Kindle E-Reader--anyone using it in China?

[bottledpoetry]

Hi there,

Every time I visit the P of RC, I have problems getting ahold of good reading material, mostly new releases and modern stuff. The shelves in china seem to be chock full of the pricey paperback classics and romance novels and such. I am an avid reader that is moving to China long term, and I have to say that I'm clueless about how I'm going to feed my book addiction.

One of the (pricey) possible solutions I thought about was buying Amazon's Kindle E-Book reader. At $350ish it's definitely not cheap, but supposedly can download books wherever there is cell phone reception. What I want to know is if it works in China

SO. A shot in the dark here--do you use the Kindle in China and what has your experience been like? I'm not so interested in the design, functionability, whether or not its an evil attempt to kill the paperback novel, etc. as much as Kindle's actual ability to function and get me the goods in China. I can't imagine a year without fresh reading material

And question 2--any suggestions on getting ahold of new releases, modern non-fiction titles and memoirs in the big cities (Beijing and Shanghai specifically). Help!

Edit: by the way, I asked the Kindle seller in my area and he had no idea. Nobody at Amazon has answered so far.

[roddy]

This seems to reckon it'll work, but you'll need to put new books on via USB cable rather than buying them wirelessly. No major hassle, assuming you have PC access.

A cheaper option would be a PDA and ebooks. Smaller screen and might not be such a nice reading experience though. See what's available on ebooks.com, mobipocket.com, fictionwise.com.

[gato]

There is a chain of English-language bookstores called "Chaterhouse" with currently three locations in Shanghai and two in Beijing. Their section of new releases is not bad. Might be comparable to your average airport bookstore, maybe a little better selection. Haven't been there for a while, but I remember seeing your average Ian McEwan, Stephen King and anti-George Bush book of the month there.

See here:

http://www.chaterhouse.com.cn/contactus.jsp

[bottledpoetry]

Roddy and Gato,

thanks for the info and suggestions I checked out the Kindle discussion at amazon and the concensus there also supports that USB download is necessary. Not that its off-putting really, but it seems clear now that I'd be paying $350 for a screen (no matter how readable and portable).

hmm...I'm going to look into some other options and definitely take gato's tip about chaterhouse. Right now I'm thinking about getting a small Tablet and maybe downloading and reading the books with microsoft e-reader. That seems like a cheaper, more multi-functional option (also more bareable than reading off a small PDA screen).

Thanks again for your help this forum has really proved invaluable!