All I want for Christmas …

… an Iliad E-reader. This is the ultimate boy’s toy for academics. And the perfect consolation after years and years of slippers, ties, socks and other soft Christmas presents. You can read pdf files on the Iliad, in A4 format, and unanimous reports insist that the reading experience is just as good as the real thing.

I have a specific project in mind. Thanks to the amazing people at the Internet Archive, I’ve downloaded a couple of hundred book on Western activities in nineteenth-century China. Titles like these:

* Frederic H. Balfour, Waifs and Strays from the Far East; Being a Series of Disconnected Essays on Matters Relating to China (London: Trübner and Co, 1876)
* Cossim, Considerations on the Danger and Impolicy of Laying Open the Trade with India and China; Including an Examination of the Objections Commonly Urged Against the East India Company’s Commercial and Financial Management (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1813)
* E.C. Wines, A Peep at China in Mr. Dunn’s Chinese Collection: With Miscellaneous Notices Relating to the Institutions and Customs of the Chinese, and Our Commercial Intercourse with Them (Philadelphia: Nathan Dunn, 1839)

I have thousands and thousands of amazing pages. All downloaded for free from the Internet Archive, with no particular restrictions on access. Am I going to print it all out in hard-copies? Am I going to read it all on my laptop? Hell no! What I need is an Iliad E-Reader. Pretty, pretty Santa, pretty please!