Enjoyed spending a couple hours away from my desk at the Word on the Street festival at Queen’s Park in Toronto. Great to see that literature is still such a draw, and how many different independent magazines and publishers are out there.
Sony and Kobo used the occasion to show off their e-readers. Smart move. In a couple years people might all be bringing their Kobos, Kindles and iPads to the festival, and download the latest books directly in the publishers’ tents. And people will line up for authors to do e-signings of their e-books after the readings? Maybe not.
Strange: I switched from newspapers to online news without hesitation, and embraced blogs and social media early on. But I am very attached to printed books. I was given a Kobo earlier this year, and I do use it – but almost exclusively for business books. Novels, stories and poems I still like to read on paper. It will be interesting to see if/when/how my reading habits will change over time. I hope both worlds will co-exist for a while. Can’t imagine giving up printed books. Life is much better with book stores like Ben MacNally Books and The Sleuth of Baker Street.
Canadian authors Giles Blunt, Howard Shrier and Linwood Barclay during the “World of Crime” readings and audience discussion.
University Avenue was closed down for the festival.
martinhofmann.net is the personal blog and web playground of Martin Hofmann. I live in Toronto and work 
Like you, I was happy to see Sony and Kobo at Word on the Street, but was disappointed their booths didn’t offer more. I had my Sony Reader with me and would have jumped at the chance to buy books for it at a “Word on the Street” price. Maybe next year…
I did, however, stock up on kids’ books. There’s no event like Word on the Street to discover great small publishers, authors and artists.
I agree, Kristy, that would have been a good opportunity for them to go beyond showing off the readers. I guess they are still trying out and learning how to best market the readers.