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Much of the reading that we do occurs near our hands. Previous research has revealed that spatial processing is enhanced near the hands, potentially benefiting several processes involved in reading; however, it is unknown whether semantic processing-another critical aspect of reading-is affected near the hands. While holding their hands either near to or far from a visual display, our subjects performed two tasks that drew on semantic processing: evaluation of the sensibleness of sentences, and the Stroop color-word interference task. We found evidence for impoverished semantic processing near the hands in both tasks. These results suggest a trade-off between spatial processing and semantic processing for the visual space around the hands. Readers are encouraged to be aware of this trade-off when choosing how to read a text, since both kinds of processing can be beneficial for reading. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]