Barnes and Noble currently sells two different Nook e-readers, the Nook Glowlight with a six inch screen and the Nook Glowlight Plus, which was the first Nook with a 7.8 inch screen. These two devices are primarily geared towards reading ebooks for residents of the United States. The bookseller does not accept orders in Canada, the UK or any other country. Did you just get the Nook for Christmas? Here is everything you need to know.
Bookstore – Nook e-readers have a bookstore available right on the device. You can browse a curated selection on the landing page, that change every month. They tend to be seasonable, so you can find books right now that are good reads for Christmas and New Years. There is a large selection of other books, over a million. Most are from authors and publishers you have heard of before, but B&N does operate their own self-publishing program, but it is not as big or developed as Amazon or Kobos. The bookstore also accepts pre-orders of new titles that are coming out soon.
Nook Readouts – This program launched in 2015 and is available in the navigation bar. It offers a daily selection of addictive and compelling quick reads that can be enjoyed anytime and anywhere on all NOOK e-readers. The free one- to five-minute book excerpts and full articles from current issues of popular periodicals are tailored to customers’ favorite genres and subjects and optimized for sharing. There are also author interviews and Q/A’s.
Borrowing from the public library – The Nook supports ebooks borrowed from the public library. This includes Overdrive and others. The books need to be downloaded to your computer. Once you have the books downloaded to the PC/MAC you need to install Adobe Digital Editions. When you register an account, you need to enter these account details in the settings menu. You then can transfer ebooks from your PC to the Nook via USB cable. This is a bit of a workaround, but if you want to get free content, this is one of the only ways.
Freebie Fridays – Every Friday, the Nook editorial team select a NOOK Book to offer for free, and highlight the title on the NOOK Facebook and Twitter pages.  In most cases, these NOOK Books are free for a very limited time and, in some instances, the Friday that it’s highlighted may be the only opportunity to receive it at no charge. The weekly Free Fridays selection will be posted on their Facebook & Twitter page, and you can also find it featured each weekend at the top of our Free eBooks page.
Nook Book Club – Barnes and Noble used to run its bookclub in their retail stores, but due to the global pandemic, most of their stores are closed and they moved it online.  Discussion and book club selections are only available on the Facebook Page. The page is private, and readers have to apply, but they pretty well accept everyone. Discussion surrounding the book, is always hoping and at the end of the month, the author drops by and joins in on the fun, answering questions.
Long Battery Life – One of the big advantages of an E INK screen, is that it only draws power, when the state changes on the screen. This is why typically it can sit in standby mode for 3-6 months and still have battery left. On daily usage you can get around 1 month of battery life, before needing a recharge.
Front-lit display – The Nook pioneered the modern concept of the front-lit display and color temperature system. This has a series of white and amber LED lights that are on the bottom of the bezel and project light, evenly across the screen. The lights are not shining into your eyes, just illuminating the e-paper, so you can read at night. The brightness levels can be adjusted with a slider bar, to find the sweet spot.
E INK – The Nook e-readers use e-paper displays, which is the closest you will get to reading a real book. The background is typically grey and the text is black, and has great PPI. You can read for hours at a time and get no eyestrain, this is the real benefit of E INK technology.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
