As the beach season comes into full swing, I’ve been thinking a great deal about e-readers. (I’m a geek, I have a weird thought process, okay?)

I always read more during the summer months, and part of the fun is getting old used and rather beat up paperbacks, kicking back, and not worrying how much sun and sand will affect those pages. But buying an e-reader pretty much means that all my paperback spending money is going to downloads, and not to physical books. Not that I’m buying one, but I am thinking about the options.

See, the thing is, I’m even wary about bringing library books to the beach, let alone something like an e-reader. With this price war, though, Nooks now at $149 and Kindles $189, they’re quickly becoming some of the cheapest and most intriguing gadgets on the market. Which would stand to reason that they’re the sort of thing we’d want to carry around with us, even if some of them aren’t particularly built for multitasking. (Which, honestly, is the primary reason I’ve held out so long.)

But my favorite part about paperback books is that I don’t have to worry about them at all. Sure, they’re not exactly environmental friendly, but all my favorite books are paperbacks, worn with time and dog-eared.

It seems that there’s some kind of disconnect in the e-reader market; to me, e-readers are like very nice hardcover books (in a way, expense wise) and difficult to just chuck in your purse and go for a trip. It’s not a lack of portability, but a general concern about electronics in dangerous situations (my purse is a perilous place!). What’s going to fill that paperback niche?

How about you, Geeks Are Sexy readers? I figure we’re one of the main target demographics in this situation. Do any of you have e-readers? Do you risk bringing them down to the beach/camp/out of doors in general? Do you just rely on warranties? Accessories? Or do you think that something new needs to be created to fill the gap between casual reading and climate-controlled reading? The future of reading may very well be in our hands.

[Photo CC libicocco – via Flickr]