A Look at Nook

Labor-saving devices are getting more complicated every day.

The new dishwasher is terrific, but the levers that raise and lower the upper rack are tricky. The new car can darn near drive itself--but only if one has mastered the two-hundred page instruction manual. And you already know that Fio considers vacuum cleaners too rocket scientisty for her Luddite brain.

First came Kindle and then came Nook. Santa gave Husband one of the latter for Christmas. Fio doesn't know about Kindle, but no written directions were provided with Nook and it is NOT what one would call user-friendly. Husband has studied the hard-to-find on-line information, driven ten miles over to the nearest B&N for mano a mano instruction twice, and waited on the telephone for almost two hours in order to get personal assistance.

He says he likes what Nook does, but so far Fio notes all it's done is cause him a lot of extra work.

Meanwhile she sits on the couch and turns the pages of her book with an easy flip of her hand.