From time to time our campus library does something similar. They wrap a book in brown paper, and include only a brief and vague description on the outside.
The book I got was NOT the one advertised on the cover.
Preach it! For a while I was thrilled by the $0.25 paperbacks I could get of great books, until I settled in to read them and the flyspeck text was impossible.
Now my eyes are even worse and I should just give up and use screenreaders for everything forever.
@infini I'm a huge fan of reading on paper, and of reading generally, but my impression has been that the jury is still out on a lot of this stuff and the main study in that article only had two experienced Kindle readers in it, meaning (I think?) that everyone else was new to the technology (or that there were only four subjects). So I get what you are saying but I think you are conflating multiple messages in the first article which was saying that reading is great AND also that maybe you can remember more when you read print. If I missed a specific study besides the one, feel free to let me know.
I think what's been working for me is that it gets me off the screen and into bed with a book at a decent hour if I tell myself it's good for my brain rather than getting into that late night spiral of refresh
I recall a sleep researcher interviewed on NPR saying that when reading in bed, print rather than a screen is healthier. This is because of the psychological cues for sleeping that ambient illumination provides (in contrast to direct light on the face from a tablet, laptop or e-reader).
Not directly relevant to developing or maintaining reading comprehension/information retention abilities, though.
The book I got was NOT the one advertised on the cover.
Now my eyes are even worse and I should just give up and use screenreaders for everything forever.
Not directly relevant to developing or maintaining reading comprehension/information retention abilities, though.