The Daily Lit

An Interview with the Writer of the Worst First Sentence in the World (2010 Edition):

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (named after the inventor of the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night”) is an annual affair that recognizes the worst first sentence in the world. This year, local author Molly Ringle brought the crown home to Seattle with her first-prize sentence.

Sony Cuts Prices On Their E-Readers Too:

The new prices are:
• Reader Pocket Edition is now $150 (from $170)
• Touch Edition Reader is now $170 (from $200)
• 3G Daily Edition Sony Reader is now $300 (from $350)

I still think Sony’s Touch and Daily editions are garbage, but their Pocket reader is still the best in breed, and it’s a steal now at $150. 

iPad and Kindle reading speeds:

The iPad measured at 6.2% lower reading speed than the printed book, whereas the Kindle measured at 10.7% slower than print. However, the difference between the two devices was not statistically significant because of the data’s fairly high variability.

Thus, the only fair conclusion is that we can’t say for sure which device offers the fastest reading speed. In any case, the difference would be so small that it wouldn’t be a reason to buy one over the other.

This is fascinating, if only because I completely disagree. I’ve read twice as many books this year as I had last year, and it’s 100% credited to carrying around an ebook reader. So the question is, am I reading slower, yet reading so much more that I don’t notice? Then again, how much slower is 10% slower, anyway? Would the human brain even notice that sort of lost time when reading novels? 

What I’m surprised by is that reading on the iPad is faster than on an eink display. You’d think it would be the opposite. I wonder how much of that time lost is due to the loading time between flipping pages on an eink device.