The power of e-books

US: Even the thought of electronic books makes many purists shudder. But in the US, sales of electronic reading devices are rising. What’s more, the people buying them say that they are reading more than ever, because the new devices are so convenient to carry and easy to use.

This is good news for companies like Amazon, makers of the Kindle e-reader. “You are going to see very significant industry growth rates as a result of the convenience of this kind of reading,” Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos told The New York Times.

Sony, which sells its own e-reader , says that its customers download an average of eight books a month. By comparison, Americans buy only 6.7 non-electronic books a year on average, according to Bowker, the international bibliographic research firm.

"It's been a long time since I felt this way about books," says Patti Howard.

The American booksellers Barnes & Noble have also got into the electronic act. Their e-reader, the Nook, went on sale in late October.

Patti Howard, a medical transcriptionist from Birmingham, Alabama, is one of the new e-reader fans. “It’s been a long time since I felt this way about books,” she says. Howard, who owns a Kindle, now downloads books at all times of the day and reads a novel a week. Before buying the Kindle, she says she managed to read about ten minutes every night before going to bed. Now she takes the device with her everywhere and reads whenever she has a free moment — for example, while waiting to pick up her son from his school.

Some publishers remain sceptical about the trend, however. “Given the fact that people now have the internet, almost 24-hour football entertainment in the fall, tennis matches from around the world, TV shows out the wazoo, and movies, do you really believe that people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen?” says John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan in the US. “I don’t see the scenario.”