Amazon’s e-reader Kindle is still sold out for the next two to three months, but other similar toys are rushing in to fill the void. Could the era of the e-book, long promised, finally arrived? The New York Times thinks so:

[S]tepped-up competition may represent a coming of age for the entire idea of reading longer texts on a portable digital device.

“The perception is that e-books have been around for 10 years and haven’t done anything,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division. “But it’s happening now. This is really starting to take off.”

Reader resistance has always been perceived as the big bump in the road to widespread acceptance of e-books, and that appears to still be the case:

Nobody knows how much consumer habits will shift. Some of the most committed bibliophiles maintain an almost fetishistic devotion to the physical book. But the technology may have more appeal for particular kinds of people, like those who are the heaviest readers.

Me? I’d love a Kindle, but this sounds even better:

Polymer Vision, based in the Netherlands, demonstrated a device the size of a BlackBerry that has a five-inch rolled-up screen that can be unfurled for reading.

I can’t wait for the day when I can carry lots of books around in one tiny device that’s as easy to read as a paper book. I suspect that day is not far away.