Several months ago I bought an e-book reader with a 9"x7" display. It uses 'electronic ink' and ambient light, so power usage is very low - no power is needed to keep the page open and visible. It's b/w not color, which is no disadvantage if, like me, you want it for text only. I'm told it can store a few thousand books but so far I've got as far as loading less than a hundred, which have been on my hard drive for a while. It has many features that I might rarely use, but one of the best is adjustable font size. Another is auto-bookmarking - if you switch back and forth between many books it will remember your current page in each of them.

Since dr_rocket's post, above (#21940 - 2007-06-07), there's been an explosion in ebook publishing. There's still no way to rapidly scan and transfer the content of a paper book to the e-book reader, though. I envisage something like a microwave oven; just place the book inside, press button B and, in no time at all, Moby Dick has been copied from platter to PC (or e-reader).

"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler