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ok, so i will admit to several things...first that i am a little old lady who has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century...second, that i received a sony prs 600 for christmas because a) my eyesight is so bad that i "need" the larger fonts to be able to read without a magnifying glass and b) my son thought it was easier to buy me an e-reader than it was to build me a new bookcase...and third, that i do not understand all of these letter-thingies (drm, epub, cLit, etc) that all of you young folks seem to have a handle on...
since christmas day, i have purchased (and read) not only the 22 books i purchased from sony (and several "freebies")...but also, thanks to calibre, read many of my weekly/daily favorite news publications (yes, i somehow figured out how to "fetch news" using calibre) (a total, i am guessing, somewhere in the range of 35 to 40 publications)
my complaints re: sony are minimal...and, with the exception of my having already worn all of the silver finish off of the "next page" button, are NOT hardware related...i like the look, feel, and general appearance of my lovely RED reader...but here is the crux of my irritation with sony...primarily, the selection (actually the lack thereof) of books available at the sony reader library!!! i find more books at amazon that i "cannot live without" and probably more than i will ever be able to read in this lifetime!! i am not quite sure why an electronic version of a book can be available on amazon and not on sony...but that is the way it is...additionally, one of the books (Public Enemies) that i purchased from sony had little or no editing, and whoever published it, did not even run spell-check prior to making it available for purchase...(please pardon my own misspellings and errors in grammar, i am only a little old lady, not an author or book publisher) when i called sony customer service about it, the CSR was rather rude to me and had the attitude "well, you bought it and read it...why should we refund your money?" what a disservice to the author!
as an aside...i am extremely fond of amazon's stand regarding First Amendment rights in regard to book reviews and discussion forums...they post ALL book reviews; sony censors any book reviews they feel do not "ensure the best customer experience"...which explains why i have not yet seen anything less than a 4 star review...i have noticed that several books have a 2 or 3 star rating on the title page and only ONE 5 star review posted in the customer reviews section...some of my own reviews (admittedly 1 or 2 stars based on my own "customer experience") have, even WEEKS after i have written them, have not been approved by sony...three cheers for the "customer experience" at amazon and their support of the First Amendment!
but, i digress...all of that being said...my son purchased my sony prs600 from AMAZON...along with an amazon gift card so i chould purchase to my heart's content (actually just the limit of the gift card)...imagine our surprise on christmas day that i COULD NOT just plug in my device, click on my amazon selections and sit down with a nice cup of tea to enjoy my new toy???
yes, i have read many of these posts here, and understand that there are (complicated) work-arounds...yet, i do not really understand EXACTLY how to download an amazon or barnes and noble book to my sony...it all just seems to intricate for my little pea-brain...i dont WANT to work around...(when you are as old as i am, infantile temper-tantrums are an acceptable way of venting frustration, and one of the few benefits issued with one's medicare card and social security check)
so...it seems to me...that since i do not want to exercise all sorts of mental gyrations just to download a book from amazon and a book from barnes and noble, i have no choice but to purchase several different readers...a kindle for amazon, a nook (assuming that the nook was actually available for sale), a sony and now, perhaps an iThing
it would be so very NICE to just have ONE reader that was programed to accept a purchase from ALL of the e-book retailers and not have all of this frustration!!!
shall i wait for the kindle 3 and the nook 2 and iThing (revised)?
maybe i should just make my son build those bookcases anyway?
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