Get thee behind me!--or at least in my back pocket...

[catsittingstill]

The Kindle is back in stock.  It was in stock yesterday, but I thought it was just a fluke.  But it's in stock today too.

It was a lot easier to resist when I thought I'd have to wait six weeks for it to arrive in any case.

Just for my own later reference, here are some books I've read recently or will read soon, and whether they're available in a Kindle-compatible e-book format.  Ones that are available without DRM are starred.

The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins-- not available for Kindle
Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll --not available
Pride and Prejudice--duh; I got it from manybooks for free--available*
Lord of the Isles by David Drake--again, read as an e-book--available*
(holds nose) There Will Be Dragons by John Ringo--available (though that's not a plus)*

Will be reading soon:
Small Favor by Jim Butcher--available
The Sharing Knife: Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold--not available (oddly enough it looks like an awful lot of her other books *are*.  Perhaps Passage isn't available yet because the hardback hasn't been released yet?)
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling--available
Jim Baen's Universe (online SF&F magazine; can be downloaded as PRC)--available (I've only read part of it so far--but the article about possibly buying time to deal with global warming by cooling the earth by raising its albedo was very interesting.)*

Some of my favorite writers who have at least some stuff available on Kindle
Elizabeth Moon
Lois McMaster Bujold
Barbara Hambly
Carole Nelson Douglas only has a couple of things and not any of the Irene books.
Charles De Lint has a few things, including Widdershins which I think is his latest.
Terry Pratchett
Charles Stross

but not
Steven Brust

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I am glad that EV-DO networking doesn't work/is unavailable in the UK.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-)

I can feel myself failing my saving throw vs shiny. The not-available-for-six-weeks was giving me a +4... and I think I needed it.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Do not need. Do not want. well actually do and do but can't afford right now. Perhaps in a year or so when more books are available.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-) There are benefits to sitting out the first round:

1) you get a better idea of whether this will fly long-term (a 400$ reader would potentially be an expensive regret if Amazon went out of the e-book selling business, for instance, though that might be somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Kindle can read non-Amazon e-books if they're in the right format).

2) next year the Kindle II may be out, with convenient new capabilities (the ability to store your books in separate folders, for instance, as an easy way to track what you've read, and find that latest book in such-and-such series, which you know you bought, but what was its name again?

3) Next year the price may come down.

So waiting a while may be a good idea for more than just immediate financial reasons.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Paul Krugman likes his so far. But you know, the price is roughly one airfare to most places in the USA.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Well, he does want more Stross.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

There are actually about half a dozen Stross books available from Amazon. Not any of the Merchant Princes books, though.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

the price is roughly one airfare to most places in the USA.

True. But the airfare is entertainment for, say a weekend, or at most a week. Having gone and come back, the money is gone, and while you hopefully have some good memories to show for it, you probably don't have much of anything else.

Whereas an e-book reader is something you can use for quite a bit longer.

I'll be interested to see what Paul Krugman has to say about his when he has had it a while.

Kindles

[joatsimeon.livejournal.com]

I've been enjoying mine thoroughly, and it's also been useful for carrying around manuscripts. The download function works well, the screen is easy on the eye, and it's a convenient handful for, eg., reading on the exercycle at the gym.

The storage function -- your purchases stay on your Amazon file and can be redownloaded for free if you delete them from the Kindle itself -- will also be useful. Sort of like having a big added storage facility for books.

-- S.M. Stirling

Re: Kindles

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Well, a lot of my e-books don't actually come from Amazon (Fictionwise, Baen Webscriptions, Manybooks.net, Tor's website promotion, etc) so I don't think Amazon will store those.

But SD cards are inexpensive and don't take much space.

And the Kindle was way useful for reviewing a manuscript the other day.

Hm. I didn't know you were on LJ. Is it okay if I friend you?