Nook Review

Yes, it's been months since I've posted. Yes, I've been a bad blogger. I think I'm going to try and post every Tuesday since it's a pretty easy day for me. In November I'll try to post every day again and see how far I get. I think that I get blocked because in my public blog I like writing about something instead of updating about my day to day life, like, "This week I worked a bunch of days, and then I went to class and it was pretty boring, and then I went out to dinner with some friends." No one wants to read that.

About three weeks ago, I finally joined the future and bought an e-reader. I decided to get the Nook instead of the Kindle, because you can download library books on it, and also you can buy books from other stores, not just Barnes and Noble. I got the latest one, which is smaller and has a touch screen, and so far I love it. I was one of those people who hated the idea of an e-reader when it first came out. "Nothing will replace books for me! You'll have to pry paper books from my cold dead hands!" But e readers have advanced since then, and now I love the idea that I don't ever have to be in between books till I get to a bookstore anymore, the entire world of literature is at my fingertips. Also, I'm a very bad library grad student who never uses the library. Now I can download library books, and not worry about late return fees if I'm too lazy to bring the book back on time. Another perk is that I can download pdf files onto it to read instead of killing more trees by printing them. This makes it very handy for the mountain of journal articles I have to read for school, so I can write the Nook off on my taxes, woot!

So far I've waded in slowly. Trench recently got me sucked into the first season of Game of Thrones, so I bought the first book and have been reading it on my Nook. I didn't know if I would like reading fiction on a screen, but if you are a person who likes to read, you will read anything as long as there are words printed on it. I like that the Nook is so slim, so I never have to leave it at home, like I do sometimes when I'm reading a fat book. I've even been reading in bed, although in a fit of sleepiness the other night I reached up to the corner of the Nook to turn a page instead of swiping the screen.

All the same, when I finish this and go to read the second, I think I'll get the paper book instead. As handy as the Nook is, at the end of the day it's still another screen to stare at. I'm excited to use it for non-fiction, and even for hardcover fiction that is too difficult to carry around everywhere, or silly chick lit that I don't want people to catch me reading. As for really good fiction that I can barely put down, I think I'll stick to paper.