How we read now

What you can’t do is buy it for download to your e-reader or your tablet, or as an audio file for your mp3 player. When “The Go-Between’’ was last republished, no one was selling books in those formats. As far as reading goes, 2002 is a foreign country; we do things differently now.

If you’re an adult who reads books today, you are an immigrant from that foreign land - a “digital immigrant.’’ You may love your new iPad, but you were raised in the old country of bookstores, marginalia, the scent of paper, flap copy written on actual flaps. Meanwhile, the toddler playing with his parents’ tablet today will grow up a “digital native,’’ as accustomed to the one-click book purchase as you are to a dust jacket.

We’ve been sailing toward this country for some time, but in 2011, we arrived. Last year, the publishers surveyed by the Association of American Publishers saw 8.3 percent of domestic net sales from e-books. Three months into this year, Simon and Schuster’s e-book sales had climbed to 17 percent of revenue; at Hachette, parent company of Little, Brown, the figure was 22 percent. From November to May, according to a Pew Internet Project study, the percentage of American adults with a dedicated e-reader (like a Nook or Kindle) leaped from 6 percent to 12 percent. Another 8 percent now have tablets. To add a little context, fewer than half of Americans even buy a book in a typical year. So for 12 percent of all Americans to have an e-reader is not trivial.

Meanwhile, print sales are down about 25 percent. Physical bookstores, including the Borders chain, which is in bankruptcy reorganization, are on the rocks, rapidly adding stationery sections and ticketed author events to make up for plummeting book sales. And Amazon, which offers books in every possible format but is heavily promoting its proprietary Kindle device, announced in January that it is now selling more copies digitally than in paperback.