In regards to the tablet, I’m thinking about buying an Amazon Fire HD 8 though I’m open to any and all recommendations.
As for the distro, I’m fine with Ubuntu or Linux Mint (or for that matter anything that you may recommend).
For the ebook reading software, I’m leaning towards using Foliate since it supports kindle, epub, and pdf formats, not to mention that the UI is great and intuitive.
Pocketbook eReaders are very high quality and run Linux out of the box.
I hope I just had bad experience, but I have the aqua with backlight. About 2 years in, the display got terrible; hardly any contrast, especially in the edges. About 3 years in, the rubber buttons just crumbled away; so no more waterproof.
Can’t read anyways anymore, the contrast by now is like egg white on snow white. Didn’t mistreat, it was always stored dry and in no direct sunlight.