"Hello? Is that you, Herman Melville?"

People use their cell phones for everything these days -- surfing the web, photographing Mount Rushmore, instant-messaging. At least in England, now they'll be able to read a novel.

The Times of London reports that Vodafone, the British phone company, announced a partnership with a company called GoSpoken.com to make books available. Called Vodafone Books on Mobile, customers can download the books they want to their cell phones at a price ranging from about $9 to $25.

The partners say all the biggest publishers in the U.K. are on board, and the total list of available titles is already about 2,500.

All right, call me naive, but I have to ask: Who would want to read a book on a cell phone?