Travis and Michelle Fitzgerald's blog

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This is the really addictive part of the Kindle! It’s a device I pick up and always have good things to read. Click a button and 30 seconds later my new book is ready to read: I love wireless! At first I was concerned (I was petrified! Thinking I could never live without you by my side…wait, that started with “afraid”) that I would either spend a bunch recreating my library or that I’d only use the Kindle for brain candy. Not so! I’ve found several sources for free books (Amazon store available directly on the Kindle, Project Gutenberg, Baen.com) and found that older books tend to be cheaper than new. You can also email documents to Amazon for translation into a Kindle format.

On the other hand, not all books are available digitally– ESPECIALLY the older-but-still-copyrighted books. There’s a few of my books in storage (heh, almost wrote ‘stowage”) that I had a sudden urge to read and thought – no problem! Download! But alas, it was not meant to be. I clicked on the Amazon “tell the publisher” button, but who knows when that will bear fruit.

Another thing you can download from Amazon is book samples. Similar to the main webpage, many books have the first chapter or two available for free to decide whether you like the book. So far I’ve bought two books based on samples…and decided not to buy about ten.

So what’s on my Kindle? No, you don’t get the full list, but here’s a taste of the 33 items:
On Basilisk Station – David Weber (free, on shelf)
Chalice – Robin McKinley (bought, not on shelf)
My Man Jeeves – PG Wodehouse (free, not on shelf)
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (free, not on shelf)
Eragon – Christopher Paolini (bought, not on shelf)
The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde (bought, not on shelf)
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (free, not on shelf)
The Art of War – Sun Tzu (free, not on shelf)
Whose Body? – Dorothy Sayers (bought, on shelf)
Soulless – Gail Carriger (bought, not on shelf)
The Marvelous Land of Oz – L. Frank Baum (free, used to be on shelf as a kid)
The Lark and the Wren – Mercedes Lackey (free, on shelf)
Mutineer’s Moon – David Weber (free, on shelf)

And I still have 1,472 MB free.