Status: Works for me. No further updates planned.
Rook Reader is a "PDF" reader for the Nook Simple Touch designed for reading technical papers. It's simple, fast, and designed for two-column layouts (but also works for single column text).
The built-in Nook PDF reader is terrible for technical papers: reflow mode makes a mess of two-column text and figures, while layout mode shrinks the text into oblivion. At the same time, standard Android PDF readers aren't designed for the unique properties of eInk displays. And both are simply too slow on the Nook's limited CPU.
Rook takes a split approach. PDF files are pre-rendered on a real
computer by conv.py and Rook Reader simply views these pre-rendered
files. This makes Rook fast and also means we can put time into
pre-rendering pages nicely.
Rook has a full-page view and a thumbnail view. In thumbnail view, swipe or use the physical buttons to scroll and tap a page to view it. In the full-page view, move through pages using either the physical device buttons or by tapping at the top or bottom of the screen. From full-page view, you can re-enter thumbnail view by tapping the thumbnails icon to the right of the page.
On the desktop side, conv.py requires Poppler (specifically
poppler-utils) and the ImageMagick command-line tools. poppler-utils
0.20 or better is recommended, since earlier versions only accounted
for text when cropping the page, which could cut off figures.
Installing Rook Reader requires side-loading an APK, which requires a rooted Nook. Rook itself depends on an OpenIntents-enabled file browser such as OI File Manager.