Adorable Athie: Thoughts on my Nook

My hand/wrist/arm pain has yet to calm down, which is why I’ve been absent from blogging. I’m going to see if I can take a few advil and soldier on long enough to write a post at least, but it’s difficult to leave comments when one of your limbs is on strike! I miss you all dreadfully, although I’m still reading your blogs. I seriously resent my illness encroaching on one of my last remaining social/sanity outlets, so I’m looking into voice recognition software to see if I can get it working on my mom’s crankypants computer. Fingers crossed! -Eva

Thistle Approved!

Back when I posted about receiving Athie, my Nook, for Christmas, I promised I’d eventually write up my experiences. Well, four months into our relationship, I think I’ve gotten a sufficient handle on things! I definitely love Athie and am glad I got him, but I also think that the $100 price I paid (in a Black Friday sale) is just about right.

First a bit of background, so you have the context for my analysis. I am not an early adapter of technology; it took me years to begin texting, I still have no desire for a ‘smart phone,’ I find blu-ray dvds and giant flat screen tvs more than a bit silly and this new penchant for three-d movies disturbing. I feel no need to be up with the latest generation of technology and would be happy to find a bare-bones laptop that lasted me years with proper treatment. In fact, I have yet to acquire an mp3 player, since my discman from high school still works just fine. My sum total of electronics then would be my phone, my digital camera, my now-dead laptop (does that count?), and Athie. Before getting a Nook, I never felt terribly interested in the ereader debate; I didn’t worry that it was the ‘death knell’ for physical books, but I didn’t feel the need to replace my own books with an electronic version. That is, until I realised I could download classics on to an ereader for free! The idea of instant access to all kinds of out-of-print older books had me salivating, and I quickly put it down as a top Christmas present (I decided on a Nook over a Kindle because of its lack of proprietary issues). I even found myself sitting outside Best Buy in a camping chair at 1:30 in the morning, to help Santa get a better deal. ;)

I was a bit nervous about the whole ‘ereading experience,’ but it has turned out to be pretty much the same as reading a physical book. Since I got the normal Nook, with eprint technology, there’s no glare or eye strain, and I can read on it for hours without problems. There’s a bar at the bottom that lets me know how far into the book I am, which surprisingly completely replaced the ability to physical ‘feel’ how many pages I have left (before I tried it, I was worried that would drive me crazy). It took me a little bit to manage to make the pages flip by swiping the touchpad (I am *horrible* at using touchscreens), but now that I’ve mastered it I don’t even have to push the button. And this has turned out to be the unexpected best feature of Athie: he’s so fibro-friendly. I don’t have to prop him open or wrestle with huge hardcovers (the library tends to favour them, I’m sure for good reason, but difficult for my chronic pain), and I’ve found that during flare-ups in which I previously had to give up reading altogether, I can now still manage to read ebooks. There are a few things that are different: a page sometimes lasts more than one Nook ‘page’ (i.e.: I flip the page but the page number doesn’t change), footnotes aren’t handled well (the only thing that stopped me from buying the ebook version of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell), and of course I can’t just flip through the book to try to find a scene I’m thinking of when I can’t remember the chapter. But there are things that are good different too: I can easily mark a page/passage, I can bring along several books that I’m reading in one slim bundle (good for a polygamous reader like myself), and I find my eyes are more focused, since there’s less text for them to jump around on. I absolutely adore having access to a broad range of classics, and I’ve even been exploring Netgalley (I’ll save that for a future post). Loading all of those free books I get couldn’t be easier, I just break out the USB cord and add away! (I have yet to actually buy an ebook, so after the original $100, my reading has been free. I plan to keep it that way.) And on an aesthetic level, I love Athie’s looks. The packaging was nice and environmentally friendly, he himself is sleek and clean looking, but I have him in a traditional style cover that makes him look a bit like an expensive journal.

There are a few niggling issues I have, which I’ll share. I don’t like that I can’t turn the clock in the corner off; I’m not a big ‘time’ person, so I think it’d be better to have the option to make it disappear while I’m reading. I’m horrible at remembering to charge electronics, so I wish the battery life was longer (about five or six days I think). And he’s heavier than I expected (more than an average size hardcover book, although less than two books), so I don’t toss him in my purse if I’m going to be walking around a lot. And the footnotes thing, which I mentioned above; I’m a big nerd and love footnotes in paper books, so I’d like to love them in ebooks as well.

None of these are as important to me, though, as Athie’s fibro-friendly (and old books-friendly) status. Honestly, in my heart I still love paper books and think an ideal life would have both, but God my muscles are ereader all the way. If I’m interested in a book from the library and there’s an electronic version available, I choose that; that has only happened once so far in a non-classics case. So, the majority of my reading is still coming from physical books; the only time I read solely via Nook is when I’m having a bad muscle day. And there you have it! I’m quite happy to have an ereader, and it’s definitely enriched my reading life. So I encourage you to look into one, even if you’re not a techie. ;) And if, like me, you sometimes have physical problems with reading, an ereader could make your life much better.

Finally, I think the new Nook commercial is adorable:

Any other pleasantly surprised ereader owners? Or have you been disappointed?