Transylvanian Rhapsody

Sure, Amazon dropped the Kindle down to $299. But why go through the expense, plus the hassle of having it delivered, and then figuring out the buttons, when your e-read can be a free read?

I got an e-mail Tuesday from Barnes & Noble heralding the release of their eReader. All you have to do is go to the website and download it to your PC or Mac. Within two minutes, my virtual library appeared, stocked with six complimentary new books. Well, five plus the Merriam-Webster dictionary. And "new" is a relative term. All are culled from public domain B&N Classics text; the promotion saves you $25 on your e-books and a trip to the library.

It was a dark, semi-rainy night when I signed my soul away to the machine. See, I've been recalcitrent about the Kindle, and not because I'm married to wood pulp and rainforest evisceration. But B&N erased the obstacle of cost. So, anxious to dig in, I clicked on my e-copy of Dracula. A Gothic suspense story seems appropriate when you're not used to the right arrow key turning pages.

I chose single pages at first, then switched to book format (two side by side). But alas, prone to online scanning, the tandem style requires unnecessary eye readjustments. Less strain to zoom back to the top on the same vertical plane. Getting into the tale was brisk; I devoured pages rapaciously, for only so much text fit in the window. Soon enough, we'd coarsed through the forest to the castle, dined with the Count, and become trapped inside his cavernous manse. Meanwhile--I'll admit it--I was trapped, too, unwilling to set it down and go to sleep.

Reading on screen is harder in long stretches, but there's a primal urgency on a PC that's oddly suited to Bram Stoker. Though I'm hellbent on preserving books by not writing in them, there's no barrier here: I highlighted and annotated pellmell, knowing that I could delete notes at any time. The "Look Up" feature was sadly a ruse: what dictionary did I want, it asked me, unable to find any? How about the free one I downloaded, oh wise eReader? I opened it manually (an arduous three seconds) and searched for the unfamiliar word "goitre" on page 59. No dice from Merriam-Webster. But hey, at least there is a page 59! The Kindle, in contrast, gives unhelpful "location ranges" designed, I surmise, to lose your place. Just don't resize your page window if you want to revisit a page, or else it recalculates.

It's not as portable to eRead on your PC as on a Kindle. But I think the bug has bitten me. Oh, wait, those are teeth marks...