With the Christmas period approaching thoughts turn to what will be the gift one would most like. In past years digital technology has provided many of the most desired gifts, in particular Apple’s iPod and more recently iPhone have topped many people’s Christmas gift lists. This year one has to wonder how many of us are longing for a new digital gift and if so what will it be.

Perhaps this year the gift that tops the Christmas lists will be a new E-reader. There are a number of such products that have recently been introduced. In this area there are now many competing products. The best known of these new products are the Kindle from Amazon that has had success in the USA; the iRex iLiad Reader sold through Borders; and the Sony Reader. E-readers are defined as an improved way of reading books that can be downloaded in an electronic format from bookstores. The benefits of these e-readers are defined mainly in areas of practicality in that one lightweight e-reader can store more than 100 books in its memory. Last year the Kindle accounted for 6% of Amazon's sales of titles available in both print and electronic format, and growth is likely to be rapid. The New York Times recently quoted Carolyn Reidy, chief executive of Simon & Schuster, as saying its sales of electronic books will more than double this year compared with last year, after growing 40 per cent between 2006 and 2007. David Shanks, the chief executive of Penguin Group USA, said his company sold more electronic books in the first four months of 2008 than in all of last year. I have to say these are rather facetious comments as sales of e-books were unlikely to grow in earlier years, as there were few feasible devices on which they could be read.

In many ways these E-readers are similar to the Apple iPod in that both download digital data from a specific sales location, and both products download their data in a proprietary format. In most cases a download will be around the same cost as purchasing the printed version of the book. Only books out of copyright will be downloadable free. Unlike an iPod it will not be possible for owners of e-readers to transfer books they already own into the e-readers, whereas iPod owners can load their existing music into the products via their Macs or PCs.