I love my Nook

Cover via Amazon

I love my Nook. It is not a fancy one, just an e reader. A few years ago I discovered my arthritis and the tendency toward carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrists makes them ache a lot and holding a book is a problem. I found that holding the Nook makes it easier to read. Also, my house has books in almost every room that are irritating me. I am at the point in my life where I want to accumulate less instead of more and my Nook holds more books than I will probably ever read with no extra clutter.

The problem with the Nook is, that it was second. The world is made for First. The Kindle was the first so you can buy books for the Kindle at the drop of a hat. You just click and automatically download. Not so for the Nook unless you only shop at Barnes and Noble. I was excited to find out you could check out eBooks from your local library. Then I found, it was click and download IF you had a Kindle. It is easy if you want to download to your laptop and read it that way. But to put it on your Nook, you have to go to a special area, download certain software to your computer, which can then transfer the borrowed book to your Nook. The first time I tried it was frustrating and seemed endless. It was not easy. I finally managed to borrow one book after many tries. I never bothered to do it again. Way too much trouble.

Now, when you see an ad, Kindle is first and most times, Nook is offered as a link 2^nd, which takes you to Barnes and Nobles and the easy download. I just hate that Amazon is first, and Kindle is first and then comes the Nook. I bought the Nook because when I had the opportunity and the money, I wanted it NOW and we had a Barnes and Nobles down the street where we could buy the Nook and not have to wait for it to be shipped to me. In defense of the Nook, you can browse through your library, shop from the Nook and do a search for a specific book from your Nook.

EBooks are still second.  You can’t buy just any book as an eBook. Not every book is available in e format. My favorite 365 day Bible is about 5”x7”x3” and is heavy to hold. It happens to be the Catholic version and you can’t buy it as an eBook. Sigh. So I settled for a different version as an eBook and don’t like the format as well. Also, you can find great sales on books or buy them “read one time, like new” for really cheap. EBooks cost more. Almost always. And if you have a favorite author, the hardback book price might be one price, the paperback price much cheaper and the nook price is usually the same as the hardback price, perhaps a dollar cheaper. And when the book goes on sale for $2.99, the Nook book will still be $9.99. If you like to buy Christian authors like Joyce Meyer or Joel Osteen, the hardback and eBook price is normally the same. I know, sour grapes, but you’d think the savings of paper and ink and publishing costs would allow the eBook to be cheaper.

My daughter is an editor at http://critiquemynovel.com and a diehard book lover. She, like many, hated when eBooks came out, thinking they were going to ruin the publishing industry. It hasn’t happened, but there are a lot of free eBooks out there. You can usually get the classics, like Alice in Wonderland, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and every self-published novel available. The problem with the self-published books is not that they are bad, but they are full of typos, grammatical errors and formatting errors. They can be very annoying to read, but you get what you pay for, right? That’s another story for another day.

I think I’d like a Nook in color now. I always liked looking at the cover art, and seeing it in black and white is just not the same. And if I had the color version, I could buy and read magazines if I wanted. All in all, I really love my Nook and read in it several times a week. I just had to sound off for a minute.