The Kindle Touch: Back from the Dead – Now What Kindle to Buy?

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Kindle TouchEvidently, a software upgrade was enough to bring the Kindle Touch (that hasn’t been sold new at Amazon in about 6 months) back from the dead.  The Touch has been available most of the last six months as refurbished, but not available new.

Last week, Amazon released a major update to the software for the Kindle Touch and today it is available, with new updated pictures and video showing the new user interface. Only the Wifi-only model is available.

So the question is What Kindle To buy? Should I buy a Kindle Touch, Kindle with Keyboard, Kindle Basic or Kindle Paperwhite?

Reasons to get a Kindle Touch – it is smaller than the Kindle with Keyboard, stil has text to speech, Audible support, whipersync for voice can be used without another device, and speakers.  Negative – the screen isn’t lighted, it isn’t quite as good as the paperwhite, does not have a 3G available and has smaller storage for books than the Kindle with Keyboard. The touch screen is also a different type than the paperwhite and has a slower response time than the paperwhite. Also no page turn buttons. The on-screen keyboard is noticeably slower than the Paperwhite on-screen keyboard.

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The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone–Especially Ourselves

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Takeaway: We do not always know why we do what we do, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to understand. I am a fan of behavioral economics.  Basically it is a cross between economics and psychology and sociology.  Behavioral Economics tries to understand why we do what we do. Contrary to the standard understanding … Read more

Kindles on Planes by Next Year

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I am a big fan of kindles.  I vastly prefer digital books (either audio or kindle) to paper.  Part of it is connivence, part of it is clutter.  The only real place that I read paper books instead of ebook is on a plane.  But soon I should be able to read a kindle throughout the … Read more

Offsite: Silence by Shusaku Endo

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Slow Church Blog has a post (from the book Besides the Bible: 100 Books that Have, Should or Will Create Christian Culture) about Shusaku Endo’s masterpiece book Silence.  It is Shusaku Endo’s birthday today, he would have been 90.  I coincidentally picked up Silence yesterday to start reading today. Here is the opening of the … Read more

Kindle Touch Software Upgrade Makes it More like the Paperwhite

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aThe Kindle Touch, a now discontinued, Kindle has a major software upgrade today.  The Touch now has an entirely new menu and interface to make it almost exactly like the Kindle Paperwhite. The new Kindle Touch Software upgrades the firmware to 5.3.2.1.

Whispersync for Voice (ability to sync in between Audible.com Audiobooks and Kindle books) is now working on the Touch.  I believe from reading the documentation that unlike the Paperwhite you can both listen to the audiobook and read the kindle book on the Touch directly.  The Paperwhite does not have speakers or headphone jack so this is one area where you might be better off with the older Touch than the newer Paperwhite.

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The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

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Summary: An intellectually satisfying novel about four college students on the verge of solving the mystery of a well-known but inscrutable renaissance document whose exegesis threatens to upend modern scholarship. Basically, The DaVinci Code without all the heresy.

The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in Venice anonymously in 1499, is an ambitious piece of literature. On the surface it appears to be a love story, told using multiple languages (some made up), including the occasional Egyptian hieroglyph. But scholars have long suspected that within the text lies another meaning, if only the code can be discovered and solved. Indeed, the first letters of each chapter combine to form an acrostic. The novel has resisted almost all attempts at full interpretation over the centuries–until now. And the truth is staggering.

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The Innocence of Father Brown by GK Chesterton

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Summary: A series of short stories, originally serialized, about a mystery solving priest.

I am trying to read more old books that have stood the test of time.  (And save some money.)  So I picked up the Innocence of Father Brown by GK Chesterton when I noticed that the audiobook was only $2.49 when you purchase the Kindle book (which is free.)

I have recently read the biography of CS Lewis and Chesterton is often compared favorably to Lewis.  They are very different authors, but both wrote theology/apologetics and fiction.  I have read Chesterton’s Orthodoxy in college, but I think that is the only full length book of his that I have read previously.

Chesterton’s Father Brown series is second only to Sherlock Holmes in popularity as a mystery series in Britain.  But it is very different sort of mystery series.  Sherlock Holmes is about deductive (scientific) reasoning.  Father Brown is more psychological and intuitive.  He understands the sin that is in people’s hearts.

What is most interesting about these stories is how often Father Brown either explains the crime (but has let the criminal go) or talks the criminal into confessing.  It is clear that Father Brown is solving crimes, but his primary interest is in the spiritual health of the criminal.

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