Kindle to Launch Library Lending: Check Out This Year's Pulitzer Prize Winners and More, Free!

For me, books are like crack. I cannot have enough. I cannot read enough. When I got my Kindle for Christmas, I told myself, “Hey, self! Look! Everything in public domain is free! You won’t fall victim to the latest New York Times book review, or the engrossing interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. No sirree! There are still plenty of classics to be read!”

And now I find myself negotiating between food and that book I just heard about that sounds so interesting, and look! It’s only $10 …and I like hot dogs…

My index finger suddenly becomes possessed and takes over my brain and… CLICK… There it is, on my Kindle, in less than a minute flat.

Sometimes I have been okay with the trade-off between food and fiction, but sometimes I’m not and I regret my purchase. And because I am far too lazy to actually physically go to my local library, it is welcome news that Kindle has partnered with Overdrive, a company based in Ohio that heretofore has been providing digital media to schools and libraries.

Kindle owners will be able to “check out” books from some 11,0000 different public libraries for a period of between seven and fourteen days, depending on the policies of the individual lending institution.

The bad news is that there is not a firm date for when this feature will be available, other than “soon.” The good news is that all of the features available on your Kindle purchases, such as highlighting and note taking, will also be operative on your library downloads.

“Soon,” cannot come quickly enough for me, especially since the Pulitzer Prizes for Literature were announced this week. You might want to bookmark this page if you can resist the temptation to click “Buy Now”:

Fiction