I tried, but I’m not getting help

Posted: June 24, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Books, Web/Tech | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

I wrote recently about my ambivalence about Amazon given their business tactics with respect to vendors who are not agreeing to terms that Amazon wants. I downloaded the Barnes and Noble Nook app for my iPad and eventually bought a book in Nook format. It wasn’t a big deal, the book cost all of ninety-nine cents, but it gave me a chance to try out the Nook.

At first everything was fine. The Nook remembered where I was in the book from one day to the next. Then one day while reading the book, boom!, I apparently tapped somewhere I shouldn’t have tapped and I was out of the book. And the Nook app didn’t remember where I was. No function like the Kindle’s sync to last page read. Nothing to get me back to where I was.

Frustrating.

I would like to send some of my business your way, Barnes & Noble, but you have to provide me with a better experience.

Please.

#117084671 / gettyimages.com

reading a novel

Posted: February 11, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Books | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

novelsAn article which stated that “being pulled into the world of a gripping novel can trigger actual, measurable changes in the brain that linger for at least five days after reading” was making the rounds on Facebook in January. Since I have been reading strictly nonfiction for quite some time now I paid attention.

The last time I read a novel was when I had a physical Kindle. Being an iPad user with its Kindle app since August 2011, it’s been at least two and a half years. It’s probably been longer than that, because if I recall correctly the last several books I read on my physical Kindle were nonfiction.

I’ve had a few novels among my Kindle samples for quite some time, but when it came time to read the next book, I kept selecting nonfiction. That has changed. I recently saw a reference to The Last Enchantments by Charles Finch. Perhaps that article had some influence on me, but what really grabbed me was that the setting of the novel is the campus of Oxford University.

So once again I’m reading a novel. I’m enjoying it so far.

We’ll see if this creates a new pattern.