(also available for the Kindle
and as an Audiobook). I read the first two chapters on my Kindle (after converting the PDF to the Kindle format, free courtesy of Amazon's email conversion service). My first question is: do all books about Obama have to start with his speech to the Democratic Convention in 2004? Does his campaign hand out a "how to write a book about Barack" press kits that outline that first chapter for them? More later... In the meantime, read the intro and the first two chapters for free (pdf) or for those with a Kindle, download the free sample here .The rest of the "books" on the nightstand are ebooks - most on the Kindle, Amazon's ebook reader. Another on Barack Obama (and yes, it starts with the same "just before the convention" retrospective/impressions/interview) is Obama: From Promise to Power. Neither of these are attack books, but claim to offer a more impartial perspective (and perhaps a less politically self-serving) view of the Democratic Party's Presidential candidate. For McCain, I've only picked up Hard Call: The Art of Great Decisions so far - and it really can't be considered as more than a snapshot view of a portion of his life and one that happened long ago.
The last two are fiction, even if the first sounds like a political commentary: A Match Made in Hell (Nicki Styx, Book 2) and Exit Strategy (Nadia Stafford Series, Book 1).
I've had the kindle for a couple of months now and finished several books. Overall, it is in many ways a much better reading experience than many paper books. It's lightweight, so that huge trilogy Quicksilver (Quicksilver
, The Confusion and )The System of the World, by Neal Stephenson, that I've been meaning to read and weigh in at nine lbs. and an average of 900 pages per volume, instead has no weight at all. The same 10.3 oz. package holds them along with a couple hundred more books -- and many, many more can be stored on SD cards (along with MP3 music and audiobooks, which are large enough I'd recommend not storing them in your main Kindle memory). You can lay the Kindle flat when reading at the table (assuming you eat alone or are snubbing those with you) or read it in bed using only a single hand (actually, prop it on your knees and you only need a finger to bump the Next Page button now and then, no need to let your hands freeze because they have to hold the book open. And if you fall asleep - the Kindle automatically drops into a screensaver mode and saves your place.It's true, the buttons are big, so if you leave the Kindle on and pick it up by the sides, you'll often lose your place (then again, I've done this many times with paper books). But after a day or two you learn to do one of two things - either put it into screensaver mode when you set it down or pick it up by the bottom edge, where the keyboard is. With very few exceptions, the keys are dormant when reading and the chances of you mashing enough of them by accident to cause the Kindle to do anything is remote.
For those who prefer audiobooks, the Kindle handles them with ease (I've downloaded both MP3's and a few thru Audible and Overdrive - but not all DRM schemes work with the Kindle; then again, the same is true of some of my other MP3 players). These show up as entries (usually one per chapter) in the Books Table of Contents on the Kindle. You pick one to "read" and it plays in the foreground; leave the book adn the audio stops. Music MP3's can be loaded onto the Kindle or it's SD card via the supplied USB cable. These can then be played as a background while reading or performing other operations on the Kindle (Alt-P toggles play on and off). The only mode supported is shuffle, no playlists allowed, so this is obviously not a good choice for audiobooks. Then again, if you are listening to an audiobook, it isn't likely you want to then read another at the same time (although it would be handy for those trying to improve reading skills to listen and read at the same time, to the same book).
Rounding out the collection of "things I am reading" are a number of newsfeeds and blogs, also on the Kindle. But rather than having them update continuously, as with the subscription oriented blogs from Amazon, I update mine manually and use FeedBooks' Newstand application to automatically update them when I plug in the USB cable to the Kindle (you can also update via the built-in and free Whispernet from the "newspapers" themselves, after loading them manually the first time). Not all blogs or news feeds work well this way, though - unlike the Kindle's paid subscription to the New York Times, for example, the RSS feed only gets the first line or so and a headline. Many partial RSS feeds lack even a link to read the entire original article (something Feedbooks is working on), so you'll have to play around with this feature to find what feeds work well and which don't (or else use your phone or PC to read the news - which I still do as well).
