Once again, Barnes & Noble was ill-prepared when it comes to the nook.  Now, don’t get me wrong–I really, really love mine.  Since I got mine on the 8th of December, I’ve read somewhere in the vicinity of twelve books and can’t wait to read more.  But today, when I tried to buy the Sookie Stackhouse 8 book set (a really great deal!) and Under the Dome by Stephen King, my nook let me down for the first time.

Both books showed up under My B&N Library almost as soon as I bought them, but when you select either one, it takes you to a screen on the LCD prompting you to download them, not read them.  I tried multiple times and just had the download stall out at a message on the LCD telling me that it was queued and would finish in a few moments.  A few more times I had the download give me an error message on the eInk screen that the nook could not download the book and to try again later, or call B&N Customer Service for help.

I suspected it was a Christmas Day download server clog-up, and it turns out I was right.  The Barnes & Noble discussion boards are FULL of angry people who just got a nook from Santa, or just got a large B&N giftcard from Santa FOR their nook.  Nobody can download anything on their nook or even from the Barnes & Noble site for sideloading. The content servers appear to be totally frozen.

I was really looking forward to starting the new Stephen King, so count me among the annoyed today.  I have plenty of other content I can read, but I had my heart set on that book, and that’s the beauty of what is SUPPOSED to be an easy way to purchase and download books on a whim–instant gratification.  I really hope they get their act together and that someone comes into the office and fixes this cocked up download server mess.