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Some months are busier than others; it’s almost the end of November and we’ve only just realised that we’ve been rather quiet lately. If you were wondering why, it’s because Rosie is currently ‘swanning’ around Paris and London, meeting delightful authors in random bookstores (bookstores make wonderful places to duck in out of the cold), and poor Ali (guess who’s writing this post) is left behind, chained to her desk, slogging away at stock updates and book reviews.

Knowing that I’m not going to garner much sympathy, let me tell you instead what I have been doing… playing with my shiny new eReader.

With the increasing availablity of eBooks in Australia and New Zealand it is a very exciting time to be in the book industry (and a little scarey and a little frustrating, but those are topics for another post). We’re seeing rapid advances in eReading devices as they get smaller, lighter, prettier and easier to use; it’s like the earlier days of the walkman (and is anyone else waiting to see if Apple comes up with the eReader equivilant of the iPod no-frills shuffle?).

For those who still haven’t decided if they want an eReader (or a Sony), my take on it all.

I have the Sony PS650 (touch screen) edition, in black, with the cover that includes a reading light (I am the queen of nerdom with my little book light illuminating the text as I walk around the house happily reading).

With the reading light cover it weighs 400grams, this is the same weight as the A-Format paperback version of  Lover Avenged (JR Ward). With no cover it weighs 200grams, which is the same weight as Gail Carriger’s Soulless (and if you don’t have this book to compare the weight, you’re missing out!). It is a lot thiner than your average paperback, making it very comfie to hold.

I like the touch screen, but I do tend to use the next page buttons to turn the pages most of the time. What I use the touch screen for is making notes for review and the dictionary. I love the dictinonary, I think this is one of the most delightful features of the whole eReading experiance, to actually be able to tap on an unfamilar word and have it’s meaning pop up is just wonderful… and there are several different installed dictionaries, including UK & US English, French->English, German and Italian.

The notes section is a bit hard to use, but that’s just because what I really want is a ‘next note’ button, rather than having to go back home, then back to the notes, then into the next note. If I used the software on the computer rather than trying to look at the notes on the eReader, this would be a lot easier.

I haven’t yet used the audio functionality. I have my audio books on my little baby iPod shuffle, so as the PS650 doesn’t have speakers at all I don’t imagine that I will go to the effort of moving my audio books onto it and plugging in headphones.

I had issues with the Syncing, it seems that if you press the ‘sync now’ button it just reinstalls the books on your eReader, meaning that I ended up with mulitple copies. You’d think this wouldn’t be TOO much of a problem, untill you try to open up a book on your eReader that has DRM… which by default seem to mean no more than three copies, so as I had gone over that all I got was a warning message that I couldn’t view my book as I had exceeded the DRM licence. The work around was to delete ALL the copies from my eReader and from the PC software and then redownload them again (making sure that I have unsynced now and just manually move books to my eReader).

I would also love to be able to change which ‘collection’ is displayed when I turn my eReader on. I’m a bit of a organiser freak, so would like to have my books all neatly organised into different folders – but there isn’t a lot of point if I can’t have the ‘TBR’ collection sitting as my home page (although I’m sure this will be come an issue once I’ve got more books added).

My favourite aspect of having an eReader is that it has opened doors to new and/or smaller/independant publishers. I had never heard of Barbour Publishing until given the oppertunity to read Lydia’s Charm (my first ever Amish Romance), and I’m finally able to read books from Carina Press (and we’ve played with the code a little in the bookstore so that if we have the eBook showing on fang you’ll be able to buy it easily).

I have really been enjoying reading eBooks and I did wonder if my enjoyment would stop me purchasing physical books. Thinking about it, the answer is no, not yet. I am a re-reader. For me the eReader is a wonderful device to take travelling, and it is a wonderful device for reviewing books, but if I find a book I love, then I’m going to want to be able to read it over and over. I look at it like going to the library, reading a book, if you don’t like it you return it, if you do like it, you go to your favourite (local) bookstore and buy it so you can treasure it always. To me books are art, they’re not just a functional item, I treasure my books (yes, even the trashy ones), but despite years of book hording I am getting better at the art of culling my bookcases down to just a few [rooms of] treasured favourites. An eReader makes it even easier to work out which ones are treasured favourites. Future generations might come to find eReaders as a norm, but for me, I would miss a world without papercuts.