So, as I whittle my 900-boook library down to less than 100, I’ve started picking up eBooks as a new hobby. After all, audiobooks have been working really well for me, and I do so love to read….
I started with a couple of PDF books, one on travel writing, the other an ARC that I reviewed for a women’s lit book site. Then someone else emailed me for a review, which was kind of cool, and he sent me his PDF.
Then I thought about all the classic literature I have on my shelves, and I decided that I could store my favorite editions and put anything public domain and available on Project Gutenberg into storage.
Then I looked into a Sony Reader, bought one on eBay because it’s affordable and uses eInk, which is like HiDef for small devices.
Then I realized I could spend $200 on a year’s subscription to ebooks and get another (different, Rocketbook-compatible) reader included in the price. So…. I did.
Now I have two readers that work differently on which I can read utterly different DRM’s of content. I can open Rocketbook and fictionwise books, PDFs (though poorly, because Sony rather sucks in their implementation for PDFs), rtf/txt (of course), HTML, and uh, well, those are the biggies, actually. The big DRM formats seem to be Rocketbook (which is kind of deprecated because the Rocketbook company died a long time ago), PDF, Sony’s proprietary BBeB format, PeanutPress/eReader, and Mobipocket.
What I can’t read away from my computer right now are Mobipocket files, because I don’t really use my Clie anymore (though there’s really no reason I couldn’t just wipe everything off the clie and just use it for Mobipocket books….)
I have an eReader program for the Mac, and only a few eReader files anyway, old Asimov/Analog/F&SF magazines I bought a few years ago and still have available to me– eReader used to be a good choice for PDAs.
Meanwhile, I’m now getting content from Project Gutenberg (of course), Filament Books, Wowio, eBooks.com, and eBookwise.com. I haven’t really delved into the Sony bookstore yet, but what I can definitively say about ebooks is that there are a WHOLE LOT of them out there!
The addiction…. has begun….
Currently reading:
Lisey’s Story by Stephen King on audiobook
The 158 Pound Marriage by John Irving in paperback
Anti-Christ: A Satirical End of Days by Matthew Moses in PDF.