Each day on my lunch hour I try to spend about 15-20 minutes reading from my
Ignatius Press Catholic RSV Bible, and from one of the Carmelite works (currently
The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. 1). Sometimes. I finally took the Kindle plunge so I could cut down on my book load. Unfortunately, I discovered that non of Fr. Kieran kavanaugh's translated versions from ICS are available yet on Kindle for Teresa of Avila. The
The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, is on Kindle now. In fact, I emailed Fr. Kavanaugh who told me it will be some time before St. Teresa's works are available on Kindle. I just have a strong preference for his versions over others I've viewed.
FIRST THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT KINDLE
I like the thing. I really do. I do have a few bones to pick below, or really questions because I might just be stooooopid.
I like how compact it is. Granted, it is not as fancy as an
Apple iPad. The Kindle is black print on a graphite color background. It's actually very easy on the eyes. In fact, you can read it in full sunlight. Some, like a relative of mine found out the hard way that you can't just read it in low-lighting without a book light, or a cover with a built-in light, which is what I ended up buying.
Also, the battery life on this particular Kindle is up to 1 month (but it can drain faster when using the cover's built in light, which feeds off of the device itself. I have not had to charge it more than once weekly, and I have just turned off the wi-fi, which I think might have been causing it to drain faster. You can use the wi-fi at home, or in an wi-fi location (think coffee shop or fast-food joints which now carry free access). The thing can hold up to 3500 books, without pictures (and pics are quite crisp, but black and graphite).
The other good thing is that I'm not really big on best-selling secular books. I'm a classical, and religious works reader, and I like reference books. Most of these can be obtained either free, or darn close to it. And, you can search books using keywords. Try doing that with a hard copy book when you remember a few words that you want to quote. Being able to search is a big plus.
I'm sure there are more good things I can tell you about - perhaps later.
SOME BONES TO PICK WITH KINDLE
For those of you who have a Kindle, or use Kindle on iPhone or other device, I have a key question: When I'm reading the Bible, and I have it open to a location in one of the four Gospels, is there a quick and easy way to know whether you are in Chapter 15 of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? I mean, it tells me which "location" I am in, like... 15437 out of 17349, or whatever! What good does that do me. You should have a menu option that says, "You are in Matthew, Chapter 15". Or, it should tell you what book you are in at the top or bottom of the page.
I had a bookmarked passage, but when I bookmarked it, did not identify the book it was in. I could see I was in Chapter 23, but had no clue which Gospel it was. I literally had to finger my way back through 23 Chapters to see which book I was in!!!!
This is a basic thing you would want to know. Now... I might just be stupid. If it's there, someone please tell me - ROFL. If there is not a way to quickly and easily identify this, then somebody dropped the ball.
WHAT TIME IS IT?
I'm wondering something else about Amazon's Kindle now that I have one. I know in the settings you can set the time. But, where does it show the time? In my professional work, I have to hunt and peck all the time through new software programs and updates. I hunt and pecked quite a bit and could find no way to toggle on the time, so as I was reading, I could keep an eye on it. Am I missing something here too? What is the purpose for the thing to track the time if you can't see it when reading?
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The obedient are not held captive by Holy Mother Church; it is the disobedient who are held captive by the world!
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