<p>UCSD…, would you provide me a link? Free is a good deal. I haven’t downloaded any books yet, but free tells me it is time to start.</p>
<p>Not if I have to replace the ka-zillion books I’ve got now. And what do I do if I want something that isn’t on the net or Amazon (yes, there are such things.) I’m sticking to ol’fashioned paper. </p>
<p>For out of print, I like [AbeBooks:</a> New & Used Books, Textbooks, Rare & Out of Print Books](<a href=“http://www.abebooks.com%5DAbeBooks:”>http://www.abebooks.com)</p>
<p>For public domain, I like [Main</a> Page - Gutenberg](<a href=“http://www.gutenberg.org%5DMain”>http://www.gutenberg.org)</p>
<p>I saw this Sony product at Costco (in their book section!) the other day:</p>
<p>[Category</a> Page for the bookworm](<a href=“http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644533366]Category”>http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644533366)</p>
<p>Is it similar to Kindle? Sony says you can get 100 classics for free. Sounds tempting…</p>
<p>I’ve ordered one. Although I don’t think that I will stop buying books, I’m really excited about the concept and don’t mind being an early adopter in this instance. I have three or four books going simultaneously and like the idea of having them all easily accessible while I travel. Also, I think my eyes will welcome the ability to change font size, and know that I will use the annotation and highlighting features quite a bit. </p>
<p>The Kindle Store content needs to improve substantially, but I’m hoping that Amazon is well positioned to add to its current library. However, chances are that I am just buying a very expensive white plastic “paperweight.” It would be smarter to wait before buying. :)</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, Kindle is better than Sony’s version.</p>
<p>justanothermom, let us know how you like it.</p>
<p>I probably wont buy a kindle, but I do read books on my Palm pilot- I can see much easier with the lighted screen & like being able to carry around lots of books with me- not as big as the kindle- but then I can get my palm and my cell phone in a little bag</p>
<p>( currently reading Atonement to prepare for the film version)</p>
<p>Im waiting for Apple to come out with an update for their PDA</p>
<p>justanothermom, expecting a full report.</p>
<p>There are alot of old books scanned and available for free on-line. Here is one site:[The</a> Literature Network: Online classic literature, poems, and quotes. Essays & Summaries](<a href=“http://www.online-literature.com/author_index.php]The”>The Literature Network: Online classic literature, poems, and quotes. Essays & Summaries)</p>
<p>This summer all 9th grade honors english students had to read four books including Uncle Tom’s cabin. As usual, my son was doing his reading in August and I remembered that my daughter did that particular book as an audio because the library was out of it and I didn’t feel like buying it. Anyway, I googled “Uncle Tom’s cabin, free audio” and came up with this site: [LibriVox</a> » Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe](<a href=“http://librivox.org/uncle-toms-cabin-by-harriet-beecher-stowe/]LibriVox”>LibriVox) This non-profit has a goal of making all public domain books available as free audio books. My son ended up listening to some of it and then I got him his own copy. This particular book is written in a hard to understand dialect so the audio was interesting to hear. You can also read the books on the site instead of downloading the audio.</p>
<p>In response to searchingavalon - -you can read a kindle on an airplane, but not during take-off and landing, since it is an electronic device. </p>
<p>I don’t plan to get a kindle – too expensive, plus the books are too expensive. I get 99% of my books from the library. :)</p>
<p>I would be afraid to buy Kindle. It sounds like a terrific marketing plan and a terrific marketing plan is designed to separate you from your dollars. I saw an interview of Jeff Bezos and he said the goal of Kindle was to reduce the “friction” involved with buying a book - meaning to make the process so easy that the consumer will buy more books. </p>
<p>I would say that they have succeeded with Kindle. It sounds like all you have to do is scroll to a book title and click on it and enter a password - you don’t even have to reach for your wallet to get out your credit card. A minute later you can start reading. That would make it far too easy (tempting) for me. Other than that, I think it sounds like a phenomenal product. It seems to be very well thought out - even to the point of storing all of your purchases and personal margin notes back on their servers so that if you should ever lose or damage your Kindle, all of its contents can be replaced for free. I can imagine that commuters on trains and buses would love it.</p>
<p>I played with one at Costco (it was ~ $100 less than Amazon sells it for), it was pretty cool. Relatively easy to handle. But I dunno, I like the feel and texture of books.</p>
