The dogs are romping in the evening and I, well, I am romping in the Library’s virtual stacks. The Nashville Public Library has streamlined its checkout process for Kindle readers. No longer do I have to submit a blood sample to Adobe for the ability to use their Overdrive(R) EPub Reader. Okay, I exaggerated. No blood sample was required, but I did have to fill out a form and register with Adobe for a license to use their software. I’m not doing that. I’ve already filled out a gajillion forms with Adobe for all the iterations of Acrobat and Photoshop and Pagemaker and Creative Suite that I’ve owned over the years. I think Adobe has enough of a lojack on my person.
But now that my library card and my perseverance are all that are needed–thanks to nm for the heads up–I’m like a kid in a candy store. Or, in my case, a kid in the library. Even when I was a kid I went overboard at the library.
1. The ebook selection isn’t the best. But it’s already saved me $93 on books that I was toying with buying at some point. In one case (Micro by Michael Crichton’s Corpse) that savings is particularly welcome, seeing as it was the worst book I’ve read this year.
2. I am currently looking at “All Fiction sorted by Most Popular”. From these results I am rapidly concluding that the other ebook patrons’ tastes skew very heavily toward books with man boobs on the cover.
3. I am NOT going to read a series of books about little girls who dreamed of “countless ‘I do’ moments” and are now grown up and pursuing their own bridal dreams. Books that present weddings as the dream and end goal of women make me dream of self-harm. It’d be like reading a whole book about someone who really wanted to go to McDonalds or ride a pony. A wedding is a one-day event. Not a life ambition. If it is your life ambition, I’m very sorry for you. You WILL be disappointed by the greater portion of your existence.
4. There’s a book called “His Christmas Virgin”. I don’t think it’s about God and Mary.
5. The blurb on this book says that tragedy strikes a honeymooning couple on the Great Barrier Reed. It makes me think of a large pond with very menacing cattails.
6. I’m officially depressed by the number of books subtitled by their positions within various series. Can’t I just read a book? Does it have to daisychain into nineteen other novels?
7. Oh good. Now I can make good on my promise to my mother and read Unbroken without paying $20. (Yeah. I switched over to Biography & Autobiography. I was tired of looking at manboob.)
8. Heh. The average rating for Eat Pray Love among Nashville Public Library Patrons is 2 stars. Heh.
9. A bio of Hedy Lamarr is more popular than a book called “50 people every Christian should know.” Maybe Hedy Lamarr is Person #51. Maybe they should have included her in that other book.
10. There’s a book about a really cute cat who lives in a library. I’d check it out but I know I’d be in tears by page 3 and cry through the rest of the book.
Wow. I’ve been doing this for an HOUR now. I better move on to other things in life. Just think of the treat it will be when my email dings in with pickup announcements for the books I’ve placed on hold! Let’s hope all 48 books don’t come available at once. I don’t know if there is a two-week span wherein I can read Henrietta Lacks, Lincoln hunting vampires and a metric ton of fiction set in Ireland.
Unbroken was quite good. So was the Henrietta Lacks book. You will enjoy those, I bet. Can’t speak to the Lincoln fan fic, though.
I don’t know about the Hedy Lamarr book, but she herself was pretty awesome. That wi-fi you’re gonna use to download your 48 requests? Wouldn’t have happened without her.
Part of the lack of selection isn’t the library’s fault….there are a couple of publishers who have pulled out of the lending of e-books. I know the publisher for Michael Connelly has done that.
I’ve just gotten into the ebooks through NPL as well, but what I really want to say here is thank you for writing such a library-positive post.