Radical Paths To Reading

As I begin my reading adventure, it occurs to me that I'm setting out with a different set of tools than those I might have used in the past.  The digital age has provided so much selection for reading material, it's almost unreal.  Public domain classics are very readily available online.  What I find more compelling than merely pulling up a book in my browser is having my very own magic book to read anywhere in the house.

And that's just what I have.  I purchased a second hand Nook from my local used book store at a very reasonable price over the summer.  I must say, I do not regret that purchase.  I've very much enjoyed having practically any book I want at my fingertips anywhere I want to read it.  It's particularly useful on vacation or during a long bus ride.  Once I connected my Nook to a Barnes and Noble account, I could buy books and they could be sent directly to my Nook nearly instantly.  Not to mention Barnes and Noble offers a large number of free books.  I downloaded a selection of these and will be reviewing them as I go.

I would be deeply negligent if I failed to mention my public library system at this stage, because using my library card, I believe I can obtain many ebooks on my nook.  I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard great things.

I'm less familiar with Amazon's Kindle, but I'm sure it's similarly convenient.

One of my favorite things to do with my Nook so far has been (go ahead and laugh, I can't hear you) reading fan fiction.  Many fan fiction websites have Epub files of each work that can be easily downloaded and copied onto the nook.  There's even a program called FanFictionDownloader that will download files for you from a URL.  These Epub files work just like any other ebook, and they're legitimately rad.

But at least for now, the focus of this blog is published books.  I found a website that offers links to Epub files for public domain books called Open Culture.  Many of their links may go to files available through Project Gutenberg, which has a great collection of books.

I may also use audio books on occasion, because those totally count.  Shhh, I can't hear your protestations over my denial.

I have many great items on my reading list thanks to these great tools and my good old fashioned book case.