Ep 423 - Is Jailbreaking Your eReader Worth It?

Summary

Reading Glasses Podcast: Episode 423 - Is Jