The year is coming to an end and it has certainly been an exciting one for eBooks. Publishers battled with Amazon over eBook prices; retailers battled with each other over the costs and features of eReader devices; and Apple brought on a whole tablet revolution.

While it may be a quiet week in publishing offices, this past week has been an important week for eBook sales, as people unwrapped eReaders under the tree and began downloading their first eBooks. As you head off to enjoy this long holiday weekend, here is a roundup of this week’s eBook news.

Amazon introduced a lending feature for Kindle books.

Random House’s eBooks sales were up 300% this Christmas.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook servers failed on Christmas, but they still managed to sell a million eBooks.

The Kindle Store broke records on Christmas.

Kobo had record sales this holiday season.

Apple has high hopes for iPad production and reportedly ordered a lot of screens.

The iPad 2 is rumored to include a camera.

Hackers figured out a way to read Kindle books on NookColor.

We created a Best iPad Case list.

Borders is running a sale and offering $5 eBooks through January 2nd.

The lending feature is now available for Amazon Kindle eBooks, allowing digital readers to share books for a short period of time–readers don’t even need a Kindle to borrow a book. UPDATE: Visit our unofficial Kindle Lending Discussion Board to share books with readers that share your interests.

Here’s more about the program, from Amazon: “Eligible Kindle books can be loaned once for a period of 14 days. The borrower does not need to own a Kindle — Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. Not all books are lendable — it is up to the publisher or rights holder to determine which titles are eligible for lending. The lender will not be able to read the book during the loan period.”

Follow this link to find out if the publisher will let you loan your Kindle books. (Via Jane L)

While Jeff Bezos thinks that iPads are just for playing video games, iPad user behavior is telling a different story. As of this afternoon at 2pm ET, there are three eReader apps in the Top 20 for the App Store’s Top Free iPad Apps list.

Apple’s iBooks is No. 1, Amazon’s Kindle app is No. 8 and Barnes & Noble’s Nook app is No. 18. To be clear, this is for all free iPad apps, not just apps in the Books category. With iBooks beating out Simply Solitaire HD and Fruit Ninja HD Lite, and Kindle and iBooks beating out UNO HD, iPad users are showing that they do more than just play video games on their iPads. Or at least they download the apps with the intention to read.

News apps are also popular, with The Weather Channel app holding the No. 2 position, the CNN app holding the No. 3 position and the NYTimes for iPad app holding the No. 15 position.

iPad users also like streaming content. Netflix is the No. 6 free app and Pandora Radio is No. 10.

Engadget is reporting that Sharp’s new Galapagos tablets will make their way to the United States next year.

After launching earlier this year in Japan, the U.S. versions will reportedly be updated to include a new 3G capability and the proprietary XMDF platform format will be switched to the ePUB format.

Engadget has more: “ Content partnerships are said to be brewing as we type, because, quite naturally, Sharp intends to have its own e-bookstore for Americans as well. After the Yanks, the company’s said to be looking into bringing its 5.5- and 10.8-inch tablets to China, India, and Brazil.”

With RIM’s new PlayBook tablets and the rumored iPad 2, 2011 is already shaping up to be an interesting year for tablets.

Do you want to share eBooks online with your reading community? Visit our unofficial Kindle Lending Discussion Board on Facebook and meet other readers looking to share books.

If you are interested in sharing books with other readers, add your name and reading interests to our Facebook page–readers can easily connect with new friends on the discussion board. Be sure to check your library and find out which books you can lend.

This eBookNewser editor performed a quick search of his own Kindle library, discovering that out of ten randomly chosen titles, only two books could be shared. Both sharable titles were published by Macmillan: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier.

Today’s Free eBook of the Day is Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. If you got a new eReader for Christmas, this classic fairy tale is the perfect way to learn how to use it.

