The issue with a laptop is eye strain and fatigue. Just as I'd pack up a bagful of articles to read, I'd like to pack up a virtual bagful on a device with a steady screen. eInk seems just the thing, as there's no flicker, etc. to cause eyestrain above and beyond what one would expect from reading paper.
I agree with you insofar as the impact this would have on the college book industry, but I suspect publishers are ecstatic about the market as it stands RIGHT NOW. Books published for university use are built to fall apart after about a 2-3 year lifespan. Indeed, if the book industry had as large claws as RIAA, they would outlaw resale of books--just as RIAA is trying to do with used CD sales.
Didn't know you were a lit major--that's just plain badass. I've been looking around and I think that the Kindle DX does pretty much everything I'd like. It supports PDF, annotation, highlighting, and can even jump on the web (google maps and weather reports are the two big ones for me) via a simple browser. It seems to do what it does and do it well. I like that.
My other plan (aside from reading research articles on it) is to get rid of most of my physical books and keep just a few--say, 50-100. Every time I move, I move with 1500-2000 pounds of books, and that's getting annoying.
I would likely buy books in PDF format as opposed to Amazon's proprietary (and DRMed) format, as the notion of a book that is bolted to your hand just runs contrary to my view of what a book, and its corresponding information, represents.
Not all people would say that being an American lit major is badass -- most of them would say that it's a waste of four years, but I've never liked the idea of college as a purely profitable decision. If I never use my degree (and the ones I plan to seek afterwards), I wouldn't ever have a complaint. I wanted to get a degree in something I loved, and something that I thought could help shape me as a writer, reader, critic, and wannabe-historian.
As for the moving pains, I can totally respect that! While I'm attached to my books, I just went through a move into an apartment of my own, and moving them was (and has been, and still is) a fucking pain in the ass. Mounting shelves, reorganizing them, accidentally leaving a wax candle in a hot car ontop of a few of them -- it's not pleasant! If I could get rid of my personal attachment to bound texts, I would!
I'm with you when it comes to making notations on text, too. Most of my books are marked up in some regard. I constantly read with a pen or pencil in hand to circle points of interest or jot down thoughts. When reading fiction, I'm mentally looking out for editing mistakes, highlighting techniques that I like, etcetera. To be able to do that with an electronic book would be a
huge advantage.
As for what Darkfinn had mentioned earlier: Interestingly enough, the demands for e-books are skyrocketing, at least in a leisurely market. With the economy suffering as it is, publishers are going out of business left and right, because books are expensive to produce through labor, art commission, printing, and so on. Fewer and fewer writers are being freshly published in print. It takes a fraction of the money to produce an e-book-only publication, making the profitable return much more immediate and visible.
I'm sure the college industry won't change to electronic anytime soon, unfortunately. The overheads on those books are teensy compared to the fucking insane amount that they ask for students for them, so they're still making plenty of cash-bills.
Once the economy is back in shape, I'm sure physical publishing will boom again, but this is the e-book's moment to shine (at least for general consumer purchases), and having something like a Kindle is an oustanding idea.
