Ok, without a doubt, Shannon and I clearly will need to be buying this book as soon as it becomes available on Amazon.

To much fanfare and exuberant media coverage, Amazon launched it’s Kindle electronic book yesterday. Doing a little reading about it last night, I found myself not only underwhelmed by the reported features and functionality of the device, but also a bit taken aback by how far Amazon has gone to create a locked-in platform for reading. Rather than wax poetic about my reasons for thinking so, though, I’m fortunate — both Anil Dash and Mark Pilgrim have unknowingly served as my mouthpieces, by articulating most of my Kindle-related feelings better than my own addled brain could have managed.

I’ve been barrelling my way through the Jack Reacher murder mystery series of novels by Lee Child, and I have to say that I’m loving them. About four years ago, one of my pediatrics mentors strongly recommended them to me, but the first two books of the series had lapsed out of print and I had difficulty finding them. Shannon’s mother tracked copies down and gave them to me for Christmas this past year, and since then, I’ve been resisting the urge to read them all as fast as possible, instead limiting myself to one or two a month. (I’m like an addict, enforcing my limits by buying just one or two at a time so that I can’t binge.) Last night, as I was finishing the seventh book while on call, I picked up a mark of how good Child is at suspense: despite me knowing that there are three more books in the series, I was terrified that Reacher was about to die, and couldn’t put the book down without knowing how everything turned out. (For those of you who’ve read Persuader, I’m sure you know the part I’m talking about.)

If you’re into books like Robert Parker’s Spenser series, John Lescroart’s Dismas Hardy series, or Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole series, then I’d give these a shot — they’re just awesome.

Happiness is when Amazon and the United States Postal Service keep their word! I love that Amazon got into the fun by putting together a special Harry Potter box, and shipped my copy separate from the rest of my order (despite me saying it was OK to wait and ship it all together) so that it arrived the first day it could. I guess I have a little reading to do tonight!

I’m jealous. Hopefully, my copy should be in my hands this weekend, since Amazon has their standard promise of delivering the new Harry Potter on the day it’s released (Saturday)…