One of the most pressing questions in the transition we are experiencing from a book-based culture to a screen-based culture is the place which will be preserved for the reading of literary texts. How can we maintain, in a digital culture, complex relationships with texts when their reading no longer involves the same actions as before, with the codex being replaced by a computer screen? To begin this reflection, we will start with a description of what reading is, of Ben Marcus. This brief presentation will allow us on one hand, to reflect on the actions involved in this practice, regardless of the device used (the book or the screen); and, on the other hand, to present an hypermedia work, essentially multimodal, Principes de gravité, by Sébastien Cliche. The particularity of this 2005 work is that it is introduced as a book, but a book set on a computer screen. It is a web project taking the shape of a book, i.e. with pages, a cover, a table of contents, an index, and so on. But this book challenges the logic that prevails when reading it: to advance in Principes de gravité, is to go backwards; to accumulate is to squander; and to read is ultimately to undo the book. We end up understanding that this book was not meant to be read! Consulted, explored, viewed, yes; but read in its entirety, no. We will see, at the end of this article, what that means.