Just a few moments ago I checked my email only to see Barnes and Noble taunting me with the Nook Now, we all know I’ve declared undying love for my Kindle, and have spent lo these six months stuffing it full of everything from academic reading (to prove I’m deep) to romantic reading (to prove I’m sensual) to books about the end of the world (to prove I’m…I don’t know…grisly?) In fact, the only reason I was checking my email was because my Kindle was running low on batteries–I’d been playing the Text-to-Speech while I did some light housework.
But there was the Nook. Beckoning me with its perfect name. Seriously! They couldn’t have given it a more appealing name unless they chose “Caramel and Cream”. That name–Nook–just makes you want to curl up under an afghan, cup of honey-sweetened tea within reach, and sink into a Dickensian romp. Or a bodice ripper. Or a trip through the Amazon to the tree of life.
And then…it’s in colour. And has a cover view. See, my two biggest gripes with my Kindle are that there is no cover-view for your books and no colour. So as you thumb through your library, all you see are words. I’m a big lover of words, as anyone who’s sat through one of my blog posts can attest. But when I pay for a book I want to feel the whole book experience. And I spent enough years as a graphic designer to consider the cover an integral part of the pleasure of a book. Barnes and Noble–who for years have decorated their stores with vintage book covers and sold millions (I’m estimating) of coffee mugs with same–know this. They know that if you buy a book you want to feel like you own the whole book. Not just the stripped version. Because as any paperback reader knows, a book without its cover is the same as an unsellable book….a book in the trash.
So here I am, with a perfectly good e-reader husband, a stable and reliable fellow in whom I’ve invested time and money. And yet I’m drooling over this pretty younger man. This flashy fellow with his cover art and his colour and his catchy name.
Yet as I get to know Ashton–er, The Nook–better, I can see where he is a flashy fellow who lacks the maturity and substance of my present mate. He may have colour–oh, that gorgeous, sensual, stuff!–but he doesn’t have Text To Speech. Fully 40% of my Kindle’s use is the T2S feature, as I play books while I clean, while I play with my dog, while I am too sick to even hold the thin e-reader in my hands. That’s a big but, my B&N friends.
So now I do what women with wandering eyes and good sense have done since time immemorial. I work on my marriage. And in this context that means keeping my fingers crossed that the next Kindle model has colour. Oh, and some better sort of organisation. In other words, I’ll nurture that old flame…the one Kindled long ago. Okay. Six months ago. Whatever.
the Nook is pretty though. Looks like something that Apple would design.
And, now I know what TheBoyfriend™ is getting for Christmas this year.
You’ll have to let me know how he likes it.
I’ve been reading cNet for the last half-hour, though, and it appears that B&N will NOT be discounting ebook titles, so your content will be 20-40% more on Nook than on Kindle.
Oh, dear. I can’t tell you how funny the title of this post sounds to someone who is immune to Kutcher’s charm in the first place. Good metaphor, though.
I too am very immune to Kutcher. In fact I have always VASTLY preferred older men. The fact that only two years–instead of 10 or 15–seperate me from my husband shocks me often.
I tried to think of someone who’d appeal to cougary woman–which I am not and he was the best I could do. Although I’ve been told Zac “who the hell is that?” Efron wouldve been the more contemporary choice.
The appeal of younger men….eludes me.
Oh, there are plenty of men a lot younger than I am who I find physically appealing on screen. Kutcher just isn’t one of them.
Ah, therein lies the danger of an Ashton. You know there’s no real risk of unfaithfulness because it only generates superficial curiosity, not true attraction. But it opens the door to the question; allows for the possibility. Then (sometime in early 2010, perhaps), when the Sean Connery that the Apple tablet will undoubtedly be swoops onto the scene, your defenses have already been lowered. Before you know it your once-all-you-could-have-asked-for Kindle/husband finds himself sleeping on the bedroom floor while you spend one enchanted night after another in the multi-colored glow of your powerful, talented, exciting and supremely good-looking new love.
I guess I’ll just wait for the Robert Downey, Jr. of readers — one that performs brilliantly, even lets you see things in the text itself you hadn’t been aware of before, but makes you worry all the time that it will break.
That’s as beautiful an analogy as I’ve ever seen. And as true a one as possible.