Yann Martel

You've got to feel for Barnes & Noble.

The printed volumes peddled by the mega-bookseller, quite possibly the only major one still standing in the U.S., are under assault from the digital realm. And its Nook e-reader device can't seem to deliver a fatal blow to either Amazon's popular Kindle or Apple's dominant iPad.

The company needs sales—whether bound or byte—to stem the losses in revenue it continues to experience, even during the holiday season.

This morning, B&N introduced its latest ploy: a weekends-only, two-for-one sale for its e-books, the so-called "Nook Books."

With almost 10-million copies already sold and still a bestseller 12 years after it was first released, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is the definitive opposite of a rare book. But there is a new edition of 350 signed copies currently housed in the office of a Vancouver environmental group that collectors will surely notice. That’s because the entire edition is printed on paper made in part from agricultural waste.

Martel enthusiastically joined fellow author Alice Munro, who signed 50 waste-based copies of Dear Life in the same cause: saving forests…

After tentative first steps, e-commerce giant Amazon is going on the offensive in Canada’s burgeoning e-reader market, finally debuting its Kindle north of the border in a direct challenge to the country’s top-selling Kobo.

But e-bookworms shouldn’t expect the same prices or selection granted to Kindle users in the U.S.

“It’s the big entry,” said Amazon’s vice-president of Kindle Peter Larsen, who flew to Toronto from Seattle to make the announcement.

We know that Barnes & Noble has the technology to process ebook transactions in its stores, and with a new holiday promotion the company announced Thursday, we’re seeing more ways that technology can work. Between December 20 and 24, customers who go to a Barnes & Noble physical store and buy an ebook from a list of 20 qualifying ebooks — including The Hobbit, Life of Pi and the entire Hunger Games trilogy – can “instant-gift” another ebook on that list for free.