Amazon has just released a new feature that allows you to view (but not edit) your notes and highlights online (click on the graphic above for a full size screenshot). There are still a few bugs: when I first logged in to my Amazon Reading List
, I was only shown 13 total books from my bookshelf, but that updated when I selected to see more on a page (at which point I had pages and pages of books). Also, authors names are missing from a number of the books in the list. The list starts out claiming to be sorted by Title, but for some reason all books with no author listed sort first anyway (and not in alphabetic order, although those with authors are properly sorted) and when sorting by author, any authors whose name uses no capital letters get sorted first, before those with proper capitalization (and all after those with no author at all). You also can't sort on just those with content or do any searches, so be prepared to dig thru the list if there is something in particular you want to find. You can sort on your rating of the book (as well as the average customer rating), which means that if you rate the book as you finish it, you can at least sort the list and quickly see which ones are unread. As you can see in the above picture, any books where you have made annotations will have an entry under Content - the pencil shows you have made highlights, while the small block entry means you have notes. Click on the graphic or the book title and a page similar to this one appears:
After any notes or highlights you have made are shown (and highlights can be as brief as a blank line or as long as several paragraphs), you'll also see any customer reviews on the book (the same as those that display on the product page). If you want to view the product page for the book, click on the "See all Amazon.com Customer Reviews" link at the bottom on the screen, then on the title of the book at the top of the review page. From there, of course, you can view the original order details, if you want to see how much you paid for a particular title.
The feature is interesting, but needs quite a bit of work. First, I'd like to be able to edit the notes or remove them directly from this screen. Second, a large number of families are sharing their Kindles on a single account - there needs to be some method of letting each family member maintain their own set of notes and highlights (currently there is not) and then view/edit them individually. For those with iphones and Kindles and more than one adult, there is a need to indicate which iphone/kindle on the account should be linked for the purpose of notes, highlights and progress, while other Kindles are treated as stand-alone units. I know that every time my mother and I read the same book, the book seems to open to a "random" location each time I return -- it's where she left off, of course, not a random spot, but it is annoying, none-the-less.
To get to your Amazon Reading List
, just enter http://kindle.amazon.com into your web browser address bar, then log into your account.
