A boon for journeys

So here it is. Trim and tanned and primed to hold you to all your resolutions for the new school year. Never quite managed to finish reading your library copy of War And Peace before the overdue fees began to bite? Don't have a handbag big enough to carry Bleak House around with you? Well, here they both are, in five by seven inches of discreet, overstitched buff leatherette, as part of the 100-book starter library offered by Waterstone's to buyers of the much-trumpeted Sony Reader.

I closed my mind to the idea of ebooks after being shown an early model which barely held three lines of type at a time. The Reader holds part of a page, depending on what type size you opt for. The largest is a boon, allowing me to forget my glasses.

My main fear is that the page turn might bring on a migraine because of the momentary black flash into negative before the new page comes up. Halfway into the first chapter of Mansfield Park I also began to jib at the way the text seemed to jump on the turn, cutting up familiar paragraphs into whole new syntaxes. I dread to imagine what it would do to Molly Bloom's soliloquy - but then James Joyce was never the easiest writer.

It takes a while for the eye to adapt to new types and layouts, but it'll be great for planes and trains. It's a shame there's not an optional backlight for those late-night journeys when the carriage lights are on the blink.

And it's not true that the e-ink eliminates screen glare, at least under our fluorescent office lighting.