Critical Linking: December 13, 2012

 

Shipments of ebook readers by year-end will fall to 14.9 million units, down a steep 36 percent from the 23.2 million units in 2011 that now appears to have been the peak of the ebook reader market. Another drastic 27 percent contraction will occur next year when ebook reader shipments decline to 10.9 million units. By 2016, the ebook reader space will amount to just 7.1 million units—equivalent to a loss of more than two-thirds of its peak volume in 2011.

I’ve got just one word for you, Benjamin: tablets.

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While this experiment might seem limited, it seems plausible that reading heightens our sense of empathy. The act of reading involves seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. Even casual readers can recall a time they’ve been “transported” by a book, exchanging their senses for another’s.

This seems great, but in reading you literally encounter the world through a character’s experience. In real life, you get nowhere as close. I wonder if the experience is really that transferable.

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As others have said, I’m a part of the media establishment myself. I don’t know Kakutani, but she said in the review that she reads my blog. This wasn’t just a completely blind submission by an unknown. If the Times reviews a self-published novel, or a non-fiction book by an author with a lower profile than me, then you might be able to say that the barrier has been broken for good.

When self-publishing isn’t exactly self-publishing.

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His findings, based on tests conducted with 66 adults age 50 and over: older people read faster (a mean reading speed of 128 words per minute) when using an iPad, compared to a newspaper with the same 10-point font size (114 words per minute). When the font was increased to 18 points — easy to do on an iPad — reading speed increased to 137 words per minute.

The easier it is to read, the more you will read.

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