Hoping that the STW collective knowledge might be able to help out a bit here.

My missus loves reading books so I was toying with the idea of buying her a Kindle for crimbo. At the moment she typically gets through a couple of books a week from the local library, which is free.

If I buy her a Kindle then we have to start paying for the content. Given how much she reads I can see the costs running to the equivalent of a decent full susser over a year!

Does anyone know if there is a decent online subscription library where you pay a monthly fee and you can basically download as many ebooks as you want (can read) – kind of the equivalent of lovefilm but for books?

Any ideas web-links etc would be much appreciated.

Ta

Bump – as I’ve got the same problem, good question

Isn’t the whole point of all the DRM these e-readers have to prevent exactly this sort of thing?

I don’t know of any online libraries at all. However, there are plenty of cheap and free books available out there, the trouble is how much is accessible with a Kindle. Because the Kindle is Amazon’s proprietory devise, I don’t know whether you can access Feedbooks, BooksOnBoard, etc. It’s one advantage I’m enjoying with my iPhone, as I have Kindle, iBooks, Stanza and ereader, along with 3D Bookcase, which updates with free books every so often. There’s lots of free books available through the various apps, and cheap copies of recent books. I got a copy of a Rudy Rucker compilation for free via Stanza that’s £8.99 in Waterstones, and a book called The Windup Girl for £4.95 that’s £8.99, and all of the books by Cory Doctorow are released for free while the dead tree versions retail for normal prices in Waterstones et al. Not saying at all that you should look elsewhere, the Kindle is as good as any other eBook Reader, it’s just that source material can’t be always obtained from the widest variety of outlets, AFAIK.

Isn’t the whole point of all the DRM these e-readers have to prevent exactly this sort of thing?

That’s not the question.

I’m not attempting to get around DRM or rip-off books

What I’m looking for is somewhere/one with a business model that is subscription based and allows a specified download dependent on the monthly subscriptions.

The point is not to own any of the books but to be like the local library where you read it and give it back ( or it expires after a set time).

Ideally what I be looking for is say 5 titles per month for 10 quid