My wife received an Amazon Kindle this Christmas as a combined gift from her parents and me. Â I suspect more than a few readers to this site have also been pleased to unwrap the electronic reading device this Christmas. Â In order to put these devices to good use, I thought it would be fun to share a brief list of theologically-oriented Kindle books for reformed readers.
- ESV Study Bible
- In the Beginning was the Word: Language: A God-Centered Approach by Vern Poythress
- Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach by Vern Poythress
- By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification edited by Gary L. W. Johnson and Guy P. Waters
- Augustine’s Confessions
- Things that Cannot be Shaken by K. Scott Oliphint and Rod Mays
Reformation Trust has linked to their works as well – http://bit.ly/5CREtP
I also got the Kindle for Christmas so I would like to share some resources since I have paid almost nothing for books so far.
$3.97 on books. 1.98 for the works of Edwards The two volumes are 99 cents each on Amazon.
and one NASB Bible for 1.99
They also have the book, The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young by Richard Newton, for free.
If you haven’t heard of this old author, check here…
http://www.solid-ground-books.com/books_RichardNewtonChildrensTitles.asp
All other books were free.
This is what I have learned in the last couple of days.
(1) Don’t convert PDFs from books.google.com – the conversion for the kindle .azw is not satisfactory.
Instead go to http://www.archive.org and choose texts from American Libraries. Though the text is not cleaned up completely from the OCR scan, it is far more readable. They are making a kindle format – presently in beta, of all books. Still, I thought there were two many mistakes, but where else can I get copies of the Princeton Review (Biblical Repertory) as well as the Theological Review – Leonard Woods editor, for free. I have only held in my hand one volume of the latter and seen the set one time and that was at Calvin Seminary here in Grand Rapids
(2) if you own any Ages CD’s – Works of Warfield, Spurgeon, Gill etc. These pdfs convert very well.
(3) if you have ebooks that are in .doc format – these convert also.
The Kindle site converts PDF and DOC files.
(4) if you want the conversion done for free, have the converted text email to you, do not download it wirelessly.
(5) blogs such as Tim Challies can be purchased, but if you want it free why not subscribe to it, copy and paste it into WORD, convert it, send it to the Amazon site, and then download it for free?
I have so many ebooks, pdfs and other docs that I am converting.
From the Ages Master Christian Library I converted for my Kindle yesterday alone, John Flavel’s Fountain of Life, Method of Grace, Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students from the Spurgeon CD, and Robert Haldane’s commentary on Romans.
The one thing to point out, these documents convert well, but they are not indexed and the table of contents does not work like a Kindle purchased document. But then I can’t afford 9.99 a title either.
TMS
Evxfuz Kudos! What a neat way of thinking about it.
Of course I meant TOO many mistakes in my last post. I type faster than I proof read. ASUS is also making a ebook reader. The price will be 100 dollars cheaper but the trade off appears to be that the ASUS uses a backlit screen, not digital ink which is easier on the eyes.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/07/asus-planning-dual-screen-eee-reader-worlds-cheapest-e-book-re/
I would like to learn how to create Kindle documents. I am not satisfied with the Amazon collection as many authors are still not represented. No standard puritan works. What would help is if Ages Software would start to get in on the act because they already have so much in PDF format. I have from them the theological CD which includes some great works. This includes Dabney’s Discussions which I was most happy to get and now am converting them to .azw format for my kindle.
http://www.ageslibrary.com/ages_essential_topics_bundle_1.html
First, spend some money and buy a .pdf converter. I use Nuance PDF converter. Amazon will also convert Micro$oft Word files to Kindle version for you.
Don’t neglect the iPhone Kindle app (free), which will allow you to read anything you’ve purchased [even the freebies you can get from Amazon] through Kindle. It doesn’t allow access to your own stuff that you’ve had converted.
Next, a boat load of D.A. Carson books are available on PDF’s for free at
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2010/01/04/between-two-worlds-iphone-app/
Caveat: Carson’s “For the Love Of God, Volume 1″ Kindle version is broken. The daily readings don’t have their date with each entry. Volume 2 is ok.
Don’t forget John Owen:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=john%20owen%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts
Tolle Kindle
Lege Kindle
Thanks Bob. The issue with PDFs is the font size. For most PDFs, the font is way too small on the regular sized Kindle. You can place the Kindle in landscape mode, but it’s a little annoying. The iPhone Kindle app actually doesn’t allow you to read subscriptions, which is unfortunate. We subscribe to the Philadelphia Inquirer, but Amazon doesn’t let you read your subscriptions on the iPhone or on a PC. But I have read Gladwell’s Outliers on my iPhone.
Camden – this blog entry is answering some of the questions I’ve been “asking the internet” for several days now.
My son is a short-term, overseas missionary who will return to begin Seminary in about a year. When he finishes Seminary, he is likely to head overseas again.
He has long admired some of the books on my shelves, which I’d be happy for him to have, but I can’t imagine him moving them about as God leads him in the years ahead. (Like many, he dislikes reading on the computer, preferring the printed copy.)
Having heard of the Kindle and the Sony Reader (I admit I have never seen either), and knowing that many great theological works (like the ones on my shelves) are in the public domain, I started wondering if one could put together the “Seminarian’s dream Kindle” at a reasonable cost. You and the other gentlemen above have me thinking it might be possible.
Could a Seminary student make good use of a Kindle loaded with all sorts of commentaries gleaned from Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Archive.org (thanks Bob!), and elsewhere? Is the Kindle a capable tool for reading and searching these works? Are these free downloadable works in a usable format for the Kindle, or will he become frustrated with them and head to the library for the books?
Also, I understand that one can make notes in the margins on the Kindle, but how friendly is the device for research? Are any of you using Kindle content in research papers, etc., and if so, do you struggle with moving content to your computer for citing these works?
By the way, I found what looks like a great tool for managing and converting ebooks – Calibre at
http://calibre-ebook.com.
It supports conversion to and from the Kindle format as well as a number of others and I’d be interested in what you gentlemen who actually own the Kindle think of it!
Thanks for your great discussion to date. I’d appreciate your thoughts.
JL
14qkLU AFAIC that’s the best answer so far!
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John,
It’s not where it needs to be at the moment, but the Kindle is still very useful. I very much enjoy reading on it and have put several public domain works on the device. I’ve also used Calibre as well and had a good experience. However, I haven’t used the clips and notes features yet. I can’t speak for those.