I got an Amazon Kindle last year and I've put 71 items on it, including Shibuki's "Tale of Genji", Byrne's "Messer Marco Polo", Loos' "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", Cabell's "Jurgen" and Jerome's "The Passing of the Third Floor Back". Anybody else have e-books or Kindles and what do you have on them?

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it, the other that you can boast about it. Bertrand Russell

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I loive my kindle. I haven't got that many books on mine yet but I have a lot of murder-mystery selections.

I have over 400 books.
The Daily deal is my downfall, as was the 12 days of Christmas package, and the fact tat so many classics are free.
I've just downloaded three sci fi titles recommended by my lovely brother in law, a copy of 'She Wolves of England'
Shakespeare on Toast and A Short History of Scotland.
Now all I need is the time to read them.

Oops. Make that 521 books.

Wow, Jabberwok! You've got a lot. It's so easy, isn't it?

tjoe, don't have it on my reader, but I've read Jerome's "The Passing of the Third Floor Back". I love his Three Men in a Boat. It's possibly the funniest novel I've ever read.

I have a Sony Reader. There are currently around 150 items on it. I've had it three years and haven't spent one cent on books. All the ones on it are free, mostly public domain books from Project Gutenberg.

The truly sad thing is that I got the kindle thinking that it would help reduce the number of physical books in the house.
But no. I still live in a small house with over 4,000 books and am still buying them in bookshops and charity shops as well as online. Is there a Bookaholics Anonymous?
Because all 3 of us could join, the only exception being my daughter who has only one bookcase and is a nerd.

Think I need to join too, Jabberwok. Son says that for every new book I buy (and that includes charity shop finds)I have to get rid of two. I've resorted to leaving them in the boot of the car and then nipping out to salvage them whilst he's out or asleep. Many are also hidden in the wardrobe with the idea of varying the saying "Oh, that old thing - I've had it for ages!". Trouble is, I'm not a very good liar

I have 60 books on my Kindle, with the two newest being Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" and "Passing of the Third Floor Back" (thanks for the recommendations. )
I pay minimal for my books as I like to check out the free books as well, but I have bit the bullet a few times and paid for a few.

Last week, I actually downloaded a game of Solitaire cards, and that's taking up way too much of my time.

I only have four books on mine so far - one "Frost" book (or, to be exact, a "Frost" prequel, by James Henry), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and two books written by a dear friend - Donna Hosie - two books, in a trilogy, about a modern-day Arthur and his Knights (Searching for Arthur and The Fire of Merlin)

Whats on my Kindle........dust mainly.

Can't get along with it........if I try to read a book whilst passenger in a car, bus, train...whatever, after a few minutes I feel queasy. For some reason I find the Kindle has exactly the same effect.

I have lots of books but not, interestingly enough, my own.

Right now I am reading Deadly Decision by Kathy Reichs on my Kindle.

I love my Kindle. I didn't think I would but I have so many physical books that space is a real problem so I bought the Kindle Fire HD when it came out. I have around 120 books on it - deal of the day is such a temptation, but I have a lot of freebies or under £2 books on there as well. I've also noticed that some books that have been out of print for a while, although not out of copyright, seem to have been reissued in e.book form, especially Sci-Fi stuff. Currently reading "Jack The Bodiless" by Julian May which is the first in a trilogy (have the other two ready for when I've finished that one)

I must also confess the finding of a regrettable addiction to Angry Birds.

'Believing the Lie' - Elizabeth George is what I'm reading on Kindle right now.

I like Elizabeth George. I'm always impressed by her knowledge of British Police procedure and English geography, way of life etc. Some Briish authors don't get it as right as she does.

Me too. I really find Linley and Barbara Havers believable as characters. It was also very well done as a TV series.

Didn't know it was a TV series. What's it called?

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.

After a year or so of hesitation, I've finally taken the plunge and bought a Kindle, which arrived today.

