Google Books on Kindle

In case you have also been taken in by Google's stories about how you can't read Google Books on Kindle, I have great news for you: it's simply not true. For some weird reason, I kept believing Google's claims and never checked it out for myself. Now, I finally decided to look into it and discovered that Google lies like a college administrator. Converting Google Books that come in e-pub format to Kindle's MOBI format is extremely easy and completely free. 

All you need to do is download Calibre (for free) from here, install it, and it will convert all your e-pub Google Books to the Kindle format in the matter of minutes. Then, you can either have the program send the converted books to your Kindle by e-mail, or just download them to the Kindle yourself via your USB cord. It's beyond simple, people.

I just downloaded three XIXth century Spanish novels that my library couldn't get for me for love or money. Did I mention how I adore my Kindle?

Ads on Kindle

Amazon has now released a cheaper version of the Kindle. The reason why it's cheaper is that it features ads. I can just imagine what reading will soon be turned into for those who decide to save a few bucks this way.

"And Don Quijote said to Sancho, "Remember, Sancho, that . . . the new Cottonelle ultra is not only extremely soft but absorbs liquids at a much higher rate than other brands of toilet paper."

"Anna Karenina wept when she realized that. . . Black & Decker household appliances are innovatively designed to not only make your life easier, but to match your unique style all around your home."

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by me. . . Campbell's Soups are heartier, healthier, and lower in sodium as testified by the American Heart Association."

Anti-Kindlers

Sarcozona sent me a link to the following story titled "Why I Don't Have a Kindle":

Yesterday, as I was exiting the bathroom I heard a large splash and realized my new book had slid into the toilet. Although the toilet was empty, I was grossed out enough that I had to go buy a new copy. If I had a Kindle, I thought, I could just download the book again and I wouldn't have to buy a new copy. Then I thought, if I had a Kindle, I would no longer have one that works.

Anti-Kindlers truly are a weird bunch. If we follow this line of reasoning we could say, "Sheesh, it's a good thing that I don't have a baby. Because if I'd dropped the baby into the toilet, then I wouldn't have one any more. And I'd probably face criminal charges."

One could also say, "A friend was going to work yesterday, tripped and broke her leg. It's a good thing I don't have a job!"

Or, "It's a good thing that nobody gave me a check for $1,000,000. Because if I'd dropped it in the toilet, I wouldn't have $1,000,000 any more."

Of course, the entire issue could be avoided if one tried not to wave babies, Kindles, books, checks or hand grenades around the toilet bowl, but who cares about easy solutions like that.

And yes, I realize that the piece was supposed to be humorous. I just don't have any sense of humor when it comes to the Kindle.

Kindle Singles

Very rarely do I criticize anything that has to do with the Kindle. I love it and I wouldn't be without it for any amount of money. However, this new invention by Amazon called Kindle Singles is annoying. Amazon's attempts to push it on faithful customers who have no interest in this weird format are even more annoying.

Kindle Singles are short essays (30 pages or so) on a variety of topics, each one of which is more idiotic than the next. Why would I want to read the story of somebody whose only claim to fame is that his father didn't manage to make money as an Amway employee? Or a weird "love story of a teenager hunted by a diabolical voice?"

Of course, people should read whatever rubbish they want in any silly format that suits them. What I find irksome, though, is that now the entire e-books page of the Kindle store is filled with these Kindle Singles that are interspersed with regular books. Also, Amazon keeps recommending them to me, even though I have no idea what in my buying history could have suggested that I might like either the content or the format.

I'm in a crabby mood today. If you are looking for the definition of the word "cantankerous," come meet me.

Gifting Kindle Books

Many people don't know that you can give Kindle books as gifts to people. All you need is the person's e-mail address. On the right-hand panel of the Kindle book you have chosen there is a button that you can press to give the book as a gift. 

Press it, enter the person's e-mail, and give them a nice surprise. All they will need to do is follow the link in the gift notification e-mail they will receive from Amazon and press the "Accept gift" button. Then, the book will arrive on their Kindle.

I just got my first Kindle book gift, so I'm very excited.

