Holy Crap, yay! Barnes and Nobles just launched their e-book store! Currently, the e-reader is free and is available for iphone/ipod, blackberry, mac, and windows. B&N e-books will also be compatible with Plastic Logics e-reader when it is released, however there are no plans to make the books compatible with Sony’s reader or the Amazon Kindle.

When you download the e-reader, you also will get a free Merriam Webster dictionary and some free classics to start you off. You can browse samples of books before you buy them and every purchase is backed up, so you can re-download without charge. {That is really important for me, because I’m disaster prone with all forms of technology.} There’s also that partnership with Google Books that will allow you to download any of the 500,000 public domain books for free. {Read the FAQ here.}

{I’m looking forward to reading this}

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love having real books, especially pretty ones. However, I have thousands at my home at the moment and that pile grows all the time. It will be nice to read e-books (and by the physical copy if I really like it.) Speaking of which, some recommendations…

This book was inspired by the book in the picture below {which is from the lovely boudoir of Alison from Frou Frou Fashionista.} Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro was the first chick-lit type book I ever read. {I had always been against the genre before Elegance.} I found the book so fun and interesting that I tracked down a vintage copy of A Guide to Elegance by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux, who was the directrice at Nina Ricci for quite some time. {I believe the book may have been put into print again.}

While some of the advice in the book may be a tad dated, most of it is still applicable. Above all, Madame Dariaux prizes elegance and chic over being fashionable. Certainly a woman after my own heart. I highly recommend the book. {Besides, it’s pretty!}

Images {via} Harper Collins & Frou Frou Fashionista