E-Books

You can read Kindle books with a web browser from your PC. You don't need a Kindle - just an Amazon account.
See http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200701430
and https://read.amazon.com/

You can read kindle books for PC and Mac.

Just goto Amazon and type Kindle for PC or Mac.
http://tinyurl.com/o4zjxd6

But why would you want to? Reading an entire book on a PC screen? Reading long text on a computer screen (and I don't mean an ereader) is a tad too difficult to me.

You probably could end up printing a given ebook (all 200+ pages, etc...) but I expect you will probably need to do so illegally as it sounds like it would be against the Kindle DRM (my imagination rather then actual understanding). And the question is why would you waste that much paper and ink jet print. It kind of defeats the purpose of getting an ebook.

since gollum was looking for the book not an e-book originally it kind of makes sense that s/he'd consider printing it (or something like that - s/he seems surprised to find a kindle edition book only available on kindle )


I think Set has read some books online.

I'm looking at getting him a kindle for his birthday/Christmas. Discovered today that a basic tablet is down around $100 - may go that way instead - apparently it comes with access to 1,000,000 free titles. Seems crazy - need to check the details.

Or you could buy him a Barnes and Noble Nook. Much better then a very generic tablet which will probably break if you sneeze in the next room. It's still CyberMonday and the Nooks are cheaper then that basic tablet. And that 1,000,000 free titles? They're likely public domain books anyways and thusly available to everyone who has internet access.

Another of my points against printing out a complete ebook is that he'll likely have to illegally break past/hack into the Kindle DRM to do so. That and the printing costs which will likely be more expensive then buying an actual paperback copy of the book in question

Barnes and Noble Nooks aren't an option in Canada.

I think the best thing about ebooks/tablets is that you can get pretty much anything for free through the library. Very handy.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Nightgown-Carter-Story-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0071VOMF0

$0.99 Kindle edition with buttons to download, reqepuest a sample, etc. According to Amazon, it is 53 pages, would cost more than that to print it.

go to:

abebooks.com - lots of cheap new and used books there
or try
thriftbooks.com