International Literacy Day

Today is International Literacy Day, which is about learning to read. Carrying on reading is a separate problem, and it is rarely the text that stops people. It is the light, the weight, or type set too small to sustain for an hour. Five things that remove one of those.

The plainest device on this list is also the one most likely to be used. A black-and-white e-reader does nothing except show words, holds weeks of charge, and makes type size a setting rather than a fact. For a great many people that last point is the difference between reading and having stopped.

Colour e-ink spent years as a promise and has quietly arrived. This one is muted rather than vivid, which disappoints anyone expecting a tablet and satisfies anyone expecting paper. Cookbooks, comics and anything with a map benefit immediately.

Size is the other axis, and it is worth more than the spec sheet suggests. A larger screen with page-turn buttons means a hand that is not obscuring the text, which matters most to the people who read longest.

On paper, the obstacle is almost always light. A dimmable desk lamp aims at the page rather than the room, and being able to take it down at the end of the evening is what makes an hour of reading comfortable rather than a squint.

And for reading in bed there is a gentler version of the same idea. A light that fades up and down lets you finish a chapter without the overhead light deciding when the day ends. It is a luxury object doing an ordinary job.

More under e-reader and leeslamp. The rest of the week is in the daily, and anyone shopping for someone else can start at the gift-whisperer.