Kindle

Ordered my Kindle last night, and I'm already getting jazzed about it. One of the first things that tickled me is, minutes after I'd ordered it, I was looking at books that were available, and saw a button to order a sample of one, so I did, and it automatically linked it to my Kindle. Today I've ordered a boatload of other samples and they're all already being queued up.

Actually, the way the site talks about it, I can't help imagine that somewhere in a box on a post office truck, my Kindle is quietly downloading dozens of books. Realistically it probably won't do that because they probably only let it download when it's turned on, and it's probably not turned on yet, either because it's not charged up, or because they don't want it to run down on its way to me. But it's still an amusing image, that wherever in the country it is, it's quietly readying itself for me.

I was also surprised to find out that there are dozens and dozens of books available for free. Like you'd guess, that's a lot of old classics that are in the public domain, and an alarming number of romance novels, but there's also a few very modern books -- in many cases, the first of a trilogy, in hopes they lure you into getting the others, no doubt. Still, my Kindle hasn't even gotten out of its box and already has about 30 books on it.

It also has samples of another couple of dozen, because so far, every Kindle edition I've seen offers a sample. Of course, that means you can easily order the full edition right from the Kindle -- another "that's how they get ya" moment -- but it also means I can try out every book to decide if it's worth owning.

The Kindle doesn't support Bluetooth audio, but my Bluetooth headphones came with a little transmitter-dongle I already use with my Archos. So I can load all the Audible audiobooks I already have onto it, and use Read To Me as well, with these headphones.

It should be here within a week. I can already tell I'm going to need to budget a second one, since it'll be hard for Siobhan and me to share one. (Another great thing: a second one can be linked to the same account, so all the books can be shared freely between them.)