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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Amazon Kindle - What a Great Solution for Expats

Hi Everyone

I just love reading, and so does my husband. He always says that he doesn't buy the books, the books buy him - He just can't resist the temptation.

When we were posted in Venezuela it was really hard to find books in English. So if we wanted to read, we had to ask our family and friends to send us books to Venezuela, or we ordered them through Amazon.

Then we had to wait, sometimes even 2 weeks until the books arrived.

This is why I was so happy to learn about Amazon's great product - Amazon Kindle. What a life saver for expats who love reading but can't find English books in their host country, or have to order through Amazon and wait for the books to arrive.

Other than that - Have you ever thought how much room books take? and how heavy they are when you add them together?

When the packers packed our belongings in Canada they were joking and suggested that we open a book store.

I guess that by now you are wondering what is Amazon Kindle?

It is a software and hardware platform for reading electronic books, and it doesn't need to be attached to your computer.

All you need to do is decide what book you want to read, download it to your kindle and read wherever you want - At bed, on flight, bus etc'



Amazon converted so many books to electronic books, so you can find almost everything.

Just go over to Amazon and check Amazon's Kindle Reading Device.

Don't forget to come back and let me know what you think about it.

Sharon

5 comments:

  1. Hi Sharon, I'm @rosso on Twitter - I actually disagree about the Kindle because there are a ton of problems with DRM and the fact that Amazon is slowly forcing publishers to kowtow to their demands and pricing (look for the $9.99 debate online)

    Ebooks in general, though, I **totally endorse** and DO think they are a godsent for expats. I have a pretty in-depth guide to ebooks, format problems and devices to read them on on my tech blog (www.WhenIHaveTime.com)
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  2. Hi Sara

    Thank you for your comment.

    I will certainly look into all the issues you mentioned concerning Amazon Kindle.

    I was so happy to learn about your other blog, and what a great one.

    I was especially pleased to learn about other alternatives for reading e-books.

    I am sure many expats can use this information, and I have already subscribed to your tech blog.


    Sharon
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  3. Sharon,

    AFAIK, the Kindle won't work outside of the USA for various reasons, including:

    1) The Amazon store won't sell stuff to you if your address is outside the 50 states;
    2) They rely on a network which isn't available in Europe;

    For this reason, I opted for the Sony e-Book reader, which allows me to buy books -- although the selection isn't as good as Amazon.

    cheers
    @ahbleza
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  4. I'm a big reader and in rural China, there are NO English books. My solution is to purchase and download e-books - I just use my laptop for reading. I also purchase e-magazines on zinio.com and audiobooks on audible.com. not always the most convenient option, since you need a computer or ipod, but this allows me to indulge myself a little!
    ReplyDelete
  5. Globalgal and Security-risk - Thanks for your comments

    It made me realize how important it is for expats to read e-books in English

    I will therefore add this subject to my main website a.s.a.p

    Sharon
    ReplyDelete

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