The Philosophy of Kindle Owning

After outselling hardcover books on Amazon a while ago, Kindle books have now finally overtaken the sales of paperbacks as well:

Amazon sold 115 e-books (not counting free ones) for every 100 paperbacks sold, during the first quarter of this year so far and that includes paperback books for which there is no Kindle edition.

But that isn't all. Kindle is also the most popular of all e-readers on the market (which is not surprising since it isn't really an e-reader. It's so much more):

The Wall Street Journal Blog's Dan Gallagher, after Amazon's 4th Qtr report Thursday, writes that while the Amazon Kindle is "far and away the most popular of the dedicated e-reader devices on the market".

Kindle is special in that it doesn't leave anybody indifferent. People either love it or hate it with a passion usually reserved for political leaders and movie stars. The only people who don't have an opinion about it are the ones who don't know it exists. If you read discussion boards of Kindle lovers, you will encounter statements like: "I love my Kindle so much, I'd donate a kidney to it if it needed it. And I only have one kidney." And if you think this person is kidding, then you have never met a Kindle owner. 

I was one of the early adopters of the Kindle who bought the very first, much bigger and less sophisticated version back in 2008. I'm still terrified of how much it cost, especially since at that time I couldn't afford it all. But as somebody who was finishing a dissertation and planning new classes while living part-time in two different countries, I could afford not to buy it even less. 

Now I'm on my second, much cheaper Kindle, while the first one has been given up for adoption to my sister. I still get to visit it, though, and spend time with it. And if you think I'm kidding, then you really have never met a Kindle owner.

"But it has DRM," people say. "How can you like a device with the DRM so much?" Well, guys, it could have a tail and horns, and I'd still love it. And don't call it a device. It's a Kindle. You don't ask people in reference to their partner, "Why do you like this mammal so much? He snores." Love isn't reasonable, you know. It just is. Many a student has alienated me by exclaiming, "Oh, what a cute e-reader you have!" An e-reader, indeed. A Nook is an e-reader. What I have is a Kindle. And if you don't see the difference, then you have never met a Kindle owner. 

P.S. "You like me, too, right?" asked the man who has been sharing his bed not only with me but with my Kindle as well for the past several years after hearing me go on and on about how fantastic my Kindle is. So I got him a Kindle of his own. Now he finally understands what it means to have a Kindle in one's life.

Contemporary Spanish Literature on Kindle

I had despaired of seeing contemporary Spanish authors appear in Kindle format. When I first got the KIndle, I used to enter Juan Goytisolo and Rosa Montero in the search line all the time. Soon I realized, though, that it was all in vain. Due to copyright restrictions, all we had accessible on Kindle were Spanish classics which had no copyright issues.

So last night I entered "Juan Goytisolo" in the search box just on reflex. And guess what? There is a whole collection of contemporary Spanish (and even some Latin American) writers that has appeared on Kindle. And the collection keeps growing. This happened some time late Fall when I was too exhausted by my weird schedule to notice anything around.  

You should have seen the state I was in at 3 am last night when I discovered these books on Kindle. My heart started racing, I was short of breath, and there were tears in my eyes.  Now I know what people who have won the lottery must feel. If you think that such a reaction to having these books within one's easy reach is exaggerated, then you don't know what it is to be a specialist in contemporary Spanish literature in North America. Whenever a new book by the author you specialize in is released, you either have to order it from Europe (insanely expensive and takes forever to get delivered), guilt trip your friends or colleagues who are travelling to Spain into bringing it back for you, wait until you get to travel to Spain yourself, or (and this is what I do more often than not) just sit there waiting for it to appear on Amazon while dying of curiosity and feelings of professional irrelevance.

The writers some of whose novels are now available on Kindle are: Juan Goytisolo (mostly his early fiction and essays for now), Juan Marse (two titles at this point), Carme Riera, Eduardo Mendoza, Rosa Montero, Miguel Delibes, Bryce Echenique, Alicia Gimenez Bartlett, Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Miguel Angel Asturias, Camilo Jose Cela, Terenci Moix, and others. The books are all quite cheap, ranging in price between $4 and $7. Anybody who has tried buying books by these authors in paper format (especially in North America) must be weeping with joy right now. Even if you are lucky enough to locate the book you need, it will cost you upwards of $20 plus shipping. There is a great store of Spanish-language literature in Montreal, which can locate and ship any book to you anywhere in Canada or the US. The amount you will have to pay for it, though, will terrify you. Now that these books have started appearing on Kindle - and quite cheaply, too, - this problem will be solved.

