Can you buy ebooks from Waterstones to read on Kindle?

I went to the book shop today and found a new book by Paulo Coelho called Adultery that looked quite interesting. His way of writing really appeals to me, mainly because he shows that simple, uncomplicated language can tell the most captivating stories. This simple style is perhaps most suited to his stories which often carry deeper life meanings of some sort. It allows the reader to conserve mental stamina and capacity in order to contemplate the meanings behind the stories as they unfold.

Although that is not the reason I started this post. After reading the first few pages of the book, I wanted to get it on my Kindle. I asked the shop assistant at Waterstones whether it is possible to buy ebooks which will work on Kindle e-readers. To my dismay, I had my suspicions confirmed - you can only get Kindle books from Amazon :(

Personally, I prefer to retain the freedom as a consumer to support the traditional book shops once in a while. There are workaround solutions for this (if it's for your personal use only, use free ebook management software Calibre to manage all your ebooks in different formats perhaps?), but it's almost guaranteed that you won't get the same user experience (such as the ease of one-click download) and it can be quite troublesome to do this every time you buy a new book.

Although Amazon does provide a very good ebook service, it is a shame that Kindle devices aren't more versatile than they currently are. Perhaps users should bear this in mind when choosing to buy their next e-reader.