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E-readers: Changing the way we read

By Emily Smith

Are the walls of your home lined with overstuffed bookshelves? Do you need to rent a storage space just for your collection of paperback romances? Do visitors often mistake your home for a branch of the local public library?

Thanks to the growing business of E-readers, book lovers can do just that.

Portable and lightweight, E-readers ? short for electronic readers -- are changing the way people read books, magazines and newspapers. And for those who read a lot of books, E-readers are also great space savers. That?s because these small hand-held devices allow readers to instantly download hundreds of their favorite books, magazines or newspapers and store them, without having to resort to footlockers or bookshelves, as long as they?d like.

With an E-reader, customers can open the latest mystery by Sue Grafton, peruse a classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald or read the latest issue of The New Yorker. As an added bonus, E-readers take up virtually no space thanks to their small, compact design. E-readers are smaller and thinner than a paperback book.

E-readers are especially convenient for business trips or vacations. It?s always a hassle to cram several thick books into suitcases or duffel bags. Readers often decide to simply leave their favorite books at home. Then, when they?re sitting on the beach or waiting for their flight, they?re left wishing that they had that Scott Patterson thriller with them.

With e-readers, though, travelers can carry dozens of books in one lightweight, portable package. They simply download to their E-reader of choice as many books as they could possibly read during their trip.

E-readers also provide several enhancements to the reading experience. Users can type notes and mark pages and passages for further review. They can look up words with their E-reader?s built-in dictionary, and can even find synonyms for specific words with the device?s thesaurus. Readers also no longer have to worry about damaging their pages when they don?t have a bookmark; E-readers remember the last page a user has read.

The two most popular E-readers are the Amazon Kindle 2 and the Sony Reader. Both come with high-resolution screens, and each can store more than 300 books. The new Kindle 2, released in February of this year, can store an incredible 1,500 electronic books.

Through a quick Google search, readers can uncover online reviews of the top E-readers now available. It?s best to read through these reviews before buying. Each E-reader is slightly different, and some features that may be critical to one customer may be unnecessary to another.

If you?ve resisted E-readers until now, why not give one a chance? Most best-selling books are sold to E-reader customers for a significant discount. For instance, shoppers can purchase most best-sellers for just $9.99 on the Amazon Kindle Store. Once you download a book or two, you just might find yourself a fan of the new frontier in reading.

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