I'm too busy & distracted with a paper right now to come up with a real intelligent response to this post or any of the intelligent comments on it... but you managed to mention a whole bunch of books I love or am fascinated by, and say intelligent things about them, and you're also talking about audiobooks, which I listen to and am fascinated by (I keep asking myself, were Twilight and New Moon less objectionable because I *listened* to them instead of *reading* them? If so, WHY on earth would that be the case? It needs more pondering), and now you mention Kindles! I got one for my birthday in October and I haven't yet totally figured out how to integrate it into my reading life -- but I'm working on it. So I'll keep thinking about the issues this post brought up. :)