the barnes and noble nook

I'm old school. I love the heft of books on my shelf. The smell of used books scattering shelves in hidden book stores across the world. When I saw the kindle the first time I thought to myself "cool, but not for me". I criticized people who had given up traditional books for e-readers, thinking that some part of the "magic of books" was lost in an e-reader. Though from afar I thought about the fact that with a kindle I could carry every book of Virginia Woolf with me everywhere I went. The possibilities were endless. Still I held out and colored myself a traditionalist.

At the same time, I'm an environmentalist. I work in sustainable development. Books take a lot of paper to print and often end up rotting in land fills just like all other waste eventually. Books that don't sell are stripped of their covers, thrown in the trash and the covers are sent back to the publishers so that the book sellers can be reimbursed for the cost. The impact of e-readers is far less, and books definitely expand my ecological footprint dramatically. I read about 3 books a week on average. Multiply that by a who year, and that is a lot of paper. A lot of dead trees. And a lot of these books I don't even care for in the long run. On top of that, I'm a grad student. I read hundreds of pages of PDF documents a week. I watch people in my classes print out their reading every day. Hundreds of pages for hundreds of grad students at hundreds of universities. I resigned myself to reading them on my computer, and in my class on environmental policy, everyone thought I was crazy to read on my computer as they stared at their stack of 300 pages for the WEEK on their desk. The kindle's use become more apparent to me. Their complaints was not being able to mark up a PDF and the screen making your eyes tired. With the e-ink display, the glare and eye strain is gone.

I still waited. Hedged. The price was too expensive. I'm a traditionalist. I've gotten used to highlighting on my computer. Etc.

And now just five weeks before I start my thesis in the country of India, I am starting to see use for an e-reader. But not a kindle. It just doesn't do it for me. I'm in love with the nook. The nook is beautiful, functional, and works on WIFI.

Over half a million books for free. Another million or so for purchase around 10 bucks. Not to mention for my thesis, I have more than 4000 pages of paper to sift through, which I certainly don't want to read on a computer. Half my time in India will be spent on trains. HOURS AND HOURS of trains. My computer battery just won't cut it on such train rides. And I certainly can't lug around a veritable tome of data on social entrepreneurship across India.

So I caved. I'm buying a nook. In fact I pre-ordered the sucker.

But don't think I've gone to the dark side...I haven't. I will never give up my habits of buying books or reading books on paper. But maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to get my thesis written while on the road in India. Something I had been dreading before.

And that is certainly worth my 250 bucks.