Now, the important part: how to find them? All you have to do is enter "Leer-e" (the name of the publishing house that makes the books available on Kindle) in the search box. I have a feeling that they will be bringing us a lot more books in the nearest future, so this is definitely a search that needs to be made often. Another good search for books in Spanish is "Digitalia", although their selection is not as exciting or cheap as Leer-e's.

Happy reading!

Lending and Borrowing Kindle Books. . .

. . . is finally possible!

A great New Year's gift from Amazon to all of us, Kindle-lovers: a Kindle-book lending program. Here is what Amazon has to say about it:

Eligible Kindle books can be loaned once for a period of 14 days. The borrower does not need to own a Kindle -- Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. Not all books are lendable -- it is up to the publisher or rights holder. Titles that are eligible for lending, as determined by the publisher or rights holder, will have a message on the product detail page. Scroll down to the "Product Details" section and look for "Lending: Enabled."

You can now choose to lend your book to anybody you want, as long as you specify their information on "Manage Your Kindle Page", according to the instructions provided here. Finally, we will be able to share our books with family members and friends. For now, lending will only be available in the US.

Read more about the Amazon Kindle-book lending program on this great blog that keeps us informed of all things Kindle. Here is some important details of the program to keep in mind:

You can lend ANY book JUST ONCE and never again.  As in the physical world, understandably, your lent book can't be read while it's lent to someone else.  The borrower gets it for 14 days MAXIMUM and it disappears from their Kindle and cannot be re-borrowed.  There's no stay of execution on that 14-day loan.  And then the book is no longer lendable.

These restrictions are very reasonable and easy to understand. As I said on multiple occasions, the Kindle is a gift that just keeps giving. It's truly the best thing I have ever owned. And now we can enjoy it even more than before.

More Books by Rendell Available on KIndle

Dear fellow Kindle owners,

more books by Ruth Rendell have appeared in the Amazon's Kindle store. There are now some well-known classics such as Going Wrong, Tree of Hands, The Veiled One: An Inspector Wexford Mystery, The Killing Doll, Live Flesh, and a few others that you can read on Kindle. The prices are more than decent. None of these books are priced at over $9.99, and many cost around $7.

I check Amazon's Kindle store for new books by Rendell almost every day. As you know, it always takes a while for us to get European books in Kindle format because of copyright constraints. Still, it's nice to see that Amazon is making significant efforts to keep its promise to bring every book to us in Kindle format. Enjoy!

Publishers Refuse to Enter the XXI Century

When the Kindle first appeared on the market, Amazon guaranteed that all new releases will cost $9.99 or less. Then, publishers realized that digital sales were cutting into their profits from over-priced hardcover editions and started raising Kindle book prices. First it was eleven dollars, then 12, then 14. Recently, they have gone completely nuts and started charging more for a digital copy (which, mind you, you can't share with your family and friends) than you will pay for a hard copy.

On the left you can see Ken Follett's Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy). I've been dying to read it because part of it is set in my country during the time of the revolution. So much garbage is written by English-speaking writers about that period in my country's history that I couldn't wait to see how Follett (famous for his absolutely hilarious books on medieval Europe) would approach the topic. And then I realized that the publishers were charging $19.99 for the Kindle version of the book. This, of course, is pure insanity. Kindle owners have been boycotting the book and posting one-star reviews of it on Amazon to attract the publishers' attention to the sheer idiocy of charging so much for a digital copy of the book.

