---
title: "Musing about e-books, libraries, and tracking my reading"
date: 2025-05-15T14:27:00-07:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2025/05/15/reading/
author: Les Orchard
tags: [reading, libraries, ebooks, amazon, kindle]
---

# Musing about e-books, libraries, and tracking my reading

Just ripped through Martha Wells' [_The Cloud Roads_](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41742208-the-cloud-roads) in a couple days. Sadly, the next volume in the series is on hold at the library. But, I think I can live until it's my turn to check it out.

I've just really gotten in a good groove with e-book lending from [my local library system](https://multcolib.overdrive.com/). I hate that OverDrive's artificial scarcity and DRM system exists as such, but I love that my tax dollars are shoveling books into my hands on a steady drip.

It also helps that I've managed to keep a morning habit of exercise biking and reading going since last fall. Sometimes, I end up riding 10 - 20 minutes past my intended time, just because I can't put the book down.

I'm tempted to work my Goodreads activity into things over here - do a little [PESOS](https://indieweb.org/PESOS) action to give me some markdown to play with. Also tempted to migrate to [Bookwyrm](https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm) and own my own reading records. But, the Kindle integration with Goodreads is effortless. It's almost accidental that I'm recording my reading at all. Maybe I could synchronize them?

I have been tempted to eject from the Amazon Kindle ecosystem. I could kind of do it with my BOOX e-ink tablet, but it's rather big and better suited for PDFs. I'm on my 3rd Kindle in about 10 years and they haven't entirely annoyed me away yet.