Why?

My all-time favorite present was the Sony Reader that I got this past Christmas. I've only had it for a few weeks but I LOVE the thing so much! Ironically, I used to be one of those people who swore they would only read books and never anything on a screen. This new generation of eBooks are great as they are compact, light, and don't hurt my eyes when I read. Also, we have over 1,000 books in this house and honestly we have no more room.

So what's the problem?

Why the fuck can I not buy eBook from let's say Barnes and Noble or Amazon and use them on my Sony Reader? WTF is up with that? If, per chance, this was an Apple product--as they are infamous for creating their own file types--I can sort of understand the issue, but even iPods can play .mp3s. Why can't these companies agree to use one standardized format? It's not like there isn't a standardized format. How difficult can it be? It would make my life so much easier.

In a related bit, I found a new genre of books I am just devouring: alternate history. Yes, I know grammatically it's supposed to be alternative history but I'm not the one who coined the term. As I am a history buff, I always love to ask "what if?" My favorite ones include "what if Hitler got into art school?" and "what would've happened to Napoleon if Corsica hadn't been under French control?" While in Borders a few weeks back I saw this book called 1901 by Robert Conroy. I read the back and it had an interesting premise: what if Germany decided to invade the U.S. after the Spanish-American War in order to pressure us to give them our colonies? Fantastic book! Now I'm reading his 1945 which answers the question what if the Japanese didn't surrender after the dropping of the two atomic bombs? I am hooked on these books. A few people have recommended Harry Turtledove as well but a lot of his alternate histories include aliens and that's a bit much for me.

Comments

Motor Home Cats said…
I got the Nook for Christmas and love it. I was considering the Sony, but it was just a little out of the budget for the people who bought it for me. I agree that it would be good to have a standardized form of e-book, but the stores probably look at it as a loss of revenue. I think I've found it to be the opposite tho - I've bought more books in the past week than I had in the past month. I am sure that will taper off as the newness of my new toy wears off, but I think I will still end up buying more books this way.

The book ideas sound really interesting. I am going to have to check them out.

Tara
January 15, 2010 at 2:17 PM
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