[columbus]

Some of Sam Leith's comments from the UK news. Read the review at:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...ding-bath.html

I hold in my hand an e-Reader, in this case the Sony Reader Touch Edition, it's a bit disconcerting. This silver oblong, the size and shape of a dinky paperback, though a bit heavier

I could take my library with me wherever I go - and search it at the touch of a stylus for any given phrase. I can double-tap a word and the Reader's inbuilt copy of the Oxford English Dictionary will define it.

Fantastic! Yet I admit I have mixed feelings.

I look at the spines lined up on the shelves, for a start - a lovely higgledy-piggledy tapestry of colours and textures; broken, perhaps, by a proud little enclave of purple-topped Penguin Classics or old white Picadors.

These are not just texts: your books track your inner life. And paperbacks remain a pretty good technology.

As my crinkly copy of A Clockwork Orange testifies, you can read a book in the bath. You wouldn't risk that with the e-Book version. And can you put a Reader Touch over your nose for a snooze?

So what's it like buying an actual book to read electronically? I dare say this is a doddle once you've got the hang of it - but setting it up is fiddly.

Take deep breath. Add book to basket, re-enter credit card details. Told your order has been processed and your first e-Book (in my case, a light-hearted novel called The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke) is on its way - a snip at 78p.