eReader

For Christmas / my anniversary this year my husband got us a Barnes and Noble Nook. After all my painstaking research on prices and features, I felt the Nook was the best option for us. It's definitely one of the cheaper options but includes many neat features, like a LendMe feature that allows you to share books with other friends who have Nooks. And also the Read in Store feature that allows you to read any book for 1 hour for free on your device inside a Barnes and Noble store. That feature alone I could get excited about and have already tried it out myself this past Friday night. The device is really neat and seems to work great so far. I also love that you can get eBooks from your local library on the device as well. I've put a few on hold but have yet to get those.

For anyone who is an avid reader and has shelves and shelves of books at home this might just be a great gift for an upcoming birthday, anniversary, graduation, or any other event. They seem to be staying pretty steady at the price points they are now, but there are constantly new models and updates coming out.

I personally prefer the e-ink screen that looks very similar to the words and look of a page out of a book. They now have color options though for people who read a lot of magazines and children's books. However, these usually have LED screens which are harder on your eyes, and they also drain the battery much quicker.

They are pretty neat devices and come in all kinds of price points, ranging from less than $100 all the way up to about $800 if you include the iPad and other tablet PC's in the mix.

I'm sure even more new models and cool features will become available in 2011, and hopefully a lot more free ebooks for the devices as well. Right now, there are some modern free ebooks that authors have chosen to make free plus over 1 million books that have already made it to the public domain, including most of the classics like Dracula, Jane Austen books, Mark Twain, Alice in Wonderland, War and Peace, etc.

If you're thinking about getting an eReader all I can say is so far I love mine and can't wait to read some more on it.

Anyone else have thoughts on loving or hating the ereader? Book selection? Which model is the best?

A New Year

Well, a new year has come and that can only mean one thing ... challenges and goals set for ourselves. This year my personal challenge is to read 100 books before 2011 is over. I have already found myself watching TV just a little bit less and reading a little bit more. (Both of those things in and of themselves are great for us.)

Does anyone else have any reading challenges for this upcoming year?