Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos at BookExpo America

Based on industry buzz, one of the most interesting presentations at this year's BookExpo America (BEA) was Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, talking about the Kindle (Amazon's new electronic reading device).

Bezos began his presentation by reading an excerpt from Scott McClellan's What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception (a book that went largely unnoticed at BEA, by the way). Bezos used the former White House press secretary's book to extol the virtues of the Kindle. What Happened is out of stock on Amazon, he said, but it can be downloaded instantly by those who own the Kindle wireless reading device.

Bezos argued that the Kindle has not cannibalized sales of physical books, saying that Kindle consumers bought just as many print editions of titles as they previously had. After highlighting the Kindle's "whopper of features," Bezos shared comments from consumers, one of whom called the Kindle "up there with Haagen-Dazs and sex." Neil Gaiman explained in a video clip that he has gone from "skeptic to absolute believer in the device," in part because his 12-year-old daughter was entertained on a flight with electronic versions of Meg Cabot's novels downloaded on the Kindle. Gaiman concluded by declaring the device "worth its weight in gold" (which, as Bezos noted earlier in his speech, is 10.3 ounces).