Today, the price of Follett's book was lowered from $19.99 to $19.39. Obviously, the price will eventually go down a lot more. I have no doubt that in a couple of years I will be able to buy the Kindle version of the novel for as little as $7. If I am still interested, that is. It is very disheartening to observe how recalcitrant publishers are when it comes to giving up on outdated practices and embracing new technologies. One has to be completely clueless not to understand that the future of publishing lies with digital technologies. Early adopters of electronic reading devices are trend-setters in an area that will eventually overtake publishing altogether. Alienating today's Kindle owners and prospective buyers of digital books is a stupidity that, I hope, will cost these publishers dearly. Publishing houses who learn to ride this new wave of technology will end up creating customer loyalty and selling more books in all formats. Those who fail to realize that $30+ hardcovers are a thing of the past will end up going out of business. Good riddance, too.

P.S. None of this, of course, dampened my enthusiasm for my Kindle. If the publishers are idiots, the Kindle is not to blame. In the end, it will come out winning no matter what because it is that good.

High Fashion and the Kindle

I just discovered that Diane von Furstenberg, who - in case you don't know - is one of leading American fashion designers, now makes a line of Kindle cases. You can see one of them in the picture on the left.

In my opinion, this is a great sign. Even though the Kindle has many functions, it is first and foremost a reading device. If a leading fashion label think it makes sense to create a line that caters exclusively to the owners of electronic readers, this means that there are enough people out there who see reading as cool and fashionable.

American entertainment industry consistently markets reading as frumpy, unattractive and old-fashioned. In order to make people see brainless TV shows and stupid Hollywood movies as the only valid form of entertainment, mass media have done their best to present reading in this unflattering way. Now, extra efforts will need to be made to convince young people that there is nothing shameful and uncool about reading. This is especially challenging for young women. I spent years learning to be comfortable with being publicly bookish. So if a designer Kindle clutch makes it easier for young women to accept their inner reader, then that's definitely a great thing.

Scrabble on Kindle

Great news for Scrabble-loving Kindle-owners: our favorite game is finally available on Kindle. Unlike Shuffled Row and Every Word, SCRABBLE for Kindle isn't free. For me, however, the game is definitely worth the price.

I'm fascinated by language games and Scrabble is one of my favorite word games ever. The only problem is that I really suck at it. I'm not being coy about it, or anything. Believe me, my Scrabble skills are abismally poor. A long time ago, I stopped inflicting myself at those of my friends who play this game. I tried playing with strangers online, thinking that, since I don't know them, I won't feel bad by making them suffer through the frustration of playing with me. Eventually, though, I gave up after receiving several polite suggestions that I learn the rules before I subject people to my horrible Scrabble skills.

Now that SCRABBLE is available on Kindle, I can gratify my desire to play the game without making anybody suffer. The Kindle version of the game can be played against yourself, against the computer (at various levels of prowess), and against your friends. I was afraid that it would take the system forever to think of a move, but that turned out not to be the case. The game against the computer proceeds fast. There are in-built functions that help those of us whose Scrabble skills are poor. Graphically, the game is beautiful and very easy to play. The only problem with the game is that now I've been playing it for 2 days and keep putting off grading students' exams.

Why Is Kindle Advertisement So Uninspired?

When Amazon's Kindle first appeared on the market in December of 2007, it was a completely revolutionary device that changed forever the way people read, buy, publish and sell books. Since then, many other companies realized that the future belongs to electronic reading devices and started making and selling their own. I was one of the early adopters of the Kindle and my level of hapiness with this - I can't even bring myself to call it a device - beautiful thing keeps growing.

What I find very suprising, though, is Amazon's utter failure to advertise the Kindle. First TV commercials that featured it were really idiotic and incomprehensible even to someone who has been using the Kindle for years. The commercials consisted of some really silly cartoon where a person dropped it in the water and then dived in to recover it. A very weird and annoying song played in the background. All any reasonable person could deduce from this commercial was that the Kindle is water resistant, which it absolutely isn't. No actual characteristics and capabilities of the Kindle were even remotely referred to in this commercial.

