I recently bought a Kindle — something I swore I'd never do. There were so many reasons I didn't want one: I already owned too many print books I hadn't read; the screen was kind of crappy; Kindle books were too expensive; the device itself was expensive; and, perhaps most troubling — buying a Kindle felt like giving up on the publishing industry as I've known it. The worst part of the ebook model offered by Amazon was the inability to have the same kind of ownership over an ebook that I have over a physical book — I couldn't resell it, lend it, donate it, or burn it to survive the upcoming superpocalypse. And most of those issues are still not solved. But there was one clincher that swayed things in the Kindle's favor: after going on a business trip with a book that weighed more than my laptop, I really wanted theoption to have a super-light, super-portable gizmo for plane trips. And a few of the other issues (like the screen quality) have gotten better over the years. So I took the plunge and bought the basic no-frills Kindle, which has been a great way to read massive tomes like the Song of Ice and Fire series. (Oddly, I find pressing the "next page" button very satisfying. There's a progress bar at the bottom of the screen showing your percentage of book completion — nudging that forward is like a little game I can play: "I'll stop reading tonight when I get to 25%!")
Enter Lendle
After some frustration buying ultra-expensive ebooks (as well as some reasonably-priced ones, like the initial Game of Thrones book and some deal-of-the-day books), I came across a site called Lendle. It turns out that some Kindle ebooks (not most, just some — just those where the publisher has opted in) have the ability to be shared. Once. For two weeks. Well, this is a severely limited flavor of "sharing," but it's a far sight better than nothing. So I signed up...........
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/111176
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