E Books

Toting around a clumsy paperback is a daily chore for Esther Sears, who gobbles up a few pages here and there every time she can - even during her routine walks to and from the bank on Route 45. But with the recent introduction of electronic books, or e-books, at the Gloucester County Library where Sears works, the 51-year-old business office clerk can carry around a small hand-held gadget and access up to five books at once. "I think it's great," Sears said. "I can't think of anything better than to go to the Internet, download whatever books you want, and have five books in one place.

When best-selling horror author Stephen King released a new novella that could be accessed only on the Internet, it felt like the equivalent of an earthquake rippling through the publishing world. But was this a real revolution, or merely irrefutable proof of an unquestioned fact - that the book-reading world loves Stephen King, and especially loves getting his new stuff for free? Was the release of Riding the Bullet a signal event, the "killer app" that would cause bibliophiles to abandon their hardcovers and paperbacks in favor of e-books?

Be afraid, bookstore owners. Be very afraid. On its opening day online, Stephen King's new ghost story sold more cyberspace copies than any of his best-selling novels on their first day. King's Riding the Bullet, a 66-page downloadable "e-book," racked up 400,000 orders during its first 24 hours for sale over the Internet, said Adam Rothberg, spokesman for Simon & Schuster. The figure includes downloads onto computers, Palm Pilots and electronic readers, and orders that could not be met immediately because of overwhelming demand.

It is late at night. The bedroom is dark, and I am lost in a novel about a 9-year-old girl who is sold into slavery to a geisha house in 1930's Japan. The book has no pages, no binding. Reading it requires no external light; my face is bathed in the blue-white glow of its backlit screen. It is an electronic book, the Rocket eBook, a gadget the size of a mass-market paperback. Like the SoftBook - on which you see these words - it is among the first of a new generation of electronic books.