Kindle for iPhone

Last night, I finished my first entire book — John Derbyshire’s “We Are Doomed,” about which more later — on Kindle for iPhone. Why? Because the book was $9.99 in its Kindle format, and roughly twice that much in paper. I needed not to spend the extra money. But it ended up a very pleasurable reading experience.

For one thing, Kindle recently updated its iPhone software so you can take notes and highlights. That’s baseline-level service, to be sure, but it really makes the reading experience on the phone that much more useful. And it offers an advantage over regular book-reading: I can easily look up every single highlight and note I took — no flipping around, trying to remember important passages — which will be useful, since I’ll be interviewing Derbyshire about the book on Saturday.

But it was also great, when I was done, to be able to slip my reading material into my pocket and move on down the road. What’s more, the Kindle app doesn’t really consume battery power too quickly.

I still don’t know if I’d want to read a novel in this format. But I’ve got a half-finished copy of Neil Sheehan’s “A Fiery Peace in a Cold War” at home that’s next on my list to finish. It’s a big, bulky book. I’m going to see if I can cheerfully return to lugging and grappling with such massive tomes. But an e-reader is looking much more attractive to me. Christmas, here I come!

Kindle on iPhone

I don’t have a Kindle — yet — but I do have an iPhone. So when Amazon announced yesterday that it’s making Kindle books available on an iPhone app, I took the plunge.

At my friend Ben’s urging, I decided to pick up Matt Miller’s The Tyranny of Dead Ideas. (Kind of depressing, so far. Apparently our generation of Americans is going to be poorer than our parents. The upside: We’ll still be relatively well-off economically. But it’s probably time for things like universal health care and other social safety net programs.) I couldn’t actually buy it through the Kindle app, so I went to Amazon.com on my iPhone. But the Amazon site refused to recognize me and my password on the iPhone, so I went to my computer.

Then I bought the book. For $10. Which, considering it’s a relatively new book still in hardback, made me kind of happy. And it was available on my phone just a few seconds after I made the computer purchase.

Which is all nice, but it still comes down to the reading experience. Here’s the thing: Reading a book on iPhone is not a relaxing way to end the day. I’d rather stick with paper.

On the other hand: I had to go up to Girard for a meeting this morning and took the El back into Center City. I used the time to read Matt Miller on the iPhone.

As a commuter-reading device, Kindle on iPhone’s pretty good. Mostly, though, I’d rather use it for books that I’m extracting information and ideas from rather than books I’m reading purely for pleasure: Non-fiction versus fiction, generally, though I doubt it breaks down that neatly. Even if I’m not skimming, I get the sensation of skimming because I’m thumbing between “pages” so quickly.

So I’ll probably continue to use it for Matt Miller/Thomas Ricks-type books. I’ll probably save up my money, though, to buy a paper copy of Robert Bolano’s latest.