SWINDON LITERARY FESTIVAL: REASSURINGLY for journalists, reports of the death of the newspaper have been greatly exaggerated.

According to futurist and novelist Ray Hammond, human beings simply don't like reading from a screen.

He believes that technology won't come up with a readable and economic version of electronic paper for at least 20 years.

Hammond read a short excerpt from his latest novel, a work in progress called Novelist Seeks Heroine.

It seemed like an engrossing Ian McKewan-type yarn about middle-aged love and regret.

But the main purpose of his talk was to discuss the implications of technology on the printed word.

He explained that research had found reading print rather than a computer screen was 30 per cent more efficient. This is because of something call the psycho physics of the cognitive process.

And if that sounds dull, it is doing Ray Hammond a disservice because his talk was anything but that.

He left the small but appreciative festival audience with a poignant parting shot: "I firmly believe that story-telling is at the heart of what it is to be human.

"In 100 or 500 years' time people may not be reading books in the way they do today but they will certainly be taking in stories."

By Dominic Ponsford