[Renate]

Undoubtedly the touch screen can be enabled and disabled.
But there are all sorts of questions of how you might re-enable it.

The simplest would be to modify your reading app not to pay attention to screen action.
Then you would have full touch outside of when you're reading your book.
If your reading app of choice is the stock reader it gets complicated.
If you use a third-party reader (like KOReader) it's easy.