Well, it's about time. Barnes & Noble is finally following up its string of solid eReaders with a web interface appropriately called NOOK for Web. While they are certainly lagging behind Amazon, that eBook juggernaut, this now means that NOOK books can be read on any device.

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While the rise of eBooks has been centered around Amazon's Kindle devices and the Apple iPad, the NOOK from the last big-box book seller Barnes & Noble has remained a noble, if distant, competitor. Now, B&N has announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Microsoft, forming a subsidiary company comprised of its digital and college businesses combined with $300 million from the software giant.

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Finally, the written word may have conquered all possible lighting scenarios. The new Nook Simple Touch is available for pre-order today and it has both an eInk display and a front-lighting feature dubbed "GlowLight," making it arguably the first eReader to be totally usable both in direct, glaring sunlight and also in the absence of any other light source. About time, am I right?

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The number of times that I have been asked "Graphic novel? Is that, um, pornography?" is not insignificant. I know it's something my mother has had to explain a few times after telling people what my hobbies and interests are. But the Nook apparently has a slightly different problem. Its system that allows writers to self-publish their ebooks to its network also allows them to choose what genre their work is displayed in... apparently without much moderation. Which means that there's a ton of porn in the Graphic Novel section. Or so Sascha Segan of PC Magazine found, while trying to pick up for Eric Shanower's Oz series.

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For how humongous and detailed the worlds in Elder Scrolls games tend to be, it is continually impressive that the huge, detailed worlds are filled with many long, detailed books. Elder Scrolls players tend to become obsessed with the books, collecting them and arranging them on the bookshelves in their in-game housing, to the point where users have madd mods for past iterations of the franchise installments that make the book-arranging an easier process. The problem, though, with the long, detailed in-game books are that they're long and detailed, and we have a world to explore and quests to complete. Now, however, capane.us has compiled all of the in-game Skyrim books and made them available for you to read on the go, in both Kindle and Nook formats.

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Though analysts had been expecting it, Barnes & Noble booksellers announced a new addition to their eReader line today: The Nook Tablet. However, calling this device an eReader is something of a disservice, as this latest Nook aims to be the hand-held multimedia device that also lets you read books on it. Now where have I heard that before? Here's what you need to know about the new device.

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This morning, editorial director of Marvel.com, Ryan Penagos, live tweeted from Barnes & Noble's NOOK event in New York City. Why was the Marvel employee in attendance? In addition to revealing their new Nook tablet, Barnes & Noble announced they would soon be carrying Marvel digital comics on the device in their first-ever electronic pairing with the bookseller. 

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Come this June, comic books will be sold in Barnes & Noble stores, according to Bleeding Cool. Store employees have been told to make room on the magazine shelves for both "mainstream and independent titles." (But mostly, comics that also happen to have movies coming out this summer.) So, what does this mean for small retailers and the inevitable switch to digital comics?

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Now that Borders has filed for bankruptcy and will be closing some of its stores (see if yours made the cut), this means something that is, indeed, still very good for books: liquidation sales. If you're one of those people who spent quiet evenings perusing the shelves of your local Borders without making a purchase, then now is the time to go for it. Your brain will be psyched and your wallet won't complain too much!

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On the heels of Barnes & Noble's Nook, Amazon has started implementing a new feature that allows Kindle users to "lend" their e-books to other Kindle users. The only catch is that unlike the B&N device, the ability to lend e-books will depend on the book's publisher. If the publisher has allowed lending, the option will appear in the Amazon listing (as pictured above) and will leave the original user's collection for 14 days. (via Wired)

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It's been observed in the past that the Nook Color, with its color LCD display and its Android operating system, blurs the line between e-reader and tablet computer; consider that line erased. The Nook-hacking community has rooted Barnes & Noble's $250 reader, and as the triumphal Angry Birds photo above indicates, this means that the Nook Color is now open to sideloaded Android apps. With an 800 MHz ARM Cortex A8-based processor, 512 MB RAM, and storage capacity of 2 GB, expandable to 16 GB with microSD (compare to the iPad's 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 256 MB RAM, and storage from 16 to 64 GB), that's not too shabby for the price. Full Nook Color rooting instructions available here, but be warned:

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Barnes & Noble announced a major update to their Nook e-reader line yesterday: The Nook Color. The device has a 7 inch full color LCD touchscreen with a 1024x600 resolution with 16 million colors, has a film on the screen to help reduce glare, runs on Android, has 8 gigabytes of storage, and has built-in WiFi, as well as integration with Facebook and Twitter. It'll be launching at a $249 price point and will be shipped starting November 19. Barnes & Noble seems to be marketing the Nook Color as a hybrid e-reader and tablet computer, though from various impressions around the web, the device is being met with mixed reviews. Read on past the jump for a mini round-up of praise and criticism.

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Owners of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader have long clamored for the ability to lend each other e-books, making them more like, you know, actual books. And Amazon has been listening: In a post on Amazon's Kindle Community forums, the Kindle team has announced that sometime later this year, Kindle book lending will become a reality. Though that reality probably will not make the anti-DRM set especially happy.

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Amazon has dropped the price of a Kindle 2 by almost 30%, from $259 to $189.  This announcement comes so hot on the heels Barnes & Noble's more affordable Nook announcements that it may have left scorch marks.

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The rumored NOOK Wi-Fi is rumor no longer: In a press release sent out this morning, Barnes & Noble confirmed that the WiFi-only version of their e-reader would start shipping this week at $150. What's more, the price for the current 3G model has been slashed from $260 down to $200.

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