Kindle Tips

One of the underused features on the Amazon Kindle is borrowing.  Maybe others use it more, but I do not know many people that read a lot of the same type of material and frankly, the best thing about having a kindle is the ability to impulse read.  So I want a book, I can buy a book, right now.

If you do want to save some money or you just want to be generous and loan your books, lending/borrowing is worth looking into.

From the borrower side, really all you need to do is identify a book and request it from the owner, making sure that the owner of the book knows you kindle email address.  You will receive an email from Amazon with basic directions.  It is very simple.

From the lender side, you first need to figure out what books are lendable.  I use Lendle.me (review) to list all of my kindle books available to lend.  If you have a large library, it can take a while to get it organized.  Only about 10-15 percent of kindle books (depends a lot on the genre) are lendable.  There are a couple ways to find out.  One is look on the product page.  You will see:

If the page says ‘loan this book’ on a page that you have purchased the book then that is a lendable book.  Click that link. If you have not purchased the book yet, then in the product details about midway down the Amazon page you will see: Lending Enabled.  If there is nothing after ASIN, then the lending is not enabled on this book.

You can also sort through all of your books on you manage you kindle page (which is what I would do if you have lots of books you are trying to organize.  Once you open Manage my Kindle, choose just to look at book and then sort however you want.  Click on the ‘Action’ button on the right and you will either see ‘Loan this title’.  If you do not see that fifth option, the book is not lending enabled.

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It has been a while since I have had a reading tools post.  But after a couple months of using my new kindle, I thought it might be time to give my impressions.  The current generation of kindle comes in two basic options (Wifi only or 3G/Wifi), each with a Special Offers or a regular version.  I decided to get the Wifi only version with Special Offers.  Mostly because it was the cheapest kindle at the time.  Since I purchased my kindle (for $114), the Wifi only Kindle now regularly has a refurbished Wifi only Kindle in stock (with a same as new warranty) for $109.  And more importantly, a couple weeks ago, a 3G/Wifi Special Offers Kindle was introduced for $139.  I believe this is the best deal right now.

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I have been hit over and over and over again lately about how important it is to be intentional and regular in my bible study.  I have read through the bible multiple times.  I have a seminary degree and was a class short of a theology minor in college.  But I feel like scripture is more a knowledge thing than something that is in my soul.  What I can tell about most of the spiritual writers I read is that the real meaning of scripture has seeped into them.

So for the next year I am going to try a bible reading suggestion that I read recently.  I am going to spend six month at a time on a single book.  So my goal is 1) to read four books (mostly commentaries) about a particular book of the bible.  2) Read the book at least 10 times during the six months.  3) Memorize at least 10 verses of the book.  The goal is not study, it is soul work.

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It should be no surprise that I use the Kindle software.  I prefer reading on an actual Kindle, but about 2 months ago I broke the screen on my kindle and have not replaced it.  I am being intentional about this because I have a good number of paper books I need to read and I have both an iPad and an Android phone on which I can read my kindle library.  (And my wife has a kindle if I want to use her’s.)

As good of a system as the Amazon Kindle world is, it does not have nearly as many public domain books as Google Books.  Google has invested considerable resources into scanning all of the books of many major libraries.  There are about 3 million public domain books  in the Google library.  This dwarfs any other public domain collection.  As a system, I think Google books is pretty good.  I am not going to leave Amazon, at least in part because Google’s selection is smaller and price seems to be a bit higher.  Google was depending a lot on their agreement with the Author’s Guild to make their system the world wide leader in both paid and public domain books.  Since that agreement was blocked in court, Google is far behind in the recent book department.

This video is a pretty good introduction to how Google conceives of themselves.

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I am a big fan of coffee.  I drink a lot of it, every day.  It is not about the caffeine, I really like the taste.  And I like it fairly strong.  For the last few years I have used an AeroPress.  It is like a modified french press but designed to make espresso instead of brewed coffee (I used it to make americanos).

For Christmas we gave my sister in law a Keurig coffee maker.  She is the only coffee drinker in her house and we thought that a single serving coffee maker was a good idea.  From there my Mother in Law bought one.  And a couple weeks ago I broke down and bought this one (at Costco).

What people love is that the coffee is very to make.  You use little cups that you put in the coffee maker and the coffee is brewed in that little cup and drips into your cup.  Start to finish the water is heated and make in less than a minute.  The clean up is simply taking out the little plastic cup and putting in the next one.  It is also great for people that love a variety of coffee or households that have both regular and decaf drinkers (like ours).

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One of the big complaints about electronic media is the lack of support of library systems.  Because libraries lend at no cost and an electronic copy is the same as an original copy, many media (whether music, video or print) have been reluctant to give lending rights.  One of the few players in the electronic library world is OverDrive.  Over the past year they have really expanded their software to allow for much more and much better access.  I reviewed the iPhone app last year.

I thought the iPhone software was ok, but I was using it on an iPad and there was not native iPad app.  Since that original review an iPad app was released.  In addition, you can now check out ebooks, not just audiobooks.  So the iPad can be a fairly basic reader that allows library checkout of books.  The iPad reader is basic, but usable.

For audiobooks, I really prefer using my phone because it is the device that I am more likely to have with me all the time.  So when I bought an android phone a couple months ago I found that Overdrive had an android app.  Primarily, I am interested in the audiobook functions.  The android app also allows for ebook reading, but I already have a kindle account and do not really need ebook library functions (I have literally hundreds of unread books on my kindle account).

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