On the Nook and my Dad

The morning I write this post I have had the pleasant opportunity to sleep in, wake to make coffee, and sit at my kitchen table re-reading a sci-fi book I first read a couple years ago. I am reading on my e-reader, a Barnes and Noble Glowlight 4, using a DRM-free copy of an epub of the book I purchased and have sideloaded onto the reader. Reading for me is often an effort to stay focused as I am easily deterred by distractions. Today is no exception as I am distracted by the prospect of a new e-reader arriving in the mail soon, a birthday present to myself.

That new e-reader is the Barnes and Noble Glowlight 4 Plus. The updated (now waterproof and flat fronted) and slightly different reader than what I am using today. I am excited almost solely for the larger screen as I now have a reading chair and the start to a very comfortable setup in my bedroom at home, a place where I can focus more easily on reading with less distraction. I love, love (love!) reading when I am able to and what I am reading, much like what kind of music I am listening to, can easily set the tone for my day, week, and month ahead.

And still, I know it will be bittersweet to me at times. My dad (really, my stepdad, whom I consider to be my dad) read using Nooks of various models for years. He had just about every popular model until it degraded enough to need a new one. Some degraded because of the battery and were replaced by warranty. Some degraded because his sweat and hand oils were acidic and corrosive to the plastics of the device. Some were just very well loved and used thoroughly. Before he passed away in 2022, he was on his last Nook. A 2019 Nook Glowlight Plus which I helped my mom pick out and purchase for him during the Pandemic when his previous Nook was slowly failing. It is, in my opinion, the best incarnation of the Nook line yet. Similar to my Glowlight 4, and the current Glowlight 4e, it is soft to the touch, has a gorgeous e-ink screen, and comfortably clickable physical buttons for page turning and for the home (the Nook “n”) button.

When I tell you this man was well read, I mean he read and read and read some more. Supplied with hundreds of free books through the Nook store he read classics as well as new stuff, rarely ever spending much, if any, money. There wasn’t a night I would visit my parents where he wasn’t reading for at least an hour after dinner, before bed, or somewhere else in between. When I think of the Nook line of products, I think of him. When I think of reading, I think of him. When I think of a quiet life at home, surrounded by people I love, I think of him.

Before I started using Nook devices, I thought of e-reader devices very much like the reporters and reviewers at The Verge. I qualified a device on its overall technical specifications and its saleability. I’d ask questions like: how open is the product? Is it tied to one service alone? Does it integrate with things like Libby or OverDrive? What formats does it support? How responsive is the interface? What does a cost-benefit analysis of its features look like? Can I easily repair and replace a given part if it fails? Can it be rooted so I can integrate it with open source tech like Calibre or even Calibre-Web? Is it easily portable? Waterproof? How heavy is it? What does its ecosystem or accessories look like? Does it have a long warranty? How strong is the business behind it?

These questions often led to me purchasing popular, cheap, or hackable devices. Many years ago I was on some version of a Kindle 6” (7th generation) with slightly hacked access. Later on I moved to a Kobo 6” Clara HD which could access OverDrive and even my Pocket account for articles I saved online. I should note, however, that even after 4 years of owning that Kobo I never once read an article from Pocket nor a book from Overdrive on it. Not even once.

Suffice it to say, I liked to buy products based on how well reviewed they were by popular outlets or individuals whose opinion I respected. I bought things as I do sometimes; to have it even though I might not use it. Just knowing I had the best option aws its own source of accomplishment. Configuring a device to do things rather than doing things with the device. I dismissed brands like Barnes and Noble which were not looked as kindly upon, and still aren’t, by tech media. I focused on problems popularized in reviews: ease of access to content or services, the ability of a device to do all things, or the idea that a company needs to be set up to last for the next 30 years even though the products in question are only meant to serve its users for two to three.

And all the while, my dad would just read. Read, read, read he did. I don’t want to make him out to be some master of the universe or a holder of supreme insight because of how much he read. He read some trashy books and some classics and some stuff in between. He wasn’t perfect and he wasn’t amazingly worldly because he read so much. What he was, however, was happy and he certainly enjoyed his time reading. And I think this was, in some small way, part of why he was such a good man. He made time for himself. He found ways to dive into a world that wasn’t his own. He experienced new perspectives he might not have otherwise. And, most importantly, he came out the other side ready to focus on those around him after having had that time to himself.

Seeing that he was so much more of a regular reader than me, I asked him what he liked about his Nook so much. After all, it was such an inferior device by all the metrics and articles I had read that it had to be holding him back from reading even more. His answer was pretty simple. He liked reading on the Nook. He enjoyed getting some books for free, too, but he mostly just liked reading with it. Not being what I expected, I tried looking at my problem of reading from a different perspective. What was it that I liked about my e-readers or didn’t like? What do I see in devices on the market that I thought would make it more pleasant to read regularly? What about reading a paper book helped me reader that my e-readers didn’t?

I made a list of answers for myself. I wanted a light reader to hold in my hand because I like being able to hold up a mass market paperback in one hand. I wanted a reader with physical page buttons because I hated putting my fingers in front of the screen to turn pages, especially when reading at night, as it was one more constant distraction from the page. I wanted a reader which I could sideload epubs on - I have a lot of them - but also didn’t need to load on more than a few gigabytes worth and don’t mind copying them all over a USB cable. I didn’t want a ton of integrations to other things or apps to be paging through because that would be more distraction from reading. I wanted a device that acted a lot like a book because I can browse for books on my phone or my laptop.

It was late 2021, just after we had my dad’s Glowlight Plus replaced through its warranty for a bad battery, and Barnes and Noble had just released their Nook Glowlight 4. So I tried it out in a store and it felt a lot like what I was looking for. I bought one and loaded a few hundred epubs on there and have read relatively consistently since I got it. I still have drop-off periods where I stop reading for a bit, but they’re shorter. I still have to buy a book and copy it over a USB cable if I don’t want a Nook-only copy, but that isn’t as much of a strain given all my devices use USB-C (besides my iPhone). I still read physical books, too, but it’s not because my Nook is languishing. It’s because sometimes I end up in a physical store and I can never resist buying a few more physical books - especially when I find a deal. Plus, not everything is distributed in an electronic format.

When I sit to read now, I am happier. Not because I bought a new thing (though that does help, come on now). Not because I have found the one, end-all be-all solution to reading (like I said, I read on paper and my e-reader). Not because I am simply doing what my dad did. I am happier because I looked at what helped him be happy and I reverse engineered a little bit of what led him there in order to help myself. I am happy that what worked for him can work for me and so even now, well after his passing, we still have one more thing in common.

Were he here today and I showed him the new Glowlight 4 Plus, I know he’d say something like, “Heeyyyyy, that’s pretty nice,” but go home to read, well satisfied, on his 2019 Glowlight Plus. Of course, there would also be a Glowlight 4 Plus in the mail on its way to him, as a gift, because I loved him.