Kobo has launched their subscription reading service Kobo Plus in Canada, three and a half years after starting with subscriptions in Holland and Belgium. The company notes, “Rakuten Kobo recognizes books as the next frontier for subscriptions in Canada. Further, Kobo has seen demand for this service in global markets.” It is priced at $9.99…
eReaders
WH Smith Was The Potential Barnes & Noble Buyer
The WSJ names the “book retailer” that made offers to buy Barnes & Noble last spring that fell apart on June 19, as described in Demos Parneros’s defamation and breach of contract lawsuit against the retailer, and the company’s answer to those charges and countersuit. “People familiar with the situation say it was WH Smith…
Briefs: Obama Picks, BuzzFeed Book Club, New Kindle, And More
Picks Barack Obama published a few pre-election reading recommendations. They include How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt and The Broken Ladder by Keith Payne, in addition to magazine pieces by Matthew Desmond and Yoni Appelbaum. BuzzFeed has finally launched the monthly book club, they have been talking about for a while. Family Trust by Kathy Wang is the inaugural…
New Kindle Oasis Is Waterproof
Amazon announced its new ereader, the Kindle Oasis, on Wednesday morning after a banner ad for the Amazon Android app leaked some of the details. The new device is waterproof: “it’s designed to withstand getting splashed at the beach or dropped in the bath tub, hot tub, or pool.” It also has a fast-charging battery…
Barnes & Noble Officially Recalls 147,000 Nook Tablet 7-Inch Chargers
Working the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Barnes & Noble has formally recalled the power adapter sold with their recently-introduced Nook Tablet 7-inch model. The bookseller stopped selling the tablet in early January after a few (now four) reports of “the adapter casing breaking apart while still in the socket” and recommended informally that customers stop using the…
Barnes & Noble Tells New Nook Tablet Owners to Stop Using Adapter, Pending Replacement and Possible Recall
An internal Barnes & Noble memo posted on 9to5 Google and cited by a store employee on Reddit on Friday showed a January 9 advisory telling store managers to return all the recently-released $50 Nook Tablets to the company’s distribution center. At the same time, the tablets are listed as “not available” on the company’s web…