No Kindle under your Christmas tree

If you're a bookworm who loves the idea of a light-weight electronic reader (but you haven't yet been able to afford the price), it doesn't matter how many hints you dropped to loved ones this holiday season. You probably won't be finding an Amazon Kindle under your Christmas tree.

The simple reason: They've run out.

According to the Wall Street Journal it was Oprah's endorsement of Amazon's e-reader last October that caused an unexpected drawdown on supplies. The company had thought they'd produced enough of the devices to get through the Christmas season, but they hadn't counted on the Oprah effect.

The Kindle is now expected to be out-of-stock until mid-February.

On the upside, however, for those who love to read on the go,  iPhone e-reader company Lexcycle announced earlier this week that they are doubling their digital book inventory, bringing 40,000 new titles (including bestsellers like Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" and Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code") direct to your iPhone and/or iPod.

"It's pretty game-changing," Lexcycle's COO Neelan Choksi told GalleyCat book blog. "To hit the holiday season with this in place is really important."

To date, his company counts 575,000 users around the world, averaging 40,000 book downloads a day.