want *huge* books to be available.

[thorn]

i can't 'early adopt' the kindle -- even the 2 is out of my price-range for now, and i need to figure out whether there is enough material out there that i do want to read but don't feel i need to be able to bequeath to my nieces/nephews -- which would be pretty much anything i decided to annotate. assuming that right of first sale is *nowhere* on the kindle horizon.. and i want more people using them so there's better support like for the iPod; and it would be really nice if it would cost a bit less money; and i want color (lower priority, but desire's there). these are not complaints. i'm just part of a patient demographic.

as far as deciding how i would use it goes: a large attractor for me would be the availability of 'the really huge books' for kindle. books i've wanted to read for years, but that are just too big to haul with me on my commute. Atlas Shrugged. Dark Sun. (i've read The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but that one too. it's excellent, and others should be able to read it without messing up their backs & shoulders. and fingers. carry that one in your hand walking four miles a day until you're done with it, and believe me you'll feel it.)

is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace available in a kindle edition? i read that last summer; that would be another one for which the kindle would be the 'killer app'. my back, shoulder and arm got tired, and the book itself got fairly grimy, slightly damp on occasion.. anyway. you get my point. a really large book will be part of a person's life for a *while*, if one's main reading time is during a commute. kindle is not only good for carrying many titles -- it would be even better for carrying around those that weigh a ton. how about the OED and/or a set of encyclopedias, to help us understand what we're reading? maybe even centralized, whispernet access for all to both of those, without each individual even *having* to have their own copy loaded? how expensive could it be for amazon to let kindle owners look up a term or two every couple of weeks?

what do you-all think? the more i think about it, the more it kind of bugs me that my annotated kindle copies would be for my access only, for the duration of my, or amazon's lifetime. i wonder whether one can bequeath one's amazon account. *that's* an interesting thought. username & password in a sealed envelope left with lawyer...

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by thorn

the more i think about it, the more it kind of bugs me that my annotated kindle copies would be for my access only, for the duration of my, or amazon's lifetime.

I have not heard of anyone doing this, but you should be able to share your annotations with any other Kindle owner. They are stored as plain text, and the location within the ebook is particular to that ebook edition but does not change between Kindles. The new sync capability may do this automatically for all Kindle's registered to a single account (although I am not sure about this).

Originally Posted by thorn

assuming that right of first sale is *nowhere* on the kindle horizon..

I wonder if Amazon will eventually establish a resale market for Kindle ebooks. The only reason not to do so I can see is that it would annoy authors and publishers even more than they are now (e.g. with read aloud). Amazon is in a unique position to do this, because they have end to end control of the DRM and the Kindles. The ebook would be be deleted (by Amazon) from the sellers account and devices and authorized on the buyers account.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by thorn

i can't 'early adopt' the kindle -- even the 2 is out of my price-range for now, and i need to figure out whether there is enough material out there that i do want to read but don't feel i need to be able to bequeath to my nieces/nephews -- which would be pretty much anything i decided to annotate. assuming that right of first sale is *nowhere* on the kindle horizon.. and i want more people using them so there's better support like for the iPod; and it would be really nice if it would cost a bit less money; and i want color (lower priority, but desire's there). these are not complaints. i'm just part of a patient demographic.

as far as deciding how i would use it goes: a large attractor for me would be the availability of 'the really huge books' for kindle. books i've wanted to read for years, but that are just too big to haul with me on my commute. Atlas Shrugged. Dark Sun. (i've read The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but that one too. it's excellent, and others should be able to read it without messing up their backs & shoulders. and fingers. carry that one in your hand walking four miles a day until you're done with it, and believe me you'll feel it.)

is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace available in a kindle edition? i read that last summer; that would be another one for which the kindle would be the 'killer app'. my back, shoulder and arm got tired, and the book itself got fairly grimy, slightly damp on occasion.. anyway. you get my point. a really large book will be part of a person's life for a *while*, if one's main reading time is during a commute. kindle is not only good for carrying many titles -- it would be even better for carrying around those that weigh a ton. how about the OED and/or a set of encyclopedias, to help us understand what we're reading? maybe even centralized, whispernet access for all to both of those, without each individual even *having* to have their own copy loaded? how expensive could it be for amazon to let kindle owners look up a term or two every couple of weeks?

what do you-all think? the more i think about it, the more it kind of bugs me that my annotated kindle copies would be for my access only, for the duration of my, or amazon's lifetime. i wonder whether one can bequeath one's amazon account. *that's* an interesting thought. username & password in a sealed envelope left with lawyer...

There are really huge books available in the Public Domain at this web site, if older books are appealing, and depending on your definition of huge. Omnibus editions are by definition huge.

Some examples of omnibuses available. The complete Sherlock Holmes, The Nearly Complete works of HP Lovecraft, The E R Burroughs Mars stories, The Thousand and One Nights by Sir Richard F. Burton (10 Volumes in one e-book), The Raffles omnibus, and the complete works H R Haggard (In 9 omnibuses!) among others.

Large Novels include The Three Musketeers, Count of Monte Cristo, various large 19th century Russian novels, and others. (My mind is drawing a blank, but I know there others out there.)

All for free and all will fit into one e-book reader....

[JSWolf]

The Stand (uncut edition) is HUGE and available.

[Dragoro]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

There are really huge books available in the Public Domain at this web site, if older books are appealing, and depending on your definition of huge. Omnibus editions are by definition huge.

