags to discover the many, varied and fascinating threads that have knitted together over the years to form the being that we call Stephen Fry.

These threads may be people: Hugh Laurie or Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson or Ben Elton, Douglas Adams or Oscar Wilde. Or themes: his addictions to sugar and cigarettes; the Cambridge years; Blackadder; Broadway; the BBC. Or feelings: depression, self-criticism, love, happiness or celibacy. Or ‘Fryisms’: from bourgeoisified to badolescence. We may pick up each of the many threads and follow them as they weave in and out of his life.

Designed specifically for the iPhone and ideal for on-the-go reading, myFry is a radical yet intuitive way of exploring The Fry Chronicles and the ultimate way to fill a minute – or many – with a bit of brilliance from the cavernous mind of Stephen Fry.