Just finished up my free introductory month of Kindle Unlimited. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a service through Amazon where you borrow books for a monthly fee, similar to the Prime lending library. Unlike the lending library, you can borrow as many books as you want; there is no “one book a month” limit.
Is it worth it? In a word: maybe. The book list is very similar to the Prime list, so if you have Prime, it’s probably not worth the money. But if you don’t have Prime, or if you just read so much that you find the “book a month” thing a problem, it’s okay. Especially if you don’t have any particular titles/authors in mind. With a catalog of about 600,000 titles (according to Amazon), it’s pretty easy to find something worth reading.
The downside is, there aren’t a lot of books from major publishing houses. So if you have a list in your head of books and authors you’d like to read, the pickings will be slim. There are a few exceptions: Most of the catalog of Kurt Vonnegut, Phillip K Dick, and a few others are available. But they are definitely exceptions. Margaret Atwood, for example, has only one book available through Unlimited. And while I enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale, it wouldn’t have been my first choice.
In any case, at $9.99/month, it’s not going to break the bank. While I canceled it after the free trial month, I might sign up again if I decide against renewing my Prime subscription. But you really don’t need both.
John R. Ford 