thanks for clarifying @onesome and @paolamanzini. i just tried the 'half swipe' from middle to left or middle to right, in the bottom half of the screen (not the status bar/title/clock etc), and still nothing. (previously i did a 'full swipe', which seemed to work for me in the dictionary.)
depending on what program i open my books in, i sometimes can see a little hourglass icon in the bottom left of the status bar after a swipe, but no page turn happens. i also had a look in whatever settings and in the system\config directory, but didn't see anything that looked like it might help. i'm stumped!
