A nook for hiding a Nook

A couple of weeks back, I purchased a Nook. This was partly due to wanting to become familiar with how to use this particular e-reader (the one marketed by Barnes and Noble) so that I can help library patrons use theirs and show them how to download e-books from the library. I did not expect to find it as enjoyable as I have for personal use. I got (naturally) the small and simple version, which is about the size of a thin, smallish paperback book, weighing in at under 8 ounces, yet holding up to 1000 books. It is designed to encourage you to purchase books from B&N, of course, but I can download things free from the library and have discovered that B&N also has over a million titles available free, all sorts of things from children's books to classics to nonfiction.

Turns out the size is perfect for reading in bed, too, and the cats don't seem as inclined to bump up against it the way they did regular books.

I did not get a custom-fit cover for mine, but since I am using it more and more, I decided it needs a cover/case to prevent it getting damaged. So I made my own.

This is a 7"x9" journal that I had filled up some years ago. The cover design is taken from the ninth-century illuminated Book of Kells. This is the classic example of Celtic illumination, and the colors even on this reproduction are rich and warm. The journal is only about half an inch thick, but that was enough for me to cut out space inside in which to place the Nook.

I had downloaded instructions a year or so back about how to turn a book into a box and it was fairly simple to do, although a bit time-consuming. Basically I cut out the pages with a box cutter, glued the edges together with white glue, clamped it between a couple of board down in the Tom's shop and left it to dry overnight. In the morning it took some cleaning up inside, but when I was done, it was a perfect fit.

Tom suggested I use some Velcro dots on the cover page and the box part so that it will stay shut when I am carrying it, which I plan to do.

I showed it to a friend who was visiting this evening and he laughed. It reminded him, he said, of when he was in high school and they would put Popular Mechanics covers over Playboy magazine so people wouldn't know what they were "reading". I pointed out that I am reading a history of Zen Buddhism on the Nook right now, so it is not naughty. But he still laughed.
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FYI, I chose to get the Nook because the library had not been able to offer downloads to Kindle, the popular Amazon e-reader. That changed right about the time I bought the Nook. The fancier versions of both Nook and Kindle, though, besides costing more, are basically tablets-with-e-reader capacity. They are larger and heavier of necessity, and I already have a laptop that provides me with all they offer and more. As it turns out, I was able to synchronize my Nook with my laptop for free -- so I can read things I have downloaded to the Nook on the computer if I want. This gives me a better screen size for things like comics and illustrations that are too small on the little Nook screen.