Twilight and Harry Potter sales notwithstanding, there's a growing reality in our fair nation -- people just don't read like they used to. And with the slowdown in reading comes a definite decline in book sales.

The Book Industry Study Group reported that publishers sold fewer books in 2008, down 1.5% from 2007 to 3.08 billion. Of course, all was not lost -- total revenue edged 1% higher thanks to increased prices.

My eldest child spent a lot of her young childhood with a LeapPad on her lap. Introduced in 1999, the LeapPad was an overnight hit that catapulted the maker of the reading device, LeapFrog (NYSE: LF), into stardom with a rocket of a stock to boot.

According to the company, LeapFrog went on to sell 30 million LeapPads and related products worldwide, as well as more than 70 million companion books. In 2003, the LeapPad family of products brought in $330 million, nearly half of LeapFrog's revenue. Since then, the company has suffered at the hands of lower-priced competitors, lack of another blockbuster hit (although the firm has has launched critically-acclaimed products), and video games.

So, today's New York Times article, "LeapFrog Hopes for Next Hit with Interactive Reading Toy", may be what the company needs to help an ailing stock. The Tag certainly looks cool. It is a thick, white-and-green plastic stylus that turns paper books into interactive playthings. Like the LeapPad, kids can tap a word with it and the stylus reads the word, or its definition, aloud. They can tap on an image to hear a character's voice come alive.

On September 7, Tom Barlow reported that Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) would be manufacturing an e-book reader, reportedly tagged the Kindle (perhaps to "rekindle" interest in this technology that hasn't quite caught on?). It competes with the Sony (NYSE: SNE) reader in that it presents the e-book text in a new, crisp format, without reliance on backlighting that can be unfriendly to a bookworm's eyes.

On Monday, AMZN evidently plans to introduce the Kindle, and those in e-book publishing hope the device's launch will lift interest in the format. Arthur Klebanoff, co-founder and CEO of e-book publisher Rosetta Books LLC told The Wall Street Journal that e-book sales in the U.S. likely range between $15 million and $25 million. "By any scenario it's very small," he noted, "but Amazon's entrance is very significant ... this is about trying to change consumer habits."

According to an article on CNET, the device is expected to be priced in the $400 to $500 range and will have the ability to wirelessly connect to an e-book store on Amazon.com. Perfect for when you're on vacation and run out of reading material.

Amazon already sells digital downloads through its music and movies store; the company hopes that introducing its own e-reader could spur interest in downloadable books. In effect, the new product represents an effort from Amazon to return to its roots; books, after all, were the first thing AMZN ever sold.

Owning a newspaper seems to get less fun every day. As Warren Buffett has said, "Every time someone dies, that is a newspaper reader gone that will not be replaced." According to the Newspaper Association of America's analysis of figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, average daily circulation (Monday-Friday) of newspapers dropped 2.1% for the six months ended March 31st compared with last year, based on data received from 745 newspapers. Average Sunday circulation sank 3.1% among 601 reporting papers.

On the plus side, USA Today was up 0.2% and the Wall Street Journal gained 0.6%. What does this mean for investors in stocks like Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ), and the New York Times (NYSE: NYT)? It didn't seem to stop Rupert Murdoch from his huge bid for Dow Jones today.

Wall Street is an expectations game, and newspapers have had lowly expectations for awhile now. Given how bad they are, I would argue that there might just be opportunity in newspapers.

CNBC offered a list of some must-read exposés on the inner workings of Corporate America. Among the picks: Conspiracy of Fools, about Enron (and my second favorite book of all time behind A Separate Peace), Barbarians at the Gate, Liar's Poker and The Predator's Ball. These are all excellent books, and I'm embarrassed to say I've read every book on CNBC's list, which is probably part of the reason I don't have a girlfriend. However, I have some additional favorite Wall Street exposés. Oftentimes, you can learn as much about investing reading these books as you can reading the more expository books; and these ones are about 20 times more interesting:

Andy Kessler's Running Money and Wall Street Meat: These two cover the author's exploits as an analyst working alongside the likes of Jack Grubman, and his later career as a hedge fund manager focused on Silicon Valley stocks. They read crisply, and are great for the beach.

Once in Golconda and The Go-Go Years, both by John Brooks: These two, along with anything else published under the Wiley Investment Classics label are great. The first covers Wall Street from the Roaring Twenties through the Great Depression, and the second covers the Go-Go 1960s, when momo-managers like General Tsai rose rapidly, and then crashed just as quickly. Order the Wiley edition so you get Michael Lewis's foreword.

Jeff Zazlow wrote a piece in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about his dismay at the declining popularity of libraries among kids. With Google and other websites emerging as places to find information in seconds, there is often little need for kids to go there to do research for school. Indeed, many kids are arriving at college unaware of how to use the library effectively. As a young man, I still believe that libraries have an important place in society.

As Zazlow puts it, It's true that older Internet-phobes are missing out on an incredible tool. But many tech-savvy kids never experience the library as a place for serendipitous discovery. "The library is about delayed gratification," says Dr. Levine. "It's about browsing through shelves of biographies. 'Do I want Jackie Robinson? Franklin Roosevelt? What will I do when I grow up?' The library slows you down and makes you think."

So what's a librarian to do? How can we bring libraries back as a popular place for learning and discovery? Here are two of my ideas: