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Reading – it’s what all the cool kids are doing these days! Okay, well, perhaps not so much the ‘cool kids’ but more the ‘randy middle-aged woman’ with her eBook of 50 Shades of Grey, but at least in the age of the X Factor, Heat magazine, The Only Way is Essex and the cult of celebrity, the art of running your eyes across a string of letters has not died out completely.

Let’s look at the success of the Kindle, for example. The emaciated e-reader has gone from strength to strength, spurring successive superior models (the Fire), and found its way into the hands of all and sundry with a reading level above ‘Text Speak’.

So, with all the to-ing and fro-ing in the tech world of late, it should come as no surprise that Google Play has announced updates to its Books app. Now not only can you download and immerse yourself in the literary musing of millions of authors, the addition of ‘location awareness’ adds a whole new dimension to the e-experience.

“Starting today, when you come across an unfamiliar geographic location – a faraway city or distant mountain range – you can tap on the location to learn more about it,” announced Google in a blog post. “You’ll see an info card with a Google Map and the option to get more information by searching on Google or Wikipedia.”

Beyond this groundbreaking feature for the geographically uncertain, other elements of the update offer a translation feature that lets readers tap on funny foreignisms for an instant explanation, a dictionary for those at the limit of their lexicon, the option to tap and take notes or, for the techie traditionalist, rest your eyes in shades of sepia.

Downloadable free from Google Play, it’s time to turn off the TV and feed your brain…