# How many books do you have on your Kindle? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 26, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-do-you-have-on-your-kindle/586951 "2011-06-26T22:49:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chopper9760](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cdc98d/32.png) [@Chopper9760](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopper9760)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-do-you-have-on-your-kindle/586951/21 "2011-06-27T23:28:09Z")
I’ve got everything on my Nook, about 1500 files at last count. If you’ve got the space, why not? The search feature on the NST is really nimble, finding specific files is fast. I’ve broken my files down into different categories and browsing still pretty easy. I don’t want to mess with my e-reader, I wanna load that thing up and know that I have my library close to paw and ready to travel at the drop of a hat. I read books over and over, that’s probably a major factor between large and small library folks. ---
**Author:** ![Chicken\_Fingers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Chicken\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicken_Fingers)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-do-you-have-on-your-kindle/586951/22 "2011-06-28T02:00:02Z")
I only have about 80 books on my brand new Nook. All but one are free that I scavenged from sites like Project Gutenberg, Google books, etc. I share the Nook with the family, so half the books are their choices. So far, I like the new Nook, but can’t find anything to buy from Barnes and Noble. Their ebook inventory seems kind of sad. They sell a number of public domain classics that you can get for free elsewhere. Their free titles include a lot of badly scanned garbled books that no one would want. Their website is slow and awkward to browse. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-do-you-have-on-your-kindle/586951/23 "2011-06-28T03:32:28Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > This I don’t understand… if you bought it from amazon can’t you download it as many times as you like, even if you lose the kindle? At least, I’ve never had a problem downloading all the books my sister likes (she and I are registered to the same account). Or maybe you’re saying that after losing a kindle you wouldn’t want to buy another one? > > But yes, I do keep a file copy ebook backup for any ebooks I care about (which is, honestly, not all of them), because a) some of them are gutenberg or other distribution system rather than amazon proper, and b) what if amazon goes out of business? Some of my books were bought from Amazon. Yes, _theoretically_ you can re-download them forever, which is fine if; 1. Amazon survives forever. 2. Amazon doesn’t ever change its policy. 3. The Kindle and its successors remains the best choice of ebook hardware forever. Currently I love my Kindle. It’s the best thing since movable type was invented. However, it’s entirely possible that in 5 or 10 years time I’ll be seduced away from the Kindle by some other device. If that should happen, then my backups of Kindle books might need to be converted into some new file format. Since I have them backed up, I can do that. As you say, if Amazon goes belly-up - and anything is possible in the world of business - then the only people who’ll lose their books are the ones who didn’t back them up. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-do-you-have-on-your-kindle/586951/24 "2011-06-28T04:19:47Z")
I have a little over 500 books on my Kindle, plus 97 samples (and 19 games and a few hours’ worth of music). About 225 of the books are free ones from Amazon that I haven’t read yet and might not ever, but downloaded just in case, because hey, I love free stuff (also I lend them on [booklending.com](http://booklending.com)). 91 are public library books that I haven’t read yet. I was just thinking maybe I should delete some books because even though there is still a lot of space left on my Kindle, it does seem to be quite a bit slower than it was before I had so much stuff on it. Once I’m reading a book it doesn’t matter, i.e. the page turns aren’t slower, but pressing the “home” button or doing a search or something is noticeably slower. (But see, I’m the one who can get impatient while fast-forwarding through commercials at the highest speed on my DVR, so I’m not sure I should cater to my ADD that much anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![Scathach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Scathach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scathach)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-do-you-have-on-your-kindle/586951/25 "2011-06-28T17:32:53Z")
In or around 600. Love love LOVE being able to have such a choice of things to read when I have time to kill. I use Calibre as well so all of its backed up in my library. Used to hate creating collections because it took so long but I found a program called “kindle collection manager” that lets me do it through the computer so it’s way less painful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-books-do-you-have-on-your-kindle/586951.md?page=1)