Feb 25, 2011

Eco-Friendly Friday

I will freely admit that I am a bit of a techno geek. I love gadgets. After receiving some gift cards over Christmas and my birthday from my family, I decided to buy a Nook Color. Honestly, I had not even given an e-reader a thought until I started looking into them for my Mom. It is an amazing little green machine and a bit of a money saver too. I say that it is a green machine because it not only allows you to go paper free for books, but you can also receive magazines and newspapers on it.

There are many reasons I really like the Nook (including the Dictionary function where you click a word for a definition.) What surprises me the most is how often I have to fight my oldest son for use of it, as he has several children's books stored on it. I love that it gives the option with some of the children's books to have the story read to them, or they can read it themselves. With the read it yourself option they can still touch a section and have it read to them if they have trouble. It is also quite intuitive to work, he can pick it up and navigate effortlessly to his books and have them read to him.

Beyond the paper-free aspect, there is some money savings as well. Many of the ebooks are cheaper than their paper versions. Your local libraries website most likely has many ebook titles available for lending without stepping into the library itself. The online Barnes & Noble store also offers many titles free - including a free title every Friday! They also have in-store specials if you bring your Nook in, but I have not had a chance to do that yet so I really cannot speak to it. If you happen to have a friend with a Nook there are also certain "Lend Me" books you can share peer to peer like a library loan.

Barnes & Noble is supposedly working on additional apps for the Nook. Even though I do like the Pandora and Sudoku, I am anxiously awaiting the release of a RSS Feed app so I can easily read all my blog feeds with it.

I thought I would miss the feel of a book in my hand, but really, I just love how easy it is to access new books. I have read more in the last few weeks than I probably have in the last year. With kids, it is not so easy to go looking through the stacks at the local library for a good book, but I can handle browsing online with spare minutes here and there, as I am sure you can!

2 comments:

Karen said...

I read in the bathtub as a way to multitask - relaxing, using my brain, warming up (winter is too cold!), and getting clean. It's wonderful! I haven't dropped a book yet but dropping a Nook wouldn't be the best thing.

I'm sure I'll get one some day though. I'm not always multi-tasking. :) And you did make it sound very convenient.

Simplistic Mom said...

I don't know if I'd be brave enough to read with the Nook in the tub! I really do love it way more than I ever thought I would. I barely have it out of my hands and I've almost memorized my library card number from the number of times I've used it to take out ebooks.