I recently posted asking if Kindle Unlimited is a good value for SF because I was reading a lot and it was expensive. Some of you suggested I try the library instead. I’m in Los Angeles, so I got a digital library card for the Los Angeles Public Library.
I had noticed that a lot of the books I had already read were on KU, but not many of the ones on my list to read were. That sort of makes sense because I read a number of series books (mostly trilogies) and KU seems to mostly cover older things but not more recent popular works. Unfortunately my reading list is now mostly up to recent popular stuff.
The library has a similar issue: they have the recent/popular stuff, but there’s usually a waiting list for it. I reserved three books that had different wait times, the longest being two months out, but the shortest came up available the next day.
It works nice. When you get the book, you can read it on their web interface or app, but you also have them send it to your Kindle app, which is what I did. It shows up like an Amazon purchase, but with no cost, and then pops up in your Kindle library. You can have up to 30 books on hold (in your queue, waiting to be available) at a time, so depending on how fast you read, you can reserve a bunch so you’re in line while you’re reading others.
I think this will work good for me. It’s all completely free, and I had spent over $200 on books in the last few months, so it’s a giant savings of I keep this up. Thanks again.
It kills me that these days going to a library is treated as an interesting alternative to giving Amazon all your money. When I was younger, the library was the place you started looking for something to read.
When I was very young, my parents took me to the library to pick books to read because (a) I was reading a lot and (b) we didn’t have much money. As I got older, my dad’s business started doing very well, and I wasn’t chewing though books as fast, so most books became gifts and the library was just a place to do research for school reports (no Internet then).
And that’s just kind of what stuck with me - as an adult I’ve never really thought about it for pleasure reading, but it’s nice to rediscover. My only concern is that I’m not really supporting the authors well, and I probably can afford to.