Things I like about my Nook:
1. It's instantaneous gratification personified. When I run out of books to read at 10pm on Sunday night, I can browse through a huge selection online, pick one, order it and be reading again by 10:01 if I so choose.
2. It would have been really handy back in the day when I was travelling. Instead of adding the weight and space of several books to an already overstuffed suitcase on a weeklong trip, I could have taken my Nook and been done with it. Fortunately, that sort of travel isn't a regular part of my life any longer.
3. There are a surprising number of non-bestsellers that you can order and read and the price is almost always better than it would be if you purchased the book new at the store.
4. It was much easier than I thought it would be to get used to turning on, rather than picking up, my book.
5. The books are stored and backed up somewhere in cyberspace, so if my Nook get's dropped down the toilet, the books I purchased are still going to be available when I get another Nook. However, if I change e-readers, or if Barnes and Noble goes out of business and I can't replace my Nook, I think I've lost my books.
Things I don't like about my Nook:
1. It's sometimes hard for this Luddite to remember to plug in his book before he wants to read it. Dead batteries do not a happy camper make. I fully realize this is more my fault than the Nook's fault, but it's still a pet peeve and it's not something I ever had to worry about with books printed on paper.
2. It's unhandy if you want to find something in a book you read and you aren't sure where it is. Skipping around from page 3 to page 183 and back to page 40 is unwieldy, at least for me.
3. Although the selection of books and authors is improving every day, and although said selection is surprisingly broad given how new the e-book medium is, a lot of my favourite books were written by somewhat obscure authors. Most of these folks haven't got many (or any) selections available via e-books yet, although I expect this is rapidly coming.
4. It's pretty easy to buy a dud because browsing, at least in the sense that I do it when I'm at a good bookstore, is fairly difficult to do.
5. The digital revolution is not going to be kind to big bricks and mortar bookstores. While I don't think they're ALL going to go, I believe most of them will. To date, my two favourite large, independent bookstores, Davis Kidd here in Nashville and Joseph Beth's up in Lexington, have both declared bankruptcy as has one of the two big US chain stores, Borders Books and Music.
6. Nooks are fragile ! Take my advice and pay what it costs to get replacement coverage on it because if you drop it on the floor, or even fumble and set it down real hard it is going to be toast.
Me, Nook in hand.
Vanna White I ain't.
2 comments:
I went to SF for the weekend and polished off a book. It was so nice to have my Kindle - so lightweight and I had like five more books queued up after the one I read!
Have you checked out your local library system? A lot of libraries will let you check out ebooks - I think they disappear after two weeks or something.
I agree, not being able to flip back easily is one of the biggest drawbacks. I have finally gotten the hang of putting a bookmark where I'm reading, but that doesn't help me flip back somewhere near the front where they first describe that one guy... I just figure it makes me pay more attention the first time around, lol!
The battery on my Kindle lasts a lot longer if I turn off the wifi when I'm not using it. Check in your settings - you can turn the wifi back on when you browse for a new book, then turn it off once you download it. My husband pointed that out this weekend and it was a total DUH moment for me. :)
I haven't checked out the e-books at the library. That's an idea worth checking into for sure.
Good idea about the battery, too !
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