Read on Your Kindle (Even if You Don’t Own a Kindle!)

Kindle Cloud Reader Overview
Amazon’s Kindle service has saved me from hundreds of boring work days. Of course, you can’t exactly bring a Kindle to work and read it in the middle of your cube. Thankfully, Amazon has a Kindle Cloud Reader that allows you to read books right on your computer screen.

To sign up, head over to the Amazon Cloud Reader website. The website will walk you through the setup process, which is incredibly easy. If you already have another Kindle account or a physical Kindle device, the website will prompt you for those login details and will then load your digital library in the blink of any eye.

Once you’re signed up, it’s time to start making some purchases. Just search for any book in the Amazon search bar, choose the Kindle format, and checkout. The book will be delivered to your Cloud reader within a few minutes.

There are quite a few awesome things about the Amazon Cloud Reader:

1. The interface is clean and looks almost like a PDF. This means that co-workers will easily think that you are reading an important document rather than enjoying a novel.
2. It automatically syncs with physical Kindle devices and the Kindle phone app. So you will never have to try to remember what page you are on.
3. You can return any e-book within 3 days for a refund, no questions asked. You can utilize this to experiment with books without feeling like you’ve wasted money. And, you didn’t hear this from me, but if you finish a book before the 3-day window is up…well, you get the idea.

Here are some pro tips for making Kindle Cloud reading as stealth as possible:

1. When you open the cloud reader, there is a black toolbar at the top that says “Kindle”. Click in the upper right corner to turn off the toolbar and make the page appear even more like a work document.
2. Sometimes, you will get a book that has huge chapter headings. This means that every time you start a new chapter, half of your screen is taken up by text shouting “CHAPTER NINE”. When I hit these pages, I usually make my browser window a bit smaller and have an important spreadsheet visible in the background so it looks a little less obvious.
3. You can change the text size by clicking on the “Aa” icon at the toolbar on the top. Some books have very large text, so size it down to a reasonable size.
4. Check your local library to see if they offer e-books in Kindle format. If they do, you can quickly check out books and download them directly to your Kindle cloud for free.

I know that there are other ways to read books online, but to be honest, I haven’t utilized any of them. My library has something called the OverDrive Media Library, but I tried to install it once and couldn’t figure it out. If you have any other online reading tricks, please leave a comment!

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

An essential for all of the bored workers out there who love to read.