A curious juxtaposition occurred by chance on the bus home last night. I was reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs in all its casebound, 650-plus page glory. The bloke sitting next to me was reading The Guardian on his iPad.

I like to think Jobsy would have been amused by that. There's a certain irony in the fact that an actual, physical book about this hero of the digital age has gone straight to the top of the bestseller charts. According to The Bookseller it's one of the fastest-selling non-fiction works of all time, with 37,645 copies sold in its first week (the week ending 29 October) on sale. Over in the States the equivalent figure was a massive 379,000.

Publication was brought forward from the intended date of 24 November after Jobs exited this mortal coil on 5 October.

This must have made life interesting for printer Clays, which has done a sterling job on this weighty tome. Love the cool, monochrome, touchy-feely matt laminate jacket, too. I've only just started the book but the passage where Isaacson reveals that the only thing Jobs interfered with was the cover design did make me smile. I can imagine his quest for perfection in all things kicking in big time.

Elsewhere the physical book news is patchier, figures from Nielsen Bookscan show total sales in October were down by ?12m or 8% compared with last year, at ?144.7m, partly due to the migration of paperback fiction to ebook format.

Turn to page 503 of Steve Jobs for his views on publishing and indeed journalism.