Here is an excerpt from the novel: “They had been flying apart, but they huddled close to Peter now. His careless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling, and a tingle went through them every time they touched his body. They were now over the fearsome island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their feet. Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their progress had become slow and laboured, exactly as if they were pushing their way through hostile forces. Sometimes they hung in the air until Peter had beaten on it with his fists.”

Project Gutenberg has the free download.

For more free downloads, check out our Free eBook of the Day archive.

This really has been the holiday season for the eReader. Today Barnes & Noble announced that the Nook line of eReaders has become the company’s biggest bestseller ever in almost 40 years. While they did not get into exact details about numbers, they did say that they had sold “millions.”

The NOOKcolor faired well this season and was the company’s best selling gift of the holiday season. Barnes & Noble is selling more digital books than physical books on BN.com.

Despite server problems over the Christmas weekend, Barnes & Noble also reported selling about a million NOOKbooks on Christmas Day alone. The bestselling Nook titles of the holiday season were James Patterson’s Cross Fire, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Confession by John Grisham and Decision Points by George W. Bush.

It turns out that people got what they wanted for Christmas from Amazon, or at least went out and bought it for themselves afterward. According to the online retailer, the “Bestselling Products of 2010″ were the same as the “Most-Wished-For” products of 2010, when it came to books and electronics.

Both categories had the Kindle 3 as the most popular electronics device and Stieg Larsson books were the bestselling and most wished for with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest being the most wished for and sold print book and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being the most wished for and sold Kindle book.

Amazon’s “Most Popular Gift Products of 2010” varied slightly. While the Kindle remained the most popular electronics gifts, the most popular print book to give was Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh and the most popular Kindle book was Decision Points by George W. Bush.

If you got an iPad for Christmas, you are now probably searching for the perfect case to keep it in. So we put together a list of some of the coolest cases on the market, including a few that bring the book back to the digital reading experience.

The DODOcase for iPad will give you all of the pleasure of reading a print book on your new digital screen. The covers are hand made in San Francisco using traditional book binding techniques. Mixing faux leather with bamboo, the cover can fold into multiple different positions for the various uses of your device. The iPad cover retails for $60.

Nedrelow’s BOOK for iPad is a hardbound linen book on the outside with a wool sleeve on the inside that keeps your iPad safe. The title on the book cover simply reads “Book”, but for a little extra, you can customize the text. The covers are made to order by hand and start at $99.

After DIYers began making their own iPad covers out of Moleskine notebooks and posting them online, Moleskine introduced its own line of iPad, Kindle and iPhone covers. It has a leather bound case and includes a notebook for when you want to write notes. The iPad cover retails for $65.

The ZAGGmate with keyboard iPad case, will not only keep your screen covered and safe, it will turn your new tablet into a laptop computer. The case includes a keyboard, which connects to the device, for when you want to do more than read. It retails for $100.

For a lower cost alternative, CrazyOnDigital makes the Folio Light Brown Leather Case, which is a simple leather bound cover that has pockets on the inside. It unfolds and lets you stand the device up as well. The device retails for $20.

What is your favorite iPad case?

Barnes & Noble may have a Nook 2 coming out soon, at least according to its trademark filings.

Back in June, the retailer filed for a number of trademarks including: Nook 2, Nook2, Nook Kids, Nook Smart and Nook Cook. Pocketnow.com reports: “Powered by Android, the Nook family is currently composed of three members: the original Nook, 3G-less Nook WiFi, and Nook Color tablet. Well on the same day that the company — doing business as Fission Inc, perhaps to obfuscate its filings — applied for the Nook WiFi mark, it also sought protection on two other brands: ‘Nook Kids’ and ‘Nook 2’ / ‘Nook2.’”

It is about time for Barnes & Noble to put out an update to the Nook, so Nook2 seems plausible. The Nook Cook suggests a potential Nook digital cookbook platform, and Nook Kids may just refer to the store that B&N launched this fall to support the Nook Color’s focus on kids’ books. But we shall see.

Via Engadget.