Kindle question

[John W.]

A couple of questions about the Amazon Kindle. First, are there any
Japanese language books available from Amazon in the US? I searched,
but I didn't see a way to search by the language of the book; and if
there are books, are there any rendering issues on the US-sold Kindle?
Second, does anyone here belong to Amazon Prime? Not sure if it's
really worth it or not; we don't typically buy new books, but get from
the library (or a used book store, sometimes), so the ability to
borrow is nice, especially since my library system doesn't offer e-
books in kindle format.

Thanks!

John W

[John W.]

On Dec 6, 10:42 am, band beyond description
<shadowboxing....@apocalypse.com> wrote:

> Can't speak to Kindle questions but would recommend trying to get Amazon to
> offer you a one-month trial Amazon Prime subscription, which they
> periodically do when they see you returning for shopping visits.
>
> The trial deal is particularly worthwhile if you avail yourself of the
> offer during a month you know you'll be doing a fair amount of shopping --
> of course it doesn't have to be limited to books...it can include a wide
> variety of merchandise that all comes with free two-day shipping, and you
> can just cancel before the 30 days are up, no questions asked, and your
> credit card won't be charged.
>
> I've done the free trial/cancellation deal once before (OK, so I'm cheap if
> it's ny already obvious), last summer, and have been reoffered the
> one-month free trial on at least a couple of occasions since, including
> last week as I was doing some holiday shopping. But take note: You don't
> always see the free trial offer when visiting Amazon, as much of the
> shopping experience on their site is seemingly controlled and run by
> sophisticated, manipulative marketing bots that use fuzzy logic to observe
> and act upon your shopping habits.
> --
> Peace, Steve

That's a good idea; I'll go see what they have. Thinking of getting
the BMAJW a kindle for Christmas, but she'd want to read Japanese
novels on it.

John W.

[chuckers]

I took a look around for the Kindle store for foreign books as well and couldn't find any. Instead, when I specifically put in 日本語 as a search term, I got some really bizarre results:

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b/ref=amb_link_355831402_37?ie=UTF8&node=154606011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_r=146CFJJ242HJZQ2P6E5S&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1337674602&pf_rd_i=1286228011#/ref=sr_pg_2?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Ck%3A%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E&page=2&keywords=%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E&ie=UTF8

Oh, wait, here is a different search which is a "bit" better:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_5?rh=n%3A283155%2Cn%3A!44258011%2Cn%3A!251254011%2Cn%3A3118571%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011%2Cn%3A3151591&bbn=3118571&ie=UTF8&qid=1323219998&rnid=3118571

But it is unlikely your BMAJW would be satisfied with that.

There is a huge dearth of ePubs available when you are in a foreign country. The iBooks app for purchasing English novels on the iPad while in Japan is borderline pointless. Unless it is published by Apple themselves, you pretty much only get access to Project Gutenberg (oh, and Winnie the Pooh which I liked but would also like the sequel House at Pooh Corner.) Fortunately, for English books it is relatively easy to...um...acquire shall we say a HUGE library of ePubs without trying very hard.

There are a number of accessories for Kindle on Amazon.jp but all the publications have to come from the US based store. Likewise, I think there are a number of Japanese books for iBooks app in the Japanese iTunes store but (other than the exception listed above) not much in anything else.

You also might want to have a look around and see if the BMAJW would be able to properly a Kindle Fire. I am not slighting her in any fashion. A lot of articles I have read recently seem to suggest that the Fire is a bit of a nuisance to actually use (while not actually having attempted to myself.)

[CL]

All you need to do is to find whatever you want in the Amazon.jp web
pages and copy the number, name (in romaji), etc. to Amazon.com and
order it from them ... at least that's what you can do for physical
books. If you pay by credit card for an e-book, I don't think you have
to be so location specific; just choose and D/L.

Any Amazon site can let you order and will deliver any product SOLD BY
AMAZON (but not from any of their marketplace sellers) from the site in
your country or your closest country. So, if there's something you want
from Amazon.com, you can order it from Amazon.jp, they ship it from the
US to Japan and you only pay local shipping. Search the TLUG archives
for a post from Josh Glover (a former Amazon Japan programmer) on how
exactly to do it ... or, if access is restricted, let me know and I'll
go find it in a day, or so.

--
CL

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

CL <flo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 12/06/2011 10:59 PM, John W. wrote:

> > A couple of questions about the Amazon Kindle. First, are there any
> > Japanese language books available from Amazon in the US? I searched,
> > but I didn't see a way to search by the language of the book; and if
> > there are books, are there any rendering issues on the US-sold Kindle?
> > Second, does anyone here belong to Amazon Prime? Not sure if it's
> > really worth it or not; we don't typically buy new books, but get from
> > the library (or a used book store, sometimes), so the ability to
> > borrow is nice, especially since my library system doesn't offer e-
> > books in kindle format.

> All you need to do is to find whatever you want in the Amazon.jp web
> pages and copy the number, name (in romaji), etc. to Amazon.com and
> order it from them ... at least that's what you can do for physical
> books. If you pay by credit card for an e-book, I don't think you have
> to be so location specific; just choose and D/L.

There are sometimes content restrictions (especially on music). You can
get around them by going to the amazon.jp site via some Japanese proxy.
Oddly, your US account will work fine that way.

Mike

[CL]

Hmmm ... my daughter has never had trouble buying the US versions of
Selena Gomez, Hanna Montana (Miley Cyrus), Justin Beiber, or Demi Lovato
CDs from Amazon.com. Damn them.

--
CL

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

My problems were with the UK; I wanted Fad Gadget's "Spoil the Child", but
if you login to the UK site from the US, you get flagged for "not available
in your area".

That's when I started looking for proxies. It works. And, as I said, the
US account worked fine, so it's only doing a DNS lookup on the proxy.

Mike

[chuckers]

Is it ever really a good idea to use a proxy when you have a credit card in hand that you intend to use? Or are there ways around that that I am just not quite seeing?

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Well, the https connection is between the end point and your computer. But
more importantly, you just login to your account, and the information is
already stored on Amazon's servers, so doesn't traverse the connection again.

Mike

[Declan Murphy]

Oh dear.

[chuckers]

Just as a word of warning:

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/Amazon-Kindle-Fire-lets-kids-rsg-3752604696.html

May not matter for a BMAJW but might do for YHC if that applies.

[John W.]

On Dec 10, 12:21 am, Declan Murphy <declan_mur...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 7, 3:29 am, "John W." <worthj1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > the BMAJW
>
> Oh dear.
>
I least I kept the B. And the J. The W is in jeopardy, and I'm certain
there's a joke there related to the B and the J.

John W.