Orac, the Nook
Sister the Younger presented me with a Nook for my birthday this past weekend. I’d been interested in e-readers, but had been holding off because they’re still pretty heavily in development. I learned from the old Beta vs. VHS wars that the best format doesn’t necessarily win, and I didn’t want go with the wrong e-book reader.
Had I been willing (and able) to purchase an e-book reader though, I’d have chosen Nook over Kindle. I especially like the “share” feature, where you can loan an e-book to someone for two weeks. Of course, I don’t know anyone with a Nook, so I shall be neither a borrower nor a lender at the moment. The option is there though. There’s almost 10,000 free titles to choose from as well, many of them classics like “Dracula” and “Little Women”. There are many books available for free that I would like to read again but wouldn’t necessarily want to purchase.
I did buy the three Steig Larsson books though, for a combined cost of less than that of buying any single one of them hardback. I’d wanted to read them, the library’s wait-list was about ten years long, and I didn’t want to actually buy them. This was a good compromise, and a good test of the reader.
I rather like it. You can contrl font type (to a limited degree), font size and brightness. I shelled out for a polarized screen overlay so you can read easily even in bright sun. And of course I purchased a cover for it. The cover has the following quote on it:
When I step into this library,
I cannot understand why I ever step out of it.
– Marei de Sevigne
Considering the Nook is capable of holding a library’s worth of books, the cover seemed apt. I named him “Orac” after the computer-with-attitude from “Blake’s 7”.
Orac
Cool beans! Enjoy 😉
Very cool.
Neat-o! Happy belated birthday!
Oh, excellent present! And of course I love the name. E-readers are only just becoming available here in NZ (the Kindle isn’t available yet), and I’m thinking of spending some royalties on one, if I can ever decide which (decisiveness not being my strong point). So I’m interested in hearing of experiences with them.
Barnes & Noble have a nicely arranged online catalogue. I know, because I’m in it 🙂 And I have a pathetic habit of checking my sales rankings.
nice!
Oooo, cool! We’ve been thinking of getting e-readers for Christmas, but we didn’t know anyone personally who had one who could describe their experience. Thanks for sharing that. (Great cover, btw.)
Is yours white like the one in the ad?
I had only seen it in black and I like the white one a LOT better!
I have been reading PDF essays on my Kindle from a web site that I frequent. I really love reading them that way. Otherwise it would be read from the eye killing computer monitor or printing them off and wasting paper.
I’m really bonding with my Kindle DX now, but it was the PDF’s that did it!
Happy reading!!!