Posts Tagged ‘Nook’

I took it to New York today, and I was not alone…..

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

… no indeedy.  There were Kindles all over NJ Transit, and a Nook beside me on the M4 bus going up Madison Avenue.  The Nook  was the new one with a bright orange book style cover, but the owner was reading what appeared to be shelter magazines.  We Kindlers  (Kindle-eers?) are definitely reading text.

We had a big discussion of the Kindle at my Writers’ Group.  One of our members, who is in her ninth decade, asked me how to made the letter size larger, and I showed her.  She has already read three books on it– which proves to me that it is an intuitive device.  You can download books and read them perfectly efficiently without the manual.

I used large size letters on the train so I wouldn’t have to wear my glasses.  I think I got less seasick that way.

One of our members was  offended by the grayness of the screen.  I’m okay with that, the transparency of it, although I’ll miss covers and ding bat illustrations to rest the eye.  I almost good with the idea of being able to own fewer  books.

I’m going for free books so far, but I’m thinking about some of the $.99 deals for, say, poetry I might dip into occasionally  (whereas I won’t be carrying Leaves of Grass with me, along with other books.)

I’m reading some P.G. Wodehouse, brand new to me, and mostly hilarious, totally on the surface, of course, but the play of that stupid twenties or thirties slag is delightful.

Now that I’ve decided on Kindle, Google sells e-books

Monday, December 6th, 2010

It’s not that any of the behemoth companies are good guys, but I do have a principled preference for opener sources– however, when I held a Kindle in the Staples store, it felt right: so slim and neutral.  I liked the Nook, but in the end, not the color.

But now, Google is starting to work with independent stores to make selling e-books simple:  here’s the New York Times article about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/media/07ebookstore.html?emc=eta1

Whatever!

Ebook on BarnesandNoble.com

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Well, my experiment with ebooks is moving forward:  the Hamilton Stone Editions edition of my novel Trespassers about the Columbia University 1968 sit-ins is now available as an ebook on  Barnesandnoble.com (just click there and search for “Trespassers by Meredith Sue Willis”).  My book, and Carole Rosenthal’s It Doesn’t Have to Be Me, have both been available on Smashwords.com for a while, but this is the first appearance on another site, which Smashwords has been promising.

I am still looking into ereaders.  Does anyone out there have one?  What do you recommend?  I’m thinking seriously about the soon-to-be-released Kobo, which is a hundred dollars cheaper than Nook and Kindle.   The disadvantage, if it is one, is you generally have to download books via your computer.  This means you can’t be sitting in an airport and download the latest best seller out of the ether I mean 3G network.  But since I’m picturing myself rereading Trollope’s Palliser novels on a device,  I  don’t really care so much if I can’t get Dan Brown’s latest contraption two minutes after it’s released.

Meanwhile, we’re still watching Phoebe Allen’s webcam with her two ugly little naked blue-black balls of baby bird with yellow beaks, not hummingbird beak shaped at all, and a few yellowish pinfeathers on their blue-black body balls. Phoebe looks happy as a clam when she sits on them.

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

I’ve now handled both an IPad and a Nook as well as my brother-in-law’s Kindle.  The IPad is very attractive, but I’m not sure why it isn’t a computer– my husband’s new big screen is very attractive as well,  The Nook felt very nice in my hand, and I could imagine sinking into the telling of a story on its dull but easy-to-read screen.  I downloaded a free copy of The Eustace Diamonds which turned out to come from Google scans, and while the text was easy to read, there were dumb little page breaks from the old short pages.  Still, the idea of all of Trollope there in my hand when I go on vacation…