Welcome to the forum ElfWreck. Don't tjrow away the Clies just yet, maybe you can take the battery from one with a bad screen and put it into the one with a bad battery. Not something to try with a working model but it can be done. My Clie screen died and I played with it. You can (with some work) remove the battery yourself.
Besides the back light, the small size makes it great to carry in a pocket (or purse if you have one). I still use my Clie replacement (a Palm TX) but also have an old Sony PRS-500 and mostly use my Cybook Gen3 for reading. It's good to have both an eink bigger screen and a pocket size with back light.
If you like SF, try
Baen. All their books are DRM free and there is a nice "free library" to check out authors you've never read (or those you have read). They have all the correct formats for most readers.