Kindle picks. →[More:]

Otherwise known as what you do when you have very little to do. With Judge Joe Brown, and now more tennis (Cinci U.S. Open series, mens', on the Tennis Channel) in the background, I browsed through the first 500 titles (out of 18,575!) in the Literary Fiction category (a general favorite of mine) at the Amazon bookstore from my Kindle. Downloaded sixteen samples for a closer look.

One of my biggest complaints about the Kindle has been when I go to look for a particular book and it's not available (most of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Faulkner, Graham Greene, to name a few). But I did enjoy the browse, and they seem to be making some progress with availability. Can't beat the prices, too, ranging from $1.60 for older material to $9.99 for newer releases, with the rare book for $12.99 or so (too much, if you ask me, for digital material, especially if the book's out in paperback -- after all, there's no printing, warehousing, remaindering, or shipping involved).

Anyway, here's my list of 16 (there were many other fine titles, of course, including offerings by Hemingway, Toni Morrison, Junot Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, David Foster Wallace, etc., that I already have, in their predigital form). Feel free to comment on selections (most of them I know little about, except for what's on Amazon, and the budget's limited, so recommendations are welcome) or share what's on your nightstand (virtual or otherwise).

--Flowers for Elvis, by Julia Schuster
--The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
--Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada
--Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok
--What is the What, by Dave Eggers
--The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
--The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
--Mr. Peanut, by Adam Ross (I must confess, I found this one earlier, from a review in Poets & Writers, but it was listed and looks excellent)
--The Good Psychologist, by Noam Shpancer
--Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen
--Jacob's Room, by Virginia Woolf
--Outside the Ordinary World, by Dori Ostermiller
--Breakfast with Buddha, by Roland Merullo
--The Lifted Veil, by George Eliot
--Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner
--The Solitude of Prime Numbers, by Paolo Giordano

Bonus: a few from my recent nonfiction samples (one cannot live on literary fiction alone).

--Tide, Feather, Snow, by Miranda Weiss (about Alaska; I have a fascination with Alaska)
--The Fires, by Joe Flood (about the burning of NYC and the budget mistakes made in the 1970s -- deja vu)
--Closing Time: A Memoir, by Joe Queenan (Jon recommended -- looks interesting)
--Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality, by Jonathan Weiner (cause, you know, I'd like to live forever)

Final word: It's dangerous to be able to buy a book with the touch of a button or swipe of a finger and have it "delivered" in seconds. I used to work at a bookstore (poor bookstores) and spent a good portion I couldn't afford of my paycheck on books set aside during the week. Of course, there are digital libraries available, too. I'll have to look into that. Apparently, you can "loan" your digital copies to others, too. Nifty.