The question that remains now is whether dedicated ebook readers will survive in the era of multi-tasking tablets that do much more. The choices listed here barely scratch the surface of this explosive product category.

Young has good access to editorial movers and shakers on two continents, but he’s more interested in the process and people that determine what ends up on the page than the bombshells about bloodthirsty and opportunistic journalists you’re hoping for.

Some radical pundits predicted the end of books, saying we’d download special files to a small handheld computer that displayed the pages of a book and read it like we do on paper. At the time, the technology was in its infancy.