Some examples of omnibuses available. The complete Sherlock Holmes, The Nearly Complete works of HP Lovecraft, The E R Burroughs Mars stories, The Thousand and One Nights by Sir Richard F. Burton (10 Volumes in one e-book), The Raffles omnibus, and the complete works H R Haggard (In 9 omnibuses!) among others.

Large Novels include The Three Musketeers, Count of Monte Cristo, various large 19th century Russian novels, and others. (My mind is drawing a blank, but I know there others out there.)

All for free and all will fit into one e-book reader....

Where did you find that omnibus of hp lovecraft at?

NM found it.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by thorn

i can't 'early adopt' the kindle -- even the 2 is out of my price-range for now, and i need to figure out whether there is enough material out there that i do want to read but don't feel i need to be able to bequeath to my nieces/nephews -- which would be pretty much anything i decided to annotate. assuming that right of first sale is *nowhere* on the kindle horizon.. and i want more people using them so there's better support like for the iPod; and it would be really nice if it would cost a bit less money; and i want color (lower priority, but desire's there). these are not complaints. i'm just part of a patient demographic.

as far as deciding how i would use it goes: a large attractor for me would be the availability of 'the really huge books' for kindle. books i've wanted to read for years, but that are just too big to haul with me on my commute. Atlas Shrugged. Dark Sun. (i've read The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but that one too. it's excellent, and others should be able to read it without messing up their backs & shoulders. and fingers. carry that one in your hand walking four miles a day until you're done with it, and believe me you'll feel it.)

is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace available in a kindle edition? i read that last summer; that would be another one for which the kindle would be the 'killer app'. my back, shoulder and arm got tired, and the book itself got fairly grimy, slightly damp on occasion.. anyway. you get my point. a really large book will be part of a person's life for a *while*, if one's main reading time is during a commute. kindle is not only good for carrying many titles -- it would be even better for carrying around those that weigh a ton. how about the OED and/or a set of encyclopedias, to help us understand what we're reading? maybe even centralized, whispernet access for all to both of those, without each individual even *having* to have their own copy loaded? how expensive could it be for amazon to let kindle owners look up a term or two every couple of weeks?

what do you-all think? the more i think about it, the more it kind of bugs me that my annotated kindle copies would be for my access only, for the duration of my, or amazon's lifetime. i wonder whether one can bequeath one's amazon account. *that's* an interesting thought. username & password in a sealed envelope left with lawyer...

Technically, the "huge" books, when they finally get released, will run on the Kindle. I know this because I recently undertook to scan in "Atlas Shrugged", created an HTML file of it and then converted to Mobipocket (.prc). It's a monster file more than 1.5MB in size but it works just fine on my (original 64MB) Cybook Gen3. And we know that any non-DRM'd mobi ebook will be transferrable to a Kindle. In fact, my copy of "Atlas Shrugged" is one of those "how will it work on ebook reader XXXX" ebooks in my collection. BTW, having AS as an ebook makes it *much* more accessible.

Derek

[whitearrow]

The complete Shakespeare is available as a Kindle book; so is the complete Jane Austen. Both are huge files and work fine.

[StanDaMan]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

The complete Shakespeare is available as a Kindle book;

Hmm... I need to pick that up!

[brn_eyed_girl81]

And the complete Wizard of Oz series!

[meta]

I also want "Infinite Jest" as an e-book. Everyone go to the Amazon page and click the "I want this on Kindle" button please!

[g.i.poo]

Text Books.
If Amazon entered into partnerships with universities across the country to get text books available for the kindle you can be sure people would buy it en masse.

Nobody likes to haul massive text books around. If I could get all my textbooks onto a kindle and only had to bring that to class I would be a happy boy indeed.

Even course readers could be published as PDFs.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Some examples of omnibuses available. The complete Sherlock Holmes, The Nearly Complete works of HP Lovecraft, The E R Burroughs Mars stories, The Thousand and One Nights by Sir Richard F. Burton (10 Volumes in one e-book), The Raffles omnibus, and the complete works H R Haggard (In 9 omnibuses!) among others.

A minor correction: my "H. Rider Haggard" series is actually in 16 volumes, plus his autobiography as a separate book. The largest book I've created as a single volume is "The Complete Works of Plato".

[KindleKat]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I wonder if Amazon will eventually establish a resale market for Kindle ebooks. The only reason not to do so I can see is that it would annoy authors and publishers even more than they are now (e.g. with read aloud). Amazon is in a unique position to do this, because they have end to end control of the DRM and the Kindles. The ebook would be be deleted (by Amazon) from the sellers account and devices and authorized on the buyers account.

I don't know much about the subject, but how much pull would authors really have? If i buy something at a store and re-sell it later on on ebay or something, is that not the same thing? I guess the only difference is that it's digital and there is no real difference between "new" and "used"

[kevindorsey]

Originally Posted by KindleKat

I don't know much about the subject, but how much pull would authors really have? If i buy something at a store and re-sell it later on on ebay or something, is that not the same thing? I guess the only difference is that it's digital and there is no real difference between "new" and "used"

Yea, I think they need to rewrite some of these digital download rules.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by meta

I also want "Infinite Jest" as an e-book. Everyone go to the Amazon page and click the "I want this on Kindle" button please!

Your wish has come true.