As things stand, there’s a big gap between the books we read as children, which are generously illustrated, and books for adults, which rarely have pictures; a professional writer finds out after a while that pictures, especially pictures with color, are prohibitively expensive. The expense of images in e-format is quite different – they take up more memory, yes, so they’re not cost-free, but this isn’t remotely comparable to the hike in cost faced by a publisher who takes on, say, the color pages of Foer’s Incredibly Loud and Unbelievably Close.

Several years ago I read Hockney’s My Early Years, That’s the Way I See It, and Paper Pools. I was overwhelmed by the power of these narratives, and I realized after a while that this had to do with the integration of text and image – something commonplace in art books which is never seen in fiction for adults. I like having these as physical books, so I would be sorry if they were available only in e-format – but as things stand we don’t see such things in fiction in any format. E-books might be one way to open up a wider range of formal possibilities.

I tried to read books on the Kindle and on the Sony eReader, and found both experiences wanting. In fact, I didn’t finish a book on either device despite multiple attempts.

Then I found myself on vacation in Vermont, and I forgot to bring a book. I was miles from a bookstore or library, and had only my iPhone. I downloaded The Art of Racing in the Rain, thinking I would start it on the iPhone and get a copy at the library when I got home. Well, my experience reading on the iPhone was very similar to yours, so I wound up finishing it on the phone (with the eReader software — I found it easier to buy for the eReader than for Stanza).

I had a similar experience with a family vacation this fall, when I downloaded Skinny Dip to my iPhone and read it. (We were in Florida.) One of the great advantages — my wife, son, and I were all sleeping in the same room, and the lights had to be off when I was reading in bed. The iPhone was the perfect solution.

Lastly, I bought (at Elm Street Books in New Canaan, CT — my closest local indie) a copy of Steve Knopper’s Appetite for Self-Destruction, about the demise of the music industry in the face of digitization. I started it, and was enjoying it. Then, for a variety of reasons (including the need to test technological possibilities for the ABA E-commerce sites), I downloaded the book from eReader.com to my iPhone. I’m still reading it, and haven’t touched the p-Book since. I think that’s telling.

Of course, as far as format support goes the Sony E-Reader is much more awesome, since it does support epub natively.