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e-books still can't trump "real" books

With the ever-increasing closure of book stores, e-books making inroads into sales of hard or paperback books and pundits writing off the books of yore as we know them, out of Britain comes a report that things aren't all that dire at all.

"Nearly six in ten teenagers are reading books electronically.

40.8% of teenagers have used computers to read books, with a further 17.2% reading on a mobile, says a survey of reading habits released to celebrate World Book Day 2011. 13.3% of teens have used tablet gadgets such as Apple’s iPad, ahead of 9.3% who read using e-Readers, including the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

The results come as Bloomsbury chief executive Nigel Newton announced earlier this week that 2011 will be the ‘year of the e-book’, pointing to a major expansion in the number of people reading on-screen.

Print books still look unlikely to go out of fashion in the immediate future however, with both adults and teenagers ranking them ahead of news, comics, e-books and magazines as their preferred media.

The WBD survey also reviewed how reading habits have changed over the years; adults remembered their favourite adolescent book as The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, whereas the outstanding favourite among today’s teenagers was the Harry Potter series. Lord of The Rings, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and 1984 remain enduringly popular reads in both age groups."

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