BOCCOLINI: NOOKS and Crannies

I gave in. Trees: you’re welcome. Penguin Group Books: I’m sorry. Yes, a book-loving zombie bit me and now I am the owner of a NOOK Color. You see, I used to like the feel of a book in my hands, the way the cover shone, the sound the pages made when they turned. I liked that you could run your fingers over lines that truly spoke to you, making sure they stayed right there on the page so you could always find them.

But having a NOOK (or any “e-reader,” as I believe they are called) is like living in a Barnes & Noble, which, coincidentally, is my life’s ultimate goal. NOOK books are like soldiers who are always at the ready, waiting for you to metaphorically crack their spines and check out their insides, kind of like exploratory surgery.  Books are also cheaper on the NOOK, probably because the family of the dead tree they used to make the paperback copy wants some sort of monetary compensation.

Yet the NOOK is more than just books. You can do a crossword puzzle, play chess or checkers, browse the web, and buy magazines. There are also thousands of apps, like Angry Birds and Pandora Radio. If the NOOK were a phone, it’d be the iPhone (right now it’s more like the iPad). Unlike Amazon’s Kindle, the NOOK is fully touch screen, and the interface is aesthetically pleasing. Sorry, but the Kindle’s monochrome look makes even Dr. Seuss books seem sad.

NOOK also lets you browse books by genre and gives you recommendations. But NOOK isn’t just for the avid reader. There are cookbooks, travel manuals, self-help guides, and kids’ books. You can take all your kids’ favorite stories, like “Go, Dog. Go!” and “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” with you without lugging them around in your reusable tote from Whole Foods (We know you’re environmentally friendly. You have the NOOK, after all).   You can even shop by age, from zero years old (aka “The Fetal Months”) all the way to “Teens,” which includes “The Hunger Games” and “Cujo.” (Side note: “Cujo” not recommended for teens.)

NOOK even saves your place in every book you read, and lets you place them on the home screen or keep them on your library’s shelves. If you decide to take a break from reading, when you open your NOOK back up you can click “Keep Reading,” and it opens right to the page you stopped on. I know physical books do that too (it’s called a bookmark), but it’s nice to know that machines aren’t planning their full-on sabotage of the human race (yet).

Many people are afraid that technological advancements like e-readers are replacing “the real thing” (biggest worry: newspapers, smallest worry: poster at son’s Little League game), but people are still reading, and that’s the important thing here. Amidst YouTube videos of cats, “World of Warcraft” and eBay, the fact that people are still sitting down and actually reading might be the past decade’s greatest achievement, and that’s at least one thing our parents can be proud of.

Liz Boccolini is a freshman in the College of Communication and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at lizboc@bu.edu.