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A while ago I replaced my old Nook e-readers with Kobo Formas. I really enjoyed the original Nooks, they had good size, excellent battery life, e-ink screens, good ergonomics, and I ended up doing a lot of reading on them. Later I got the Nook Color HD+ when it came out. But I never really took to that reader. Maybe because it was trying to be more an Android device than a book.

Most of the books I read on those devices were public domain. I'm a big fan of Project Gutenberg. I did end up buying some books from B&N for variety or to have an easily portable copy of a favorite.

I was quite disappointed when B&N decided to stop supporting the original Nooks. I could still read my books on those devices until they die, but couldn't purchase any new books. Because of DRM, there is no practical way to port those books to another non-B&N reader. As a result, I've decided to not buy another B&N device or anymore ebooks from B&N.

I picked the Kobo as my new reader because it is just that, a reader. Purpose built. It is about paperback dimensions, e-ink display, lightweight, and comes with the option of sizeable memory (32GB). The size is that nice compromise where it is large enough to be enjoyable reading (unlike a phone) and small enough to be easily transportable (unlike a tablet). The reading experience is good. You can sideload content through USB or play on the cloud of your choice.

The only gripe I have is that the power button was rather finicky when new and not broken in. It can be hard to turn on/off. The good news is, it doesn't accidentally turn on/off. After some use, the button appears to start responding a little more reasonably or maybe you just get used to how you need to push it. Sleep mode is very easy to activate if you have a cover (which why wouldn't you have a cover on something with which is mostly screen?).

At present, it is also relatively easy to store an archived copy of books you purchase from Kobo in a DRM free epubs form. So you can migrate your content to your next reader no matter what reader you go to next.

So I've been loading a lot of content from Gutenberg, some DRM free epubs I bought from O'Reilly back when they published books, epubs bought from Baen Books, PDF's of local trails, epubs I've created.

I've also been buying ebooks. I'm looking forward to the day when I am spending a lot of my time travelling, have considerably more reading hours, and want a portable library.

You can be the judge if I'm manipulating Kobo or if they are manipulating me. I will browse my favorite authors, books that I love, new stuff I might be interested in. If I see something that is cheap, it goes in my cart right away. If I see something that's more than I'm willing to spend for that title, it goes on my wish-list. I regularly review my wish-list, going through every page looking at the prices. I tend to stop buying books until I seeing something(s) in my way cheap classification. I find if I haven't bought a book in a week or two, something on my wish-list or something else I am searching for will show up cheap ($1.99-$2.99). When I get one of the ultra-cheap offers, I will usually add something else because I want to reinforce the algorithm (if I only ever take the deep sale item, they'll stop playing the game). I've gotten a lot of awesome reads for less than $5, so if this be the music of manipulation, play on, play on.