I’m on my way to the right coast, and from seat 3A I’m enjoying Sarah Vowell’s fresh take on our country’s early Puritan settlers. In The Wordy Shipmates, she paints an insightful, and sometimes irreverant, portrait of John Winthrop and his fellow expatriots as they journey from Southampton, England to Massachusetts Bay.

I’m in first-class – a rarity for me these days – and enjoying the pampering. My travel is a lark compared to that of the 700 hardy religious dissenters aboard the Arbella, sailing across the Atlantic to plant their families and their beliefs in the wilderness of New England.

The first-class cabin of this Bombardier regional jet has only twelve seats. And of those twelve, I’m spotting no less than three Kindles around me. (That’s including mine.)

While I think that’s a record “in-the-wild” sighting for me, I’m definitely seeing more and more Kindles these days.