Then last May, iPad hit the markets. Hardcore Kindlers like me know that in what concerns electronic reading the Kindle has significant advantages over the iPad. For one, the Kindle is a lot smaller and weighs a lot less than the bulky iPad. The Kindle is perfect to be carried in a woman's handbag, while the iPad requires a backpack to be carried with you at all times. The Kindle has its own keypad, so you don't have to touch the screen all the time, leaving nasty fingerprints on it. Another area in which Kindle is a lot better is that it can be read in direct sunlight. The iPad can't do that. Its screen works like a computer screen. You can't use it on the beach, on a picnic, or pretty much anywhere outside. This, of course, defeats the entire purpose of having an electronic reading device. (The iPad is actually significantly bigger than my netbook, which does fit into most of my handbags and is a real computer, with a real keyboard.)

So did Amazon do anything to publicize these crucial differences between the Kindle and the iPad? Not really. At least, not until today. I just saw for the first time ever a commercial that points out how useless the iPad is compared to the Kindle for reading on the beach. Today is September 19, and the whole topic of reading outside in the sunlight is kind of passé. This commercial would have made perfect sense in May and during the summer. What the hell is Amazon trying to achieve with these utterly inept and completely half-hearted attempts to promote the best thing they have ever come up with? This is enough to make a passionate Kindler very angry.

Free Word Games available for Kindle 2 and Kindle DX!

If you thought that your Kindle couldn't get any better, here is great news for you: now two free word games are available for your Kindle 2 or Kindle DX. For now, the games are only available for those of you whose Kindles are registered in the US.

Just go to your Archived Items, and the games should be there. Make sure your wireless is turned on at least for a couple of minutes in case you haven't turned it on yet today.

If you can't find the games among your Archived Items, you can find them here: Shuffled Row and here: Every Word.

Here you can find all the information you need about these free games.

Have fun!!!

A cheaper, smaller Kindle has now been released. You can see the picture on the left. Make sure you check it out. As a passionate Kindle lover who was one of the earliest adopters of the device, I can tell you that you don't know what you are missing if you don't have a Kindle.

If any of my readers feel like writing nasty things about the Kindle in the comments, please don't. Unless you have owned a Kindle for as long as I have and know it as well as I do, I'm sorry to say that I'm not really interested in anything bad any one can tell me about it. I kind of trust my actual experience more than anybody's hypothetical and baseless musings.

Publishers Fight Tooth and Nail for Their Right to Rip Off Readers

Andrew Wiley, a literary agent, got sick and tired of fighting with the huge publishing houses over the insanely high percentage of profits they insist on getting from the electronic editions of their titles. So he brokered a direct deal with Amazon to publish these titles at more affordable prices. Of course, the publishers immediately went nuts because their greatest fear right now is that readers will refuse to pay the crazy prices they are trying to charge for digital content. Random House, in particular, went total apeshit on Wiley, alleging (but failing to offer any proof) that the independent literary agent infringed on copyright restrictions:

' Random House responded with sheer thuggery, blacklisting Wylie in a clear attempt to scare other authors and their reps from trying the same thing. Other publishers also expressed outrage in different ways, like Macmillan CEO John Sargent, who railed about how Wylie’s exclusive deals excluded other e-devices like the Sony Reader (like Macmillan really cares about anything other than its own fortunes). What neither of these houses addressed is the $64,000 question: do they control e-book rights in contracts signed before anyone imagined that e-books might surpass print titles? Many feel the answer is no. '

The gall of these huge publishing houses is breath-taking. They have no proof whatsoever that they own the rights to these books but are fighting to death everybody who dares to publish them at less crazy prices. They got used to the inordinately high prices of hardcovers and want to cling to them at any cost. Since Amazon announced last week that its electronic books now outsell hardcovers, they are doing all they can to impose the same insane prices on digital content. That, of course, is daylight robbery.

Kindle Update Version 2.5

Attention Kindle-owners:

The long-awaited update for the Kindle is now available. You can download it to you computer and then transfer to your device with the help of your USB cable. Then, use the Update button in your Settings.

Download the update from here.

This long-awaited update will finally give us separate folders for our book collections. You can place the same book into as many collections as you want. Deleting a book from a collection (or deleting the entire collection) will not delete the book from the device, so you don't have to worry.

We will also be able to tweet or post on Facebook our favorite quotes directly from the device. 

Two larger font sizes and clearer fonts will be made available through the update.

