Because **sales of print books have grown for four consecutive years while e-reader sales have stagnated**, several publishing analysts have concluded that readers are abandoning digital reading. This inference is too hasty. Most digital reading now occurs on multipurpose phones and tablets, which do not register in e-reader sales figures, and library lending of e-books, which generates no sales at all, has doubled over the same period. The growth in print sales, moreover, is concentrated in gift-oriented categories such as cookbooks and illustrated editions. Hence **the sales figures are fully compatible with a reading public that increasingly reads digitally while buying print for display and gift-giving**.