Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part series on the explosive growth of e-readers. Come back on Monday for part two, which examines if e-readers can help save the newspaper industry.

Is there an e-reader on your gift list this year? It wouldn’t be a surprise—the technology press touts that the 2009 holiday shopping season (actually, all of 2010) will see the ascent of the e-reader as the ultimate mobile accessory, delivering novels and newspapers to a public clamoring for convenience

Once a boutique, almost novelty device, the e-reader market is steadily filling up. According to an August report from the Association of American Publishers, electronic-book sales increased 177 percent, to $96.6 million, over 2008 numbers.

Industry pioneer Sony and its upstart rival Amazon, with its Kindle series of devices (this year, the company is believed to have sold three million units), must now battle for market share against iRex Technologies’ iRex DR800SG, the soon-to-be released Alex from Spring Design, and offerings from Barnes & Noble.

Earlier this month, Barnes & Noble announced that sales of its device, the Nook, have been so great the company is sold out and unable to deliver any new orders in time for the holiday season. In a statement, Barnes & Noble said that “while we increased production based on the high consumer interest, we've sold out of our initial Nook allotment available for delivery before the holidays."

Barnes & Noble has also partnered with Plastic Logic to sell the Que, a device which is being marketed as “the first 'proReader' designed for business professionals."

Unlike the Kindle, the Que not only allows a user to download and read books, newspapers, and magazines, but also business documents in Word, PowerPoint, PDF, and Excel. Despite having its own e-reader, Barnes & Noble sees the Que more like a companion device to the Nook. Both readers come with access to the company’s e-bookstore’s more than 1 million titles.

Impressive as that sounds, says Michael Norris, a publishing industry analyst with Simba Information, the larger issue is market share for e-readers. “It’s kind of a hard sell to me that a device that cost $250 to $500 is being pitched to a generation that won’t even spend 75 cents for a newspaper,” he says. “And we’re supposed to believe it’s going to help save the newspaper industry? The whole idea that there is an ‘iPod for books’ just waiting to be invented is ridiculous.”

Besides, says Peter Farago, vice president of marketing for research firm Flurry, there already is an iPod for books; it’s called the iPhone. In a report released by Flurry on November 1, e-book apps for the iPhone exceeded the popularity of games apps on the App Store for the first time, with one in every five new apps available on the store being an e-reader.

“It’s all converging—‘one device to rule them all,’” Farago says with a laugh. “When I look at the iPhone survey, you are talking about one device that can have all your personal information; its modular, so you can add whatever you need. First it was games, now its books.” (Amazon does offer the Kindle e-reader app for the iPhone, and it just announced the program will be available for the Windows 7 operating system.)