You will be able to see which places in the book you are reading were highlighted by other readers. This function is great fun because it allows you to see your book through the eyes of other readers.

My update is loading right now, and I expect to spend the entire night ecstatically sorting my books and putting them into different collections. Then I hope to finish reading Terry Eagleton's beautiful treatise On Evil and write a review of this great book for my readers.

Have I mentioned how much I love my Kindle?

Amazon vs Macmillan: How Much Should an E-book Cost?

Macmillan is one of those book publishers who are so shameless and disgusting in their greed that they believe hardcover prices should be charged for e-books. Never mind that with an e-book you save tons of money on production and distribution costs. Never mind that an e-book does not require extra printings and can be published ad infinitum, as long as people want to buy it.

Book publishers refuse to recognize that the world has changed. New technologies have made their favorite practices of charging exorbitant prices for hardcovers completely obsolete. Still, they are trying to hang on to these gouging techniques in hope that somehow the new technology will just go away.

As a result of Macmillan's greed, Amazon was forced to pull the Kindle editions of their books from the Kindle Store. I'm happy that Amazon is resisting Macmillans idiotic behavior. Good job, Amazon! Let's punish these losers for their stupidity by refusing to buy their overpriced books.

P.S. Sadly, Amazon has had to give in to the greedy bastards at Macmillan. Here is part of Amazon's statement:

'We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles.

We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book...

Of course, I'm boycotting stupid Macmillan. Their representative is bound to show up in my office trying to peddle their books as textbooks for my students. Is s/he in for a nasty reception!

Canadian Kindle!!!

Now, it seems, the Kindle will finally be available to my fellow Canadians as well.

Here is the link to a great article on the subject by a fellow blogger and Kindle-lover. It contains many useful links that let you know how to proceed about owning a Kindle if you are Canadian.

It is extremely unfair that something as amazing as the Kindle should have been unavailable to people in Canada. Now finally my countrymen and women will be able to experience the delight of owning this wonderful device. Since I got my Kindle 1 year 6 months and 13 days ago, there hasn't been a single day that I didn't use it. It is the most convenient, beautiful, useful and amazing thing I have ever known.

The wireless access on the Canadian Kindle will unfortunately be limited. This happens because Canadian wireless providers are a huge, nasty mafia united in keeping the wireless costs incredibly high (as anybody who lives in Canada knows from sad personal experiences.) Still, on the Canadian Kindle you will still be able to download your books instantly and will also have the access to Wikipedia (or so it seems.)

Spanish Newspapers Finally Available on Kindle

I lost all hope of ever reading any newspapers from Spain on my Kindle a long time ago, so I haven't even been checking whether Amazon added this possibility or not. It is completely by chance that I discovered that the following newspapers are now available either for subscription or for a purchase of a single issue whenever you feel like it:
, , , and

I do not have words to explain what it means to a Hispanist to be able to read "El Pais" or "El Mundo" with my morning coffee the very day the issue comes out. Now, of course, I have the painful dilemma of which of these papers to choose to subscribe. Any suggestions are welcome in the next 14 days (while I explore my free trial possibilities.)

P.S. Turns out there is also the Mexican and the Brazilian

My Blog on Kindle!

My blog is finally available on Kindle!!! Here it is:
I still haven't learned how to make my Amazon blog page more visually attractive, so it's nothing much to look at. Still, I spend a lot of time looking at it because (as everybody here must have guessed already) I am profoundly in love with my Kindle.


The great thing about it is, of course, that every single link within the post is preserved and since Kindle has free wireless (now all over the world) you can jump to any link that interests you right from the Kindle blog page. It also preserves pictures (although not in color because the Kindle thankfully doesn't use color on its screen) and it also provides a different shade of ink for the quotes withing the body of the posts.


I didn't want it to cost anything but unfortunately Amazon isn't letting me control that. The funny thing is that I have to pay to receive it on the Kindle as well. It sounds weird that I would actually do it but it's so cool to see my own writing in the Kindle format that it's definitely worth it.


Now I will have to buy Kindles for the people I love in order to have some subscribers. :-)