Category Archives: Nook

I’m Starting to Understand Why Barnes and Noble Is Hemorrhaging Money

6 Replies

So my wife and I and have been going back and forth on whether she should get me a tablet for Christmas.  She got a Samsung a few months ago, and lately I’ve been playing Mah Jong on it.  The reason for this is simple.  I’m either too tired or there’s too much noise/distraction/interruption to try to read.  (The concentration with simple games and reading is different; that’s all I can say.)  I don’t want a tablet because I don’t want to read on a backlit screen.  I do enough of that either at work or on my phone if I’m reading to kill a few minutes while I’m waiting in line or something.  The game playing thing is usually a sign I need to get more rest and/or have less stress in my life.

GlowLight_imgI have a first generation Nook.  What decided me on that rather than a Kindle is that B&N is only a few minutes from my house, so if there’s a problem (which has happened), I can get help from a person fairly quickly.

For quite a while I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a Nook Glowlight.  They’re light.  The screen refreshes faster.  They have a  touchscreen.  I can read in a dark room.  And most importantly, the battery has a much, much longer life.

I’ve gotten to where I don’t read on my Nook much because it takes too long to scroll through things or change between the nookbook folder and the Documents folder which has all the things I’ve sideloaded.  Yes, they are in separate folders on the original.  But mainly, I don’t use it as much as I used to because the battery life is so short.  I don’t like having to put it back on the charger so often.  Like before I’ve finished reading.  But, hey, waddaya expect?  It’s first generation technology. Continue reading →

What I Read While Stuck in Airports

Leave a reply
I’ve been on the road for the last few days, traveling due to dayjobbery.  I’ve spent a lot of time in the air and in airports.  I had to make two connections to get where I was going and again to get home.  I took my Nook with me, loaded with stuff.  Unfortunately, you aren’t supposed to have the things on during taxiing, takeoff, and landing.  Something about interfering with the plane’s navigational system or something.  I’m not sure of the details. 

Anyhoo, before I left I bought and downloaded the Beneath Ceaseless Skies anthology.  This is a collection stories from the first year of the magazine.  I must confess to not being as familiar with the publication as I need to be.  That’s going to change.  I’m only about a third of the way through, but the stories are top notch.  Less sword and sorcery than I prefer, but still good high quality, well-written pieces.  Worth checking out, and for three bucks, you will get your money’s worth.  All proceeds go to the authors and artists.  Check it out, along with the magazine.  I’ll be posting about it more in the future.

In addition to reading a business book and the current issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, I ended up getting a used paperback copy of David Drake’s Other Times Than Peace.  I pretty much only read this one on the way back while I couldn’t read the Nook, so I only got about 130 pages into it, finishing the first two stories.  Still, Drake does a good job of pulling you into a tale with only a few words.  One of the things I like best about his work is that he draws on ancient history.  He’s another author I need to read more of.

I still haven’t started the latest McDevitt, Echo, and since he’ll be at ConDFW next weekend, I need to get moving on that.  I haven’t had much time to blog lately, but I thought I would pass along some recommendations on what I’ve read lately.  Expect a report on ConDFW when I get back.  Until then, look for at least one more post later this week.