I wouldn’t mind spending some time every week to find three or four books that might be readable, but more and more, it was taking longer to find a book than to read it. Last time I tried, I looked through 50 pages of depressing garbage without finding a single book I was willing to try.
The Amazon.com main site does a pretty good job of making suggestions for me based on past purchases; Kindle Unlimited seems to think I like cowboy porn. Reader reviews don’t help as every book on Unlimited has four and a half stars.
Unfortunately, the local library doesn’t have a big selection of ebooks. Most of what they have is mass consumption junk, and worse yet, it’s a struggle to get a library book to load on my Kindle.
I like my Kindle and am a compulsive reader, so I’m going to have to figure something out.
Funny, I have no problem keeping my Unlimited queue filled with pretty good to really good SF and such. Even more so with novels about the Keys, Texas and Life Unordinary.
For the $10/month that Kindle Unlimited costs, I can buy 3-5 books at $2-$3 prices, which is what the majority of books included in Amazon’s Daily Kindle Deals email cost. Add in a couple more cheap e-Book lists (BookBub, Early Bird Books, there’s a lot of them) and i have no end of non-slushpile books in my digital library.
At least every couple months, a recent bestseller comes through, usually more in the $4-$5 range. Today’s was The President is Missing, which isn’t something I’d normally buy but for $5, why not?
In the past I’ve gotten Booker/Pulitzer/etc prize winners (reading The Luminaries right now, cost me $3), lots of classic sci-fi & fantasy (Octavia Butler books are on there a fair bit, as are Philip Jose Farmer, Neal Stephenson, etc), decent amount of history, etc etc.
Way better than unlimited, and the same price or cheaper, depending on how much you buy.