Several power users of the Kindle turned me on to a great tip: load up your Kindle, or phone, with free sample chapters of any and all books you are interested in. Read the sample (usually the first) chapter and then decide if you want to buy the book. In fact, don’t buy any book until you’ve read the sample chapter. The “Send free sample” button is under the “Buy Now” button on the book’s Amazon page. — KK

When starting to read a new author, or trying to recall a favorite author, I use the quote search function at Goodreads to surface the best quotes of a writer. The quotes are ranked by the number of times Goodreads readers “like” them. (This only works for books.) — KK

The Female Assumption is a raw and honest look at becoming a mother and the pressures on women to reproduce. I couldn’t put it down. Mother of 3, Melanie Holmes interviewed mothers from all over to accurately portray what happens behind the curtain of motherhood. She also includes the stories of women who have consciously chosen to not be mothers. This book is a well-balanced pros and cons list for either path, and a reminder that whatever you decide for yourself is the right choice. Every young woman should read this. — CD

I’m working my way through this outstanding collection of over 100 articles from around the web, curated by Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer at The Atlantic. He included an article I wrote for Wired about losing my bitcoin password. — MF

I often want to read a long PDF someone sends me on my Kindle. Here is the hack to get it loaded. Use your Kindle account name to create a Kindle email as yourname@free.kindle.com. In the subject line of an email message put < convert >. Enclose the PDF and hit send. Amazon will convert the PDF to their Kindle format and it will show up in your library. Then you can select it to download to your device. The PDF on a Kindle is clunky but readable. — KK

Further refinements on the Kindle hack by two readers:

I was trying to read Ellul’s Propaganda. I downloaded it from archive.org (which is now crucial to my PDF kindle hack, including old Arthur Koestler books and other hard to find titles) Sadly it was 30MB, and the emailed file couldn’t upload. For days I sat there frustrated. Then I realized the hack: I split the PDF into two files of 15MB each and named them Propaganda Part I and Propaganda Part II. Wham, solves it. — Bryan Campen

There is an even easier way to transfer a PDF to Kindle. If you download the Kindle app for Mac or PC you can drag a PDF to the app icon (which I keep in my dock on the Mac). You can configure the app to convert to Kindle format or keep the file as a PDF. You can also choose which of your Kindle /Fire devices you want it sent to. — Len Edgerly (The Kindle Chronicles Podcast)

As you read a Kindle you can, with some effort, highlight a passage. The best way to extract those passages so that you can cut and paste them later, or so you can insert the text into an article, or otherwise use a highlight as text, is to go to this page and login with your Amazon credentials. You’ll see your highlights book by book. There you select texts and copy them. Or on that page use Bookcision, a browser bookmarklet, that will download each book’s passages as a text file. — KK

When you go to Recommend Me a Book you are presented with the first page of a novel, but you are not told the name of the book or the author. If you don’t like what you’ve read, click “Next Book.” If you do like it, click “Reveal Title & Author,” and buy it from Amazon. I wish it let you buy a book without finding out who wrote it, so it was a surprise when it arrived in the mail. — MF

I feel like an idiot for not discovering OverDrive sooner. It’s a free mobile app that lets you check out ebooks, audiobooks, and videos from your local public library. To use it, you need a local library card. I got a Los Angeles Library e-card by signing up online and a couple of minutes later I was reading A Burglar’s Guide to the City. — MF

Amazon does a poor job of presenting book series in order. I wanted the chronological order of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. The website Order of Books had it, along with many other book series. — MF

Before you pick the next book on your reading list you should check out How Long to Read. Their search engine includes more than 12 million books and their speed reading timer will calculate approximately how long it will take you to read the book in its entirety. — CD 

The Library of America publishes high-quality hardbound books with multiple novels per volume. I’m reading Ross Macdonald: Three Novels of the Early 1960s, which contains three excellent novels about fictional Los Angeles detective Lew Archer. These tightly-written page-turners have kept me up way past my bedtime. — MF 

Wikipedia’s “Unusual articles” page has links to hundreds of eclectic and offbeat articles. Learn about the Korean invasion of Normandy, happy numbers, and the Phantom time hypothesis (it’s really 1719, not 2016 as we’ve been led to believe). I’d love this as a multi-volume hardbound illustrated set. — MF 

“New Scientist” is a weekly dose of real science reporting, with broad lay appeal. Of course there is an online version, but I prefer to turn pages and read while I eat my lunch. Either way, it’s the best solid source for new science. — KK

This list of “20 Essential Truths That Women Over 50 Want To Share With Younger Women” seem like no-brainers and things I should already be doing daily, but unfortunately for me, I forget. I made a shorter, more personal version of this list for myself and if I’m ever feeling agitated or unbalanced, I read it again to gain perspective and make everything all better. — CD

A new book I am enjoying is Valley of Genius — an oral history of Silicon Valley. The entire book, compiled by Adam Fisher, is the recollections of those who were there, interrupting each other, as they describe the birth of new technologies. This rollicking, non-stop, geek chorus leaves me with one impression: There was no plan. Each of the achievements of Silicon Valley were unexpected, improbable, and a surprise to those who created it. — KK

Books related to my book The Inevitable that I have found useful:

Magic and Loss by Virginia Heffernan: Treats the digital world as a great work of art.

The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos: Best book to date on artificial intelligence.

Machines of Loving Grace by John Markoff: Best book to date on robots.

Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock: Why predicting is hard and how to get better at it.

Pogue’s Basics by David Pogue: Extremely practical tips for techno-literacy. — KK

I unabashedly recommend my book The Inevitable, available in paperback for $12, as a clear vision of 25 years in digital technology. It’s an optimistic explanation of how we can use this tech for our mutual benefit with the least harm. Years after I finished writing it, I wouldn’t change a word. I think it nails the big trends. — KK

On the excellent Five Books website Author Simon Brett is interviewed about his five favorite crime novels. Three of his picks (A Kiss Before Dying, The Big Sleep, and The Talented Mr. Ripley) are among my favorites, so I added his other two picks to my wish list. — MF

I’m reading Clean Meat, a new book about the emerging field of lab-grown meat. It covers the efforts of about a dozen companies and research centers trying to create animal meat without animals. The book lacks many scientific details, but it gives a comprehensive overview to this embryonic industry circa 2017, and some of the possible ramifications of success. It’s the current best one-stop source for a very fast-moving frontier. — KK

I loved Steven Pinker’s brand new book Enlightenment Now. It does many things including making an argument for the essential role of reason and science in creating happiness, liberty and wealth. But most importantly it is a broad, detailed, logical case for the reality of progress on our planet. If you have any doubts about whether science, education and technology are making this a better world, I believe you can be persuaded by the evidence in this book. — KK