E-books catching on again

The New York Times provides another article on the e-book industry. This one, published Dec. 23, looks at the success that the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader and Apple iPhone have had in pulling new customers into the e-book market. It's a business-oriented article, to be sure, and it glosses over all of the deeper questions about the nature of reading on an electronic screen, its authors preferring to stick to sales figures and marketing as their chief sources of information about e-reading.

Maybe the question of whether reading on a screen is inherently different was answered while I wasn't paying attention. Perhaps the "twitchy little screen" that Annie Proulx derided in 1994 isn't so little or twitchy anymore.

Then again, maybe this was just a "technology" article in the New York Times, a category that, more often than not, really means "technology business" article.

As a bit of context, and perhaps a bit of enlightenment, check out this 1991 Times article about e-books.

Related posts:

1. Digital piracy catches up to the print publishing world
2. No, Amazon doesn’t owe authors money for audiobook rights
3. What about the New York Times?
4. Potter’s Magic Doesn’t Work on Young Readers