Okay okay… in some cases not totally free (like the library where you have to take them back) but there are free books if you look for them and there are more free books now than ever before!
Don’t get me wrong… I have been spending an inordinate amount of time at the library lately… Tuesday is my go to the library day. I haul a half ton of stuff back every week and get a new half ton out. I love the fact that I can listen to music on my work computer that I may not otherwise listen to and I can get a taste of new authors that I might not read otherwise too. AND they have books on CD… Hello drive time.
Yesterday I went hunting a book for the book club at work. I had already found that the Kindle was available for computer and for ipod touch, ipad (the big giant ipod touch…), soon to be available for the android… and thought that maybe I could find the book on Amazon… no dice. I can find the print version but not the electronic version… crap.
Well… okay… maybe I can just compare print version prices between Amazon and Barnes and Noble… hop on over to bn.com and see what I can find… HOLY COW… I can find the nook software available for the computer and the ipod or ipad. Still can’t find the book I’m after electronically… but wow….
I CAN find free electronic books. AND the nook… if you hop over to the bn.com site, you can see that for five weeks (of which we are already in week 3) you can go into the store with your nook enabled device and say… Hey Mr/Ms BN person… I downloaded the nook onto my device and I would like a certificate for the free book… and poof… free book. The local Barnes and Nobel even had a few extra copies of last week’s certificate so I got TWO free books last night.
Are they books I would have chosen? Probably not. Are they books I will read? Yeah… both of them seem to be books that are going to be interesting and that I will read.
It did more than just give me some new reading options, though… it gave me new options in general. I wanted to be able to read books on something like a Kindle but I don’t have Oprah sending me stuff like she gives her audience on the “Look I SO TOTALLY LOVE these things” shows… not only can I not justify flying to Chicago on the off chance It would be that day on the off chance I could get in… on the off chance that… whatever… I couldn’t really justify spending the money on a book reader, let alone on multiple book readers (because the Amazon book reader won’t read the books from Barnes and Nobel and those can neither one rad the Sony format). Now, with the FREE reader software that I can install on whatever I have that I’m going to have with me anyway (except, so far, my phone, but that is coming… only drawback there… battery life… and I like my android WAY too much to opt for an iPhone) and I can read the heaviest book by pulling it out of my pocket no matter where I am or no matter what is going on… or out of my purse (yes, mom, I’ve resorted to carrying a purse as often as not).
It also means that I can read, and take notes on the books I’m reading, or whatever, on the same device and I don’t have to carry any more than I absolutely have to carry. How cool is that.
Free software. Free books. Freedom from worrying about ripping pages or anything like that…. all I have to worry about is loosing my device or it getting wet but I worry about that anyway. How totally cool is free books?
A Figment Of Fitness 