After seeing electronic book readers in the stores for a while now and then hearing my daughter-in-law raving about the one my son got her for Christmas, I decided to check them out. I searched Amazon.com who sells the Kindle and discovered they provide free Kindle for PC software for those of us who want to just check it out or who want Kindle books on our PCs instead or who don’t have wonderful spouses. I have to say Kindle is amazing and has reopened a whole new world for me. Along with the free software, I also downloaded several free books that sounded interesting. There are thousands of free books out there from numerous websites.
I have not been able to read a regular book in full in a couple years due to my eyes but I can read a book on my PC quite easily. I like that I can change the background and text colors as well as the text size to something comfortable for me. It bookmarks where I am at in a book so I can easily come back later. I love the highlighting and note options which make it very very easy to study a book and get back to important points. The clickable links in Kindle books is also very handy. The price of Kindle books is usually lower than a paper book and you get easy instant delivery online with no shipping fees. In fact I liked all this so much that I went ahead and bought a book I had already planned on buying and but now in the Kindle version. I read half the book in just one sitting because it was so easy! I should also mention that many popular newspapers, magazines and blogs are also available in Kindle subscription versions. They are automatically downloaded early in the morning daily, monthly, etc. I will have to start bugging my favorite RV magazines about going to Kindle.
Another great benefit is having a whole library on my computer that is limited only by the size of my hard drive space. When I get my handheld Kindle (and I will definitely be getting one of those too!), it can hold 3500 books. Imagine that! What a savings in storage space in an RV and no more having to give up books on my shelves to add new books. According to Amazon, the handhelds have special screens that you can see even in broad daylight while kicking back in your lounge chair with a cool drink and a good book. They can also connect to Amazon.com via either Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi and free 3G depending on the model you get. Of course you can also sync a handheld with Kindle for PC on your computer.
While looking at the Kindle for PC, I also discovered free software to organize both books and documents in numerous different formats. I can highly recommend Calibre for organizing your new library with tags to help find general types of books in your library like fiction and non-fiction, genres like mystery and how-to, or more specific like woodworking, cooking, full time rving, etc. I imported all the numerous document folders on my PC and can now find what I am looking for finally. That helps a lot with studying for school or projects.
If you also have trouble reading books or would like to carry 3500 books around to read at any time and anywhere, go get a Kindle or Kindle for PC software. It has changed my life and I am sure it will enhance yours as well!
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