Speaking of the new Kindle, I decided to try the new OverDrive library support.

Houston Public Library does support it, so... free books! Unfortunately, the selection is poor, the web site is awful, and the delivery mechanism is clunky. You start at a web page like this (http://hadc.lib.overdrive.com/), then you "log in", which only requires typing a valid library card number. No password. You're then dealing with Overdrive's web site, which lets you query based on things like author or title, but there's none of the social filtering logic we're used to with Amazon (e.g., "people who like X also like Y"). When you find a book you do want, then if it's "checked out" you can ask for them to email you when it's available. ("Putting it on hold.") If a book is indeed available, you can check it out, which drops it into a shopping cart that expires in 15 minutes. Better hurry! When you finally check out, you're presented with a series of links that take you back to Amazon.com, where you can actually download the book to your Kindle.

I have to download the azw files and copy via the USB cable. (No 3G/cellular delivery is included with OverDrive and my 2nd-gen Kindle doesn't have WiFi.) Once I dropped the files on my Kindle, they just magically worked. So far as I can tell, the DRM support to auto-delete the books has always been in there.

Also, I was looking at prices on the new Kindles. It's interesting to see how they hit the $99 price point on the Kindle Touch. They include advertisements, as expected. Also notable, they don't include the power adapter! They'll be happy to sell you one for $10, while elsewhere on Amazon you can get USB power adapters for a fraction of that. I also suspect that the $29.99 sleeve is similarly overpriced.