Hi Red, welcome to MobileRead.
Note that the battery bug following the Reader's firmware update is only a bug with the display of the battery meter, not with the actual charging of the machine. If you charge with the wall charger, it's trivial to correct - after you finish charging (ie when the red light above the power switch goes out), unplug the charger from the Reader, turn the Reader on, and with it switched on, momentarily plug in the charger again. The battery meter will instantly jump to "full" and will then read correctly.
If you like SF and Fantasy, are you aware of Baen's
Webscription service? This is a source of all Baen's books in open, unprotected eBook formats at extremely reasonable prices. You can buy either individual books or monthly "packages" of all that month's books (typically 5 or 6) for $15. A superb bargain.
Please join us on the Sony Reader forum - you'll find lots of like-minded individuals there.