I have something new to love. It looks like a wallet (an empty wallet). It’s 5-1/2 x 8 and 1/4 inch thick.
It’s my new Kindle from Amazon. And it’s how I’m reading books now. It’s one of my efforts to do away with “stuff.” I read over 150 books a year, and even though I mostly order them from Alibris.com, which has cheap used books, it was still costing me a lot, and then I had boxes and bags of books hanging around the house until I could find them good homes.
The Kindle holds 1,500 books in a digital form. Amazon has its own network for the Kindle, it works like your phone. When you need a new book, you just access the Amazon site through the Kindle, browse their list of books, and click on the ones you want. Brand new books that you’d pay $20 for a hard bound copy in a bookstore are $9.00. It takes about 1 minute for the whole book to download. There are almost 300,000 books available already, many of them are between $4-$9. The classics are free.
The batteries are great. It took about an hour to charge the Kindle initially and I read 3 books before it needed to be charged again. You can change the size of the type or have the book read aloud to you (even if it’s not an audio book).
The case folds back so the book can stand by itself. On your stomach, for example, when you're lying in bed. It's easy to hold, and it always keeps your place.
So far I really love this gadget.
4 comments:
Hi Jan,
It looks a really good idea...but are you able to make the print larger and easier to read? I find print so small these days.
The worst offenders are the labels on jars, packets etc.
Cheers.......Bernard
PS How do pay for the books downloaded...is it a subscription?
Yes, you can make the print 5 different sizes. The one I use is in the middle, so there are 2 sizes bigger. The typeface is very readable. I have to use reading glasses for small type, but I can read the Kindle without glasses.
The books are handled through your Amazon account. I've had an account there for a few years and the Kindle was all set up when I got it (I sense some Apple influence here, the whole thing works to well to have ever been tainted by the Gates people). I think you can set the account up when you order your Kindle through Amazon and it will come ready to go. It's not a subscription.
You can download a sample of the book if you want to check it out before you buy it. I sat down the first day and went through the lists and downloaded the first 10 books that caught my eye. Then I switched to offline, which saves batteries. I have had cell phones, digital cameras, and a laptop computer and bemoaned the crummy batteries in all of them. This is the first time I feel like the batteries do what they're supposed to do.
The cats like it, too. I can read and turn pages with one hand and pet a kitty on my lap with the other hand.
Thanks for all that...it's very useful.
When you said "The cats like it..
I wondered what you were going to say next!!
Actually did you know that 'kindle'
is the collective noun for a group of kittens? And I also discovered that a group of cats is called a 'clowder'.
Cheers......Bernard
I'll promptly stop calling my 4 cats a "herd." Kitty Clowder sounds like soup, though.
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