Back in 2011, which in Internet time is eons ago, I  wrote a commentary about how reading on paper surfaces—books, newspapers, magazines—might be superior (in terms of brain chemistry) compared to what we do when we "read" on screens, be they iPads, Kindles or computers. The article elicited a variety of comments, ranging from ''you're nuts'' to "bravo." Mostly, "you're nuts" and "get with the program" and "get a life!" So I tried get a life and emailed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, who has a keen interest in reading and literacy issues (and whose brother is a neuroscientist). I asked her how she felt about my '''reading'' versus ''screening'' ideas,...

Mark Kingwell, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, has just delivered his thoughts on “Does reading have a future?” for the Ottawa Citizen, distilling his conclusions from a keynote speech on ‘The Future of Reading’ for the 40th anniversary AGM of the Writers’ Union of Canada. “A noted Canadian philosopher” (which is probably why his piece is appearing in the Ottawa Citizen), Kingwell brings the hermetic hermeneutics of po-mo critical theory to bear on developments in e-reading and comes away—no great surprise—with the conclusion that “the current debates about the future of reading are merely the welcome death...

The Consumer Electronics Association released some interesting data yesterday about electronic devices on planes. • Ninety-nine percent of flyers bring a portable electronic device on a flight with them. That's a lot of gadgets! • Thirty percent of them have forgotten to turn off a device at some time. Whoops! Another interesting breakdown is this: The study found that when asked to turn off their electronic devices, 59 percent of passengers say they always turn their devices completely off, 21 percent of passengers say they switch their devices to “airplane mode,” and five percent say they sometimes turn their devices completely off. Of those passengers who...

One of the cool things about this age of digital book-selling is the ability it gives retailers to compile and aggregate statistical information. In that vein, Amazon has released its annual list of 'well-read' cities—determined by "compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format since June 1, 2011, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents." Here are the top 5 cities: Alexandria, Va. Cambridge, Mass. Berkeley, Calif. Ann Arbor, Mich. Boulder, Colo. I see a lot of college towns on that list! I wonder how big a factor that is? More in the release, here....

I had to write about this since the number 1 spot was taken by my neighboring city, Alexandria, Va., and the 18th was also a Virginia city, Richmond, where my son is in school. Go VA! Here's the complete list, compiled by Amazon, and based on sales numbers of books, newspapers and magazines, both print and electronic, since June 2o12. 1. Alexandria, Va. 2. Knoxville, Tenn. 3. Miami, Fla. 4. Cambridge, Mass. 5. Orlando, Fla. 6. Ann Arbor, Mich. 7. Berkeley, Calif. 8. Cincinnati, Ohio 9. Columbia, S.C. 10. Pittsburgh, Penn. 11. St. Louis, Mo. 12. Salt Lake City, Utah 13. Seattle, Wash. 14. Vancouver, Wash. 15. Gainesville, Fla. 16. Atlanta, Ga. 17. Dayton, Ohio 18. Richmond, Va. 19. Clearwater, Fla. 20....

Every year, at around this time, I do a big e-book purge. Something about March Break brings out the spring cleaning demon, and when I need a break from cleaning my physical home, I curl up with my Macbook and tackle my digital one. My goals in years past have been to clean up metadata and cover art, complete missing series runs and prune out the freebies I really didn't ever plan to read. My goal this year? Reduce, reduce, reduce! I simply have too many books in my to-read pile. I don't remember where all of them came from, and I...

On the advice of a TeleRead commenter, I've spent the last two weeks trying out a book recommending service called Book Bub. So far, I'm enjoying it. Book Bub's premise is simple: When you register (it's free), you select from an offering of genres that interest you, and every day, Book Bub sends you an email with a few free or discounted books in your chosen genres. That's all there is to it. In general, I'm finding Book Bub's one, single email a bit easier for me to keep track of than a blog these days—I still haven't decided what I plan...

  If you had a pile of 300 books in your house waiting to be read, what would you do? Would you go out and buy any more books? I doubt it, even if you could battle your way to the front door. Yet if you’d got 300 books on your Kindle/iPad/other e-reader, would you stay in and click on any more ‘Buy It Now’ logos? More than possible. Because you probably wouldn’t even have noticed how many books were on there. Never mind 300, you can put 3,000 books on an e-reader and it’ll look and weigh just the same as if...

I mentioned earlier that it's been spring cleaning week here. Well, in amongst one of those random boxes of this and that, I unearthed this gem: my first-ever e-book reader! Back when I purchased this puppy for $50 plus shipping off eBay (a fortune!), it was 2005 and I was living in New Zealand for a year, doing a graduate program. The town I lived in was the fourth-largest in the country, but to my jaded North American city girl eyes, it was hardly a bustling metropolis. There were cows five minutes up the road from me. There was a sheep...

For years now, whenever reports from Mexico have popped up in American news outlets, the stories have almost always revolved around the seemingly endless homicides that are taking place in the northern reaches of the country, where many of Mexico's infamous drug cartels are based. But an op-ed about one aspect of the Mexican cultural landscape that appeared in the New York Times recently has been earning attention for a very different, if still inexcusable, state of affairs: Much of the country, it seems, has effectively stopped reading. As the article's author, David Toscana, explains... The proportion of the Mexican population that is...

It's a snowy day in our nation's capital, and watching the flakes fall has made me contemplative. I've been reading a number of historical and fantasy books in worlds and times where books were rare, precious and valued. I can't help but contrast that to today, when people can download thousands of free books to their e-reader of choice. What impact does that have on our perceived value of a book? I thought back and compared my reading habits now to when I was a child (and books were relatively rare—I had to wait for Christmas or birthdays, and use my scant...

  I've been seeing lots of articles about social reading and how it's the wave of the future for e-book discovery. CBC News had a lengthy article on the topic, and Digital Book World weighed in on it yesterday. (Incidentally, enough with the Fifty Shades references, OK guys?) While social discovery makes for fascinating news articles, and sites like Goodreads are certainly in that space, I decided to go to the source—readers—and ask them for their opinion. You know what will make self-described introverts put down their books and speak up? Asking them for their opinions on social reading! Here were a selection...