100 Classic Book Collection
Read it and weep.
There's the rather obvious advantage that it's easier to carry a DS cartridge around than a hundred books. Also, books don't come with wireless options. 100 Classic Book Collection lets you download additional titles free of charge - though there were only 10 to choose from at the time of writing. You can also download rankings to find out which titles are most popular with other readers. The rankings are divided into categories so you can check out the top ten "happy", "exciting", "scary" books and so on. Shakespeare can rest soundly in his grave knowing that Nintendo DS readers find A Winter's Tale to be more "profound" than The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. Although not by much.
In addition, there are options to send a trial version to other DS handhelds, and exchange books with people who already have 100 Classic Book Collection. It's hard to see why you'd want to exchange books you've both already got, though, or could download anyway.
The offline features aren't much more exciting. You can search through the books on your shelf by title, genre or length. There are decent introductions and author biographies for each book. You can keep your place with electronic bookmarks, but there are no options to underline passages, add footnotes or scrawl pictures of male genitalia in the margins. When you finish a book, you'll be asked to mark it out of ten and can then choose a ranking labels to describe it - but only one, so a book can't be both "romantic" and "funny".
If you can't decide what you fancy reading, there's a stupid quiz to help you decide. A blinking owl asks you a series of questions, having first advised, "Please don't think too hard about your answers." He clearly hasn't thought too hard about the questions; they range from things like "Do you prefer thinking about things or taking action?" to "What do you like to drink after a meal - tea or coffee?" and "Do you prefer pop, rock or classical music?" (Turns out lazy tea-drinking Scooch fans are best suited to Hamlet, by the way.)
Then there are the hilarious background music options. Why not enhance your reading experience with the terrible plinky-plonky electro-harp of "Easy Listening", or hark back to the most boring text-based conversational interludes of the PSone Final Fantasy games with "Classic"?
"Beach" and "Moving Train" are at least vaguely reminiscent of the thing they're supposed to sound like. "Stream", however, is just white noise, making you feel like you're reading a book while trapped inside a broken television. "Forest" is like being trapped in a broken television with a load of birds. "Summer Day" is the terrifying and unending wall of noise which shall be the only audible sound once the nuclear holocaust is at an end and the cockroaches have conquered the Earth.
And that's about it. So for 20 quid, you're getting a hundred copyright-free books that are a pain to read and some fairly rubbish electronical features. It's not a brilliant deal, especially when you consider there's a similar application for iPhone which is free to download. It's much better, too, with more text on the screen at a time, sharper fonts and the option to choose white text on a black background.
Alternatively, at the risk of sounding like a hilarious old fuddy-duddy who goes round shaking their fist at lamp-posts and smashing up looms, you could just buy a book. You'll never have to wait for it to boot up. The batteries will never run out. You can read it in the bath. And if you live in Lewisham, you'll never have to worry about whether you can get it out on the bus without getting mugged, because no one will know what it is anyway. Joining a library is approximately 20 pounds cheaper than buying 100 Classic Book Collection, and besides - it's not as if Nintendo needs the money.