Eric Schneider and I met 47 years ago at Fairchild Publications where I worked for many years. September 9th is my work anniversary. Today, Eric and his wife Gail live a few blocks away from us in South Beach. He is a successful publisher. We continue pursuing our passions. Now for today’s post.

It was just a matter of time before someone created the same kind of service for books as we have for movies. A new startup called Oyster Books, located steps away from the Ace Hotel in Manhattan, a huge gathering place for the digital community, has been created to offer owners of mobile devices the ability to access countless books on a monthly subscription basis.

As soon as you join the Oyster club, you have unlimited access to a library of 100,000 titles for $9.95 a month. Every genre is available, and the list of titles is growing rapidly. Most of the big name publishers have joined forces with Oyster: Harper Collins, Houghton Mifflin, Worman, Melville House, Rodale, Open Road Media, Rosetta Books, and F+W Media.

Oyster is being smart about its rollout. Instead of letting the company’s servers get overwhelmed with orders, Oyster is pacing itself. I signed up a few days ago and I am still waiting for my official acceptance.

Once I am in, I will be able to see what my friends are reading, unless they activate a privacy option. I look forward to having Oyster learn my likes and dislikes so I can receive recommendations on other books I might appreciate. It’s always rewarding to learn about a new book. I like that I’ll be in the know about certain titles and able to put them on my “to read” list. It ensures many hours of satisfying entertainment.

Oyster was co-founded by three self-proclaimed technologists and bookworms, Eric Stromberg, Andrew Brown, and Willem Van Lancker. Learn more about their passion for books here.

It looks like we all better get used to the idea of “access versus ownership” when it comes to music, reading, housing, and transportation. As successful business models like Spotify, Über, Airbnb, and Netflix have demonstrated, this is the wave of the future.