<p>I have not heard from Amazon yet as to estimated delivery date, so that report might take a little while. If I don’t chicken out and cancel the order, I’ll be sure to report once I get it. </p>
<p>I don’t believe the Kindle is for everyone. It might, just might, be useful and even cheaper for someone like me. I buy lots and lots of books: paperback, hardcover, and I even have different translations of the same book. I highlight, underline, and annotate books so much that my family has been known to buy additional copies of the same book because they find my copy so distracting. Needless to say, we have books piled in every corner of the house and boxes of books that I don’t get to see very often but can’t seem to be able to give away. The Kindle store content has to improve quite a bit to replace all the books I buy (as of today, it has none of the books that I’m currently reading), but I’m hoping that this will improve in the future. If nothing else, it should help a bit with the clutter.</p>
<p>I might get something like that when my eyes give out and I need larger print all the time, but only then.</p>
<p>Hunt,</p>
<p>That was a big consideration when ordering the Kindle. My eyesight is a mess, and I find reading a struggle particularly at night. I’m hoping that the ability to decrease/increase the font will be a HUGE bonus for me. I can see, though, how the additional page turning resulting from the bigger font might be too distracting.</p>
<p>Livribox is a great resource! I have volunteered in the past, and I wish I had more time to do more of it. Because there are oftentimes many different voices and accents narrating just one book, I find the recordings frequently distracting. Ive enjoyed recording more than listening to those same recordings. Thankfully, many disagree with that assessment.</p>
<p>justanothermom, when you get your date of shipment, would you post the date? I’m curious.</p>
<p>I just realized how good this would be for a reader in a country like China where books in English are hard to come by and you wouldn’t want to buy them because then you would have to bring them home when it’s time for a return. </p>
<p>This would be a godsend if they had college textbooks too.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want college textbooks on there, I prefer highlighting or bookmarking specific pages. Plus most textbooks are larger in size, making more info visible. It’s a great idea for books but I don’t think it would work too well for textbooks.</p>
<p>Great for recreational reading at your own leisure, but I can picture a college kid buying a hard to find reading requirement and losing this right before a test. Would be a torture if the book wasn’t widely available, which has been the case for most of the material I have read for college.</p>
<p>My H, like E-kitty, reads books on his Palm Pilot. He is currently on a Mark Twain kick, having exhausted Dickens. Some sources (first is his favorite):</p>
<p>[Literature.org</a> - The Online Literature Library](<a href=“http://www.literature.org/]Literature.org”>http://www.literature.org/)
[Free</a> books for download from webmesh](<a href=“http://www.webmesh.co.uk/freebooks.htm]Free”>Free Books for Download From Webmesh)
[The</a> Online Books Page](<a href=“http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/]The”>The Online Books Page)</p>
<p>I am waiting until the price goes down. But think of the advantages. I think getting the larger font available and better backlit will be great for us too vain for reading glasses. Think how nice it will be to read the newspaper at the beach and not have to worry about the wind whipping the pages. Google is currently in the process of putting every written word in the public domain available. Think of the opportunities of research and how books will be available with a touch of the screen. I think all textbook will be gone before you know it. How happy will I be knowing my kids will not have to lug those enormous backpacks. It will be much cheaper for school districts to purchase “tablets” that will have th ability to download textbooks, notes, etc. These tablets will be able to allow the student to “mark-up” the books with highlighters and of course have search functions for easy research. Yes, we are just seeing the beginning. NPR had an interesting E-learning report today. Soon the hallowed halls of the Ivy League can be accessed in Lahore, Shanghai, or even Rangoon. We have not even dented the surface in the use of remote learning with the flourishing of Skype, webinars, and podcasts. There is something to be said for the need of personal interaction in learning but for some this is not accessible. The brilliant kid in small town USA can now learn in completely new magnet e-school. Tutoring can be done with Skype to help a student 1000 miles away. Embrace the future as knowledge in general is coming us all to at fiber optic speed.</p>