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.