Dateline: Union Square, New York. This dispatch comes from Daily Heller roving correspondent Rick Meyerowitz.

 

"Went to Barnes and Noble. They had a brand new spiffy area built up in the front of the store to sell Nooks. It looked as if they were attempting to clone the sales look of an Apple store. They had big posters of the Nook, and I saw a bunch of Nooks in the glass cabinet. I was curious--I asked to see one. But they didn't have any.  Instead, the salesgirl handed me a very cheap plastic model of the Nook. It felt as if they'd popped it out of a bubble-plastic template. She told me it was all they had, and that even she hadn't seen a real one yet.

 

"There were six salespeople behind the counter waiting for curious consumers. They were going to take orders if they could. But all they could offer is a flimsy plastic dummy that doesn't do anything. I just held it and stared at it. It may as well have been a photo on a flat sheet of paper.

 

"All that is to preface my delight as I said to the young salesperson, 'Do I look like a Schnook? I'm not going to buy a Nook unless I can hold a real one.'"

 

On a related note. Is Nook (which is a little corner in a house, below), which rhymes with crook, hook, took, and zook, really as good a name as Kindle?