I'm still trying to come to grips with it, so for the time being I've downloaded just three titles:

• To test the ordinary downloading from Amazon, our own skunkee's first novel
• To test the free downloading from Amazon, John Arbuthnot's "History of John Bull"
• To test downloading from other sites, a hundred-year-old British travel book called "The Hastings Road and the Happy Springs of Tunbridge"

On the whole, I think it's a good investment. I'm particularly attracted by the prospect of getting all sorts of free texts from Project Gutenberg and archive.org.

TabbyTom I nearly fell out of my chair in surprise to see you popping in to the kindle thread. I never would have expected you to go for one. Glad you are liking it so far.

I have to admit, though, that I haven't taken to mine at all. The first half dozen or so books I downloaded are all there. I read one or two of them, but really don't enjoy it half as much as reading a real book. I was hoping I'd like it more and thus buy ebooks rather than real ones, as space is getting very tight on my shelves, but it hasn't happened yet.

TabbyTom, be wary of Gutenberg's materials.
Hopefully they are working to improve the quality of the editing and formatting, but they were my choice of last resort.

Thanks for the warning. I haven't actually used anything from Gutenberg yet: the travel book that I downloaded came from archive.org. I've only taken a cursory look at it so far, but it seems to be OK. There are one or two typos, and an italic font has been turned into Roman, but the line drawings have come across well. All in all, good value for £0.00.

I looked at their stuff when it first came online, and it was dire. There were many complaints at the time, and the response was initially that all the work was done by volunteers who were amateurs, so the world should be grateful.
Then many of the texts were going to be edited and improved, so I'm delighted if that has been the case.
I'm all for classics available for free1

While I was continuing to play around with my nice new toy last night, I found that Amazon had given me a number of English and foreign-language dictionaries in my “Cloud”. So I bought Thomas Mann's “Wälsungenblut” (“The Blood of the Volsungs”) and read it, looking up the words in the German dictionary when I needed to. So far, I really like this bit of kit.

I've only seen one book at PG that would qualify as my last choice--and it is now fixed.

As a preparer or proofer of over 300 books at PG, I can tell you that the quality varies depending on the preparation team.

Where do you go for free books?

I tend to pick up English classics from Amazon, but as I said before, my problem was that I live in a house with over 4,000 books. I got a Kindle to hopefully save space and enable me to take a library in my bag wherever I go.
Only one of those has come true.
I have hard copies of most classics that I want to read, and I live in a reasonably well-off area of Sussex, the charity shops are amazing. All I have to do to acquire the latest 'must have' classic is to wait a few months and I can buy it second-hand for a few pounds.
I appreciate the huge effort that went into PG, that it is free access to texts and as I said, the people putting books online were all volunteers. But badly-edited books set my teeth on edge, and a number of those I looked at from PG fell into that category. I think poetry might have been a problem, it's a few years since I looked.
I'm perfectly delighted to be told that my impressions are out-of-date and that the situation has improved.

Back to the thread though, I downloaded 'The Song of Achilles' by Madeline Miller when it was a Daily Deal for 99p and am hoping that all the comparisons with Mary Renault are apt.

Ah, yes, I can see where poetry would be a problem. My work with PG was in the late 1990s and early 2000s and the formatting was not like it is now, very strict and mostly only in plain text. Today, most of the works are available in numerous formats. Dr David Widger has done wonders revamping old files.

I shall revisit the site, thank you!

Well, I've now read most of "The Hastings Road and the Happy Springs of Tunbridge" from archive.org, and I have to admit it's not quite as good a reproduction as I originally thought. There are a good many typos (though the only one that proved to be indecipherable was a Latin epitaph which came out looking like a comic strip string of cuss words). The line drawings are, however, perfectly reproduced.

On the whole I still think it's very good value for free. I'll try something from Gutenberg shortly, if only for comparison's sake.

I feel the same, Santana. I find my Kindle doesn't hold the charge very good, and it's much nicer to hold a physical book, personally. But I shall persevere with it