Sacrilege

I was sitting on the bench by the Park Avenue entrance to the library during my lunch hour today, reading Adam Goodheart's 1861:  The Civil War Awakening on my Sony Reader.  A couple of women office workers passed by, about to climb the steps.  One of them jokingly chided me, "It's sacrilege, sitting in front of the library and reading on one of those things!"

I laughed, "I'm getting used to it!  Times are changing."  When they came back down, I added, "I am reading a library book."  They were taken aback.  They had not known that the library offered e-books.  Her companion said that she had thought about buying an e-reader for a family member, but was hesitant.  She was glad to know that the library had e-books, "Awesome!"

And I am getting used to my Sony Reader.  It lives in my bag now.  The only problem with 1861 is the photos.  They are very small on the e-reader.  I have to make an enlarging movement on the screen with my fingers to get a good look at them.

One thing I like is something Eric the retired cataloger mentioned, the dictionary.  You touch and hold on the word, and a definition appears.  So often I have neglected to look up a word when reading because of the inconvenience of it.  The Sony PRS-T1 has a variety of dictionaries, including two in English, the New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of English.  The others are for French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.