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Are you a "page-flipper" or a "stylus-scroller" when it comes to literature? According to Amazon.com, for the first time ever, more people bought e-books rather than hard-copy books this holiday season.

Amazon also reported the Kindle to be their top-selling gift, while Barnes and Noble says it completely sold out of its book readers a month before Christmas, and the next shipment will not be available until January!

If you prefer numbers, that tallies a whopping 3 million e-readers sold in the U.S. this year, a figure expected to double in 2010.

As a self-professed page-flipper, I was really shocked. I love to read and I try to catch a few chapters most every night. On average, I read at least a book a month and if the series is good, maybe two. The idea of coming home after a long day of staring at the computer and email at the office only to look at a smaller computer screen to escape into a fantastic, fictional novel seems to defeat the purpose. There's just something about the crisp, bass-pitched rub of the paper that can't really be matched by the tenor-click of an electronic page flip, call me old-fashioned!

Don't get me wrong though, e-readers have many positive points and I may very well buy one just because it's a great travel tool. In my family, we spent lots of time in airports and the e-reader can carry hundreds of each of our favorite author's works in one compact, pocket-size tool. Many of my friends who own them, swear by them (and seeing as some of them are professional writers and authors, they know a thing or two about the subject).

So, in an effort to find out if I was the only page-flipper left in the literary world, I took to, what else, Twitter and Facebook (the supreme authorities on non-scientific social studies).

Overwhelmingly, my Twitter and Facebook friends are also page-flipping aficionados. In fact, I have yet to get  a comment from one e-book owner who didn't caveat their response by saying they also liked to buy both hard-copy and electronic books.

But, I want to know your thoughts too. Are you an e-book person, a page-flipper or, like me, a combination of the two? Leave your comments below.

P.S. I'm looking into the e-reader options, and if and when I get one, I'll let you know if I abandon my ancient page-flipping ways.