[croy]

I am a graduate studen working on a research related degree. This involves a lot of reading of PDFs and Word files. A portable reader would seem to ease my life, so I'm not always powering up a computer to read when I have a moment, or so I'm not carrying around a small forest of docs.

So I need a reader that will easily take PDF and *.doc files without forcing me to go through too many hoops. Third party software that I have to pay a lot for is not the way to go. I don't mind running files through a conversion though.
The result must be readable. I'm tired enough, if the conversion is not in a good size print (the Sony Reader literature suggests it wouldn't be) then it is a burden.

Ideally I can place bookmarks and highlights for future use.
Durability is nice. I can take care of delicate things, but the life of an adult student involves a lot of running around from place to place.
The ability to be quickly functional on boot-up is nice. I don't have that much time and when I get a moment I would like to make use of it.
A search feature would be useful too, but if there is a highlight or book mark feature for each file that is more important.

Are all these Readers compatible with the files from Project Gutenburg?

I am in America, if that affects my buying options.

I'm new to this, so if there are other things I should consider, please post them.

Thanks for your help.