I’ve had a Kindle for a long time — I had one of the first versions through work, long before I had a smartphone or iPad, and thought it was great (but something I’d not have spent the $400 on myself.) As time went on, I found myself reading more on my iPad once I got it, and then I started getting annoyed by reading on my ipad, because I’d be reading along and a banner alert would pop up that I had a new email, or it was my turn in a game, or someone had a tweet for me. I missed reading on the Kindle without distractions (but I loved that I could read on the iPad in the dark). This Christmas, I got a new paperwhite, which is the best Kindle ever.<\/p>\n
And while it IS true that I spend more on e-books now than I do on paper books, and read paper books less, one of the things that I LOVE about the Kindle’s evolution is that now you can read library books on it. You couldn’t do that when the first Kindle came out. And the books you can read aren’t just B list books — right now I’m reading Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg, and I’m reading the second Harry Potter book aloud to Ingrid, for example. Downloading the books is SO EASY, all you need is a library card. For me, I use my work provided one (the university is a partner library) but you can use your municipal library card as well, in most areas. (And for Maine, anyone Mainer can have a Bangor Public Library card, so truly, anyone can use this system.)<\/p>\n
Here’s how it works*:<\/p>\n
Pro Tips:<\/p>\n
I really love being able to use my paperwhite for library books. I have read stuff that I wouldn’t have necessarily wanted to spend money on, but that I still found interesting and worth the read. Here are the directions from the website <\/a>on how to use the download library, and here’s a video explaining it as well:
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