Have you noticed that e-Readers are EVERYWHERE you look this season?  On TV commercials and in bookstores, of course, but also at gadget stores and home stores and well, really... just about everywhere you look.  Seriously they are right in the front of the store at Best Buy, and available even at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

It seems they are the hot gift item this year much like Rock Band or Tickle Me Elmo in previous years.  And as much as I like a paper copy of a book - I have to say, I think this is a GREAT thing for authors, books and readers everywhere.  I mean, if reading is cool again - and people are buying books in ANY format - that is a good thing for an industry that has been suffering.

So I say, If Junior is begging for a Kindle (can we use that now as a word that means any kind of e-Reader?  Like Kleenex?), get him one.  Let him be the envy of all his friends.  It means he'll be reading.  Reading, People.  The thing we used to have to tear our kids away from their video games to do.

And there's more good news... if you've been holding out for lower prices on eReaders, they are here.  Amazon has the Kindle available now for $139 and B&N has the Nook for $149 and some of the other brands are even less.  If you think about those prices in terms of hardcover books you're talking about the cost of 5 or 6 books.

If you had told me all those years ago, when I was just a simple book nerd curled up in my room reading, that my favorite hobby would one day be cool, I wouldn't have believed you.  But here we are.  Now if it would only start raining men...

-- Dana Barrett, Contributing Editor