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• In 64 countries surveyed, girls have in reading and literacy. “Reading rates are falling everywhere as screens draw eyes from pages, but boys are giving up faster.” That’s right: video games are to blame. We knew this was coming.

• Like other (likewise unscientific) surveys by Mark Coker, $3.99 still appears to be the for a full-length ebook, both in terms of sales and now “fairness.”

• A history of , in case you wanted one.

• The Federal Aviation Administration has approved the testing of . I confess when I first heard about such drones months ago I thought it was a joke.

• Is B&N more than we think? I’m not convinced.

• The Emperor Franzen Twitter account has been . Its day was over anyway: “The joke had worn thin,” says the creator, “and I’m not on Twitter as much as I used to be anyway.”

• Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman .

• A guide to . This stuff gives me a boner.

• 30 times the novel has been since 1902. Let’s make it 31: The novel is dead. Long live the novel!

• Three Salinger stories are at the center of a . Recall the recent Conan Doyle . Is it just me, or are literary estates getting irrationally greedy?

• Library cards ? We ought to be doing this in America.

• Do spur creativity or stifle it? Never having had any money, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

• In January we reported that . Now it appears .

• Finally, this is almost , but would any responsible news service leave it out? Would they? I put it to you.

Interested in being a correspondent for Town Crier? Write to editors at easystreetmag dot com.

Stephen Parrish is a contributing editor at Easy Street.