As part of a campaign to promote the Sony Reader, the Sony Corporation has hired world-renowned speed reader David Farrow to sit in a Manhattan storefront and use the device to read e-books nonstop for a month. For every page he turns, Sony will donate a library of one hundred e-book titles to a U.S. school. The company hopes to donate 150,000 e-book libraries, or fifteen million e-books, by the end of the month. The campaign, Reader Revolution, coincides with National Book Month.
Farrow (no relation to Mia) began his monthlong read-a-thon yesterday morning in the storefront of an electronics retailer located on 39th Street in Manhattan. Despite having grown up with Dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder, Farrow is a world-record speed reader. He also holds the Guinness World Record for memory; he once memorized fifty-nine decks of playing cards, recalling each card in order for more than eight hours.
Readers in New York City can stop by Farrow's new storefront home during the next twenty-nine days and volunteer to be one among many "relief readers" who will fill in for him during his breaks. Each page a relief reader turns will contribute to the campaign goal.
Sony began selling the e-book device two years ago; Amazon unveiled its own digital reader, Kindle, shortly thereafter.
