MM purchased an Amazon Kindle for me for our anniversary and one of my first purchases was the complete Jane Austen.  I’ve been re-reading and reading various novels of hers for the past few months (along with reading other more current things.)  Anyway, I read Northanger Abbey back in college and remembered it being very fun.  I’m re-reading Emma now, and already read Mansfield Park and Lady Susan, and re-read Sense and Sensibility.  The best part about the Kindle is that everything is with me all the time, and if I get tired of Jane Austen, I can just buy another book and it’s there immediately.  If the iPod is the greatest gift to those cool people who love music and can tell you who sings every single song practically regardless of genre (i.e. MM), the Kindle is the same for geeks who love to read.  Which isn’t to say that everything is available for it… Harry Potter is not, nor is John Grisham because they have “chosen” not to make their books available digitally.  But anything out of copyright is fair game (Mark Twain just came online).  Part of me wonders if maybe I should have been an English major, but then I remember who was majoring in English at Scripps and realize there’s no way I would have put up with those people (KHarold is, of course, excluded from this generalization.)

Some people lament the lack of the Kindle actually “feeling” like a book.  I understand that concern, and I don’t think Kindles will replace books.  But they will certainly lighten the luggage needed on a vacation, and there is something fundamentally cool about reading a book review in Entertainment Weekly and downloading a free sample of the book to test it first.  Did I forget to mention that part?  Most books have a free sample (usually the first chapter or two) so you can actually read enough of the book to see if you really want to buy it.  Most NY Bestsellers are available for $9.99, charged directly through amazon.  My Complete Jane Austen was about $5, if I remember right.  There are no ongoing subscription fees, and everything is wireless.  And not “wireless” like “I need to find a hotspot because I finished my book and I want something else.”  No no no.  Wireless like “Hey, do Sprint cell phones work here?  If they do, I can get my new book over the cell network!”  (The only places not covered by Sprint’s network are Alaska and Montana.  So, if you’re going there, download a bunch of books ahead of time.)

But what about the battery?  It lasts about a week if the wireless is mostly off, about 3 days if it’s mostly on and recharges in about 2 hours.  A replacement battery is $20 on amazon.

What if I run out of space on my Kindle for all of my books?  Delete them.  Amazon saves all of your purchases and you can reload them any time.  Want to read the newspaper?  Many are available for a subscription price.  (This isn’t my primary use of the Kindle, so I don’t have a lot of comments here… although the web browsing did work ok when I forgot my cell phone and needed to email MM from the Cheeseburger Milk and Apple playground.)

Some notable omissions to date: no J.D. Salinger, no Harper Lee.  Anything in the last three years is probably there, most “classics” are available, but there’s a gap (quickly being filled) between about 1900 and 2000 that is very hit and miss.  The most recent Scott Turow novels are available, but Witness, which is obviously quite a bit older, is not.