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eBooks Change The Way We Read

There was a rather interesting blogpost on The Guardian last week, looking at how the rise of the eBook has changed reading habits – or, more accurately, how it may go on to change them in future. It looks at issues of privacy and customisation in the first instance, but goes on to imagine books that can only be read in collaboration, or which are locked to certain geographical locations – both are ideas rich in potential for storytellers, and start to present a vast degree of potential for interactive fiction, theatrical narratives or even (horrible term though it is) ‘transmedia’. Take a look at the full piece here – the comments are also worth a read.

In our opinion, though, the biggest shift brought about by the eBook is the advent of shame-free consumption. There were times when most of us would probably have thought twice about stepping onto public transport with a volume of what was clearly identifiable as…*ahem*…’erotic’ fiction clearly visible to fellow commuters – that need no longer be an issue with e-readers. As more and more readers clutch cover-less Kindles or iPads on the bus or tube, so other commuters are less able to judge them for reading a space opera, a self-help manual or Katie Price’s latest opus. It’s probably not a coincidence that we’ve seen a resurgence in erotica and science fiction in the past few years…

Posted by in Literature