Microsoft Reader is a Microsoft program for the reading of e-books, originally released in August 2000.

Microsoft Reader is available for download from Microsoft as a free program for computers running Windows. It can also be used on a Pocket PC, where it has been built into the ROM since Windows CE 3.0. Microsoft Reader is not supported on newer Windows Phone 7 devices, but it is compatible with Windows Mobile.

Microsoft Reader displays books in the .LIT (shortened from "literature") format, an extension of the Microsoft Compressed HTML Help format to include DRM. These books can be purchased and downloaded from many smaller online stores.

The notable features of Microsoft Reader are ClearType for increased readability on small screens, highlighting and doodling designed for quick note-taking, text notes, and searching. The PC version also has an optional plugin for text-to-speech, enabling books to be read out loud.

In August 2011, Microsoft announced they were discontinuing both Microsoft Reader and the use of the .lit format for ebooks at the end of August 2012, and ending sales of the format on November 8, 2011.

Coordinates: 47°38′22.55″N 122°7′42.42″W / 47.6395972°N 122.12845°W / 47.6395972; -122.12845

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, United States that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. Microsoft is one of the largest software corporations in the world.

Microsoft would also come to dominate the office suite market with Microsoft Office. The company has diversified into the video game industry with the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles and the consumer electronics and digital services market MSN, the Zune and the Windows Phone OS. The ensuing rise of stock in the company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) made an estimated three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees (Forbes 400 list revealed that in March 2011 both Jon Shipley and Nathan Myhrvold lost their billionaire status). In May 2011, Microsoft Corporation acquired Skype Communications for $8.5 billion.

Jeff Jarvis (born July 15, 1954) is an American journalist. Previously he was a television critic for TV Guide and People magazine, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner.

Jarvis was president and creative director of Advance Internet, the online arm of Advance Publications. He currently consults for Advance Internet. He has also consulted for the New York Times Company at About.com, where he worked on content development and strategy. In 2006 he became an associate professor at City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, directing its new media program. He has a fortnightly column in the MediaGuardian supplement of the British newspaper The Guardian.

In 1974 Jarvis was an undergraduate at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University when he was hired by the Chicago Tribune. Jarvis first began his career in journalism writing for the Addison Herald-Register, a weekly newspaper, in 1972.

In the Woods is a 2007 mystery novel by Tana French about a pair of Irish detectives and their investigation of the murder of a twelve year old girl. The novel won several awards such as the 2008 Edgar Award for Best First Novel By An American Author, the 2008 Barry Award for Best First Novel, the 2008 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel, and the 2008 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.

Twenty years prior to the novel's events, twelve year-old Adam and his two best friends failed to come home after playing in the familiar woods bordering their Irish housing estate. A search is called by the families, and the police find Adam shivering, clawing the bark of a nearby tree, blood on his shoes and slash marks on his back. He is unable to tell them what happened or where his friends are. His amnesia holds to the present day, where he goes by his middle name, Rob, to avoid the attention of the media to his famous case. His friends were never found.

The plot of the novel circles around the murder of a twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, whose case Rob and his partner Cassie Maddox are given to investigate. The body is found in the same woods where Rob’s friends disappeared, at an archeological dig site, and the coincidence is enough to make Rob nervous, though he insists to his partner that he is fine.