Sharp-eyed Alert Janeite Laurie wrote to tell us about a BBC article on the future of e-books. She noticed that the second photo in the article, which displays a close-up of a page in an e-reader, reveals that the book being read is Mansfield Park. Laurie wondered if Jane Austen’s novels will be included in the launch of the new Sony e-book reader device and library. We speculate that it is likely, since Jane Austen’s novels are popular and, most importantly, out of copyright, and therefore free to Sony.

However, after the incident recently where consumers listening to their legally-purchased Sony CDs on their computer had spyware installed, without their knowledge, that inserted a backdoor on their system that could have been exploited for nefarious purposes by Internet evildoers, we are extremely suspicious of any system they would provide. Sony will take advantage of lack of copyright on Jane Austen’s books to provide them in their library, though they will protect THEIR properties like Jack Russell terriers. But enough of the editorial. From the article:

But I have to say, PDA novels are not particularly easy to use.

First you will have to download, install and activate some reader software on your mobile device and there are several different makes to choose from (Adobes and Microsofts among them).

And you also have to make sure that the novel you want is available in a format which matches the reader software.

And even when you get all that working, the experience still does not match reading a good book.

Penguin Books’ e-publisher Jeremy Ettinghausen says: “Well, I think one of the major issues is that the book isn’t a bad piece of technology. The book is cheap, durable, you can do lots of things with it. You can make notes on it and, unlike perhaps the vinyl record or even the CD, it’s not a bad piece of kit.”

We like e-books. We have all six of Jane Austen’s major novels on our PDA, Enrico (yes, after Henry Tilney). We have amused/annoyed our fellow Janeites more than once when they ask idly, “What was that quotation from Emma again?” and we whip out Enrico, open the e-book, and use the search feature to find the quotation in question. And the Palm eReader allows one to insert bookmarks and make notes anywhere we like. We buy our e-books from Fictionwise, and try to choose those that come in several formats. We sometimes have a version on our PC and another on the PDA. And we avoid that Microsoft encryption thing like the plague.

That being said, we don’t see e-books replacing the regular paper sort anytime soon, except perhaps for textbooks and other specialty items, especially books that are regularly updated. However, we find the portability of the PDA e-books is just fabulous. We are never without something to read!