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Amazon lends e-books free to Prime subscribers

Better to borrow than buy?

Amazon’s UK wing is now a lending library, albeit a private one exclusive to folk willing to cough up £49 a year.

Yes, Amazon Prime subscribers with Kindles can now borrow any of 200,000 e-books for no charge other than their annual Prime sub. They can pick no more than one book a month, but there’s no digital equivalent of the ‘due date’ rubber stamp of old.

With e-book ownership of questionable value - you can’t sell them when you’ve finished with them, or give them away; they’re clearly impossible to take down off the shelf, smell and flip through - getting to read them for free will no doubt appeal to many.

Whether that justifies the annual subscription depends on whether you’d spend more than £4.08 for an e-book each month. And that Amazon is willing to lend you the book you want to read, of course - 200,000 titles is a lot less than the number of books on Amazon's 'for sale' shelves.

Amazon would say Prime also gives you free, next-day delivery on physical items you buy, but free delivery over a slightly longer period is easy enough to select. ®

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