Charles Dickens loved to read outdoors. It’s said that he even practiced public readings of his work in a garden at his home where he penned “Great Expectations.” If Dickens had read on an iPad, however, we may have never gotten Estella and Pip’s unrequited love story.

The glare on the screen, of course, would have been his first issue. He would have quickly learned that finding a perfect angle that doesn’t kick back a mean reflection really is the worst of times. Then, he’d have been lucky to make it through a page without...