On Twitter yesterday I was raving about a fantastic Economist slideshow that sets out a credible and satisfying vision for the future of publishing:

The slide show misses an important third mode of reading. For the Economist it makes sense to ignore it. Technical and "how to" publishers can't afford to. The three modes are:

1. Lean forward: rapid browsing, search, instant gratification.
2. Lean back: deep, reflective, minimum distraction.
3. NEW! Lean over: instructions that you refer to while you carry out the task.

Here's some lean over reading:

My guess is that most Packt and other "how to" tech books are really lean over. Mainly people have them on their desk (or a PDF in a separate window) at the same time as they're doing the work. What's your experience?