Newbie Kindle PW question; screen with authors

[dura]

For Christmas I got a brandnew Kindle Paperwhite 6.8 inch.
Compared to the Kobo H2O (first gen) I used for the past years the hardware is a step up; much faster screen, dark mode, more compact and I find it much prettier.

Software however is another thing; the Kobo has an author screen, showing 10 authors, selecting an author brings me to the books from this author. It follows the sort I enter in Calibre.
Very easy to browse on my large collection of 700 books build in the past decades and maintained on Calibre.
The Paperwhite only has a bookscreen showing 6 books. To add insult to injury these books are sorted on first name last name, the first writer showing up now is A. E. Rayne.
This is completely unusable, giving 115 screens only accesable if you happen to know the first names/ initials too.
I can’t be the only one who finds this a problem, van I?
Are there solutions? I tried giving each author a serie with the first letter of the family names of the author, but that didn’t work.
My questions are:
1) is it possible to show authors only?
2) is it possible to sort authors on their last name?
3) is it possible to show more then 6 units, collections, authors, books at the same time on the screen?

I did search the forums and the Net but couldn’t find anything.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by dura

1) is it possible to show authors only?

No. You can sort the list of books by author and then if you tap the "# of #" label at the bottom of the screen a dialog will pop up allowing you to jump to author names starting with whatever text you enter.

You could create a collection for each author, but then you would have to maintain them manually.

Originally Posted by dura

2) is it possible to sort authors on their last name?

Yes. Books with the author field in "Last, First" format will sort by last name but will display on the Kindle as "First Last". To do that you need to use calibre's author sort to populate the author field of Kindle books.

Originally Posted by dura

3) is it possible to show more then 6 units, collections, authors, books at the same time on the screen?

Not as far as I know.

[dura]

Thank you. Probably the best thing to do is not putting my whole collection on the reader but just a subset of say 15-20 books. Amazing that Amazon gives so much loving attention to its hardware but the software is so user-unfriendly compared to Kobo.

[jhowell]

Amazon’s user interface is definitely geared toward buy it, read it, forget it. That probably works for most customers.

[ZodWallop]

Man, sometimes I consider getting a Kindle, but the more I read about the software, the more crazymaking it seems.

Even my Nooks sort by author last name and can lay out all books in author order, or make stacks of books by the same author (or can display a list of author names).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Man, sometimes I consider getting a Kindle, but the more I read about the software, the more crazymaking it seems.

Even my Nooks sort by author last name and can lay out all books in author order, or make stacks of books by the same author (or can display a list of author names).

You can do the same on a Kindle, but sideloaded books must have their authors Last Name, First Name (as opposite to a Kobo) in order to do that.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You can do the same on a Kindle, but sideloaded books must have their authors Last Name, First Name (as opposite to a Kobo) in order to do that.

If I understand that correctly, it would mean changing my entire Calibre library for a Kindle. Which would then give me issues when loading to a Kobo or Nook.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

If I understand that correctly, it would mean changing my entire Calibre library for a Kindle. Which would then give me issues when loading to a Kobo or Nook.

I use Last Name, First Name as a default in my library and keep copies of those I load on my Kobos in a separate library (as I can't load my whole library to any ereader anyway, it's no real bother to keep a separate copy of a relatively small subset).

But you could also use a metadata plugboard for a Kindle.

[John F]

Originally Posted by dura

For Christmas I got a brandnew Kindle Paperwhite 6.8 inch.
Compared to the Kobo H2O (first gen) I used for the past years the hardware is a step up; much faster screen, more adaptable screen, dark mode, more compact and I find it much prettier.

...

what is your definition of an adaptable screen?

[dura]

Originally Posted by dura

For Christmas I got a brandnew Kindle Paperwhite 6.8 inch.
Compared to the Kobo H2O (first gen) I used for the past years the hardware is a step up; much faster screen, more adaptable screen, dark mode, more compact and I find it much prettier.

Software however is another thing; the Kobo has an author screen, showing 10 authors, selecting an author brings me to the books from this author. It follows the sort I enter in Calibre.
Very easy to browse on my large collection of 700 books build in the past decades and maintained on Calibre.
The Paperwhite only has a bookscreen showing 6 books. To add insult to injury these books are sorted on first name last name, the first writer showing up now is A. E. Rayne.
This is completely unusable, giving 115 screens only accesable if you happen to know the first names/ initials too.
I can’t be the only one who finds this a problem, van I?
Are there solutions? I tried giving each author a serie with the first letter of the family names of the author, but that didn’t work.
My questions are:
1) is it possible to show authors only?
2) is it possible to sort authors on their last name?
3) is it possible to show more then 6 units, collections, authors, books at the same time on the screen?

I did search the forums and the Net but couldn’t find anything.

Originally Posted by John F

what is your definition of an adaptable screen?

Coming to think of that, I have to take that back. On the Kindle there are two sliders, brightness and warmth, but in fact these settings are there on the Kobo too, in a different form. I’ll edit my first post, thanks.

[tomsem]

I think it is likely that we’ll have author grouping in a future update.

I seem to notice improvements to how the Author Page presents: going to Author Page from a Kindle book listing (on the web site) used to show other formats mixed in, and now it defaults to showing only Kindle editions. Like Series Grouping, they will no doubt have it reflect what is in the Kindle Store rather than doing it on-device.

[dura]

My idea now is, make a collection for each letter in the alphabet, put books by author with corresponding first letter of last name into the collection in calibre, and behold, there is a grouping by author. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to manage that using the Kindle Collections plug-in. Probably the PW11 isn’t yet supported?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by dura

My idea now is, make a collection for each letter in the alphabet, put books by author with corresponding first letter of last name into the collection in calibre, and behold, there is a grouping by author. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to manage that using the Kindle Collections plug-in. Probably the PW11 isn’t yet supported?

The Kindle Collections plugin only works with jailbroken modern Kindles, and you can't jailbreak the newest PW.

As to hopping to an author starting with a certain letter, you can do that even without collections. Sort by Author, tap on the lower right corner (page 1 from ...) and select the letter you want to go to.

[dura]

Ah, thanks a lot, I wondered why the plug-in seemed to work but I saw no results. And as far as I could detect, my PW11 with recent firmware cannot yet be jailbreaked.
Your solution is a nice workaround, I’ll try to get my authors properly sorted on Calibre. Right now on the Kindle they are sorted first name-last name, but that could be corrected.

[dura]

Next question then; can someone please explain to me how I can sent last name first neme with Calibre to the Kindle? Do I have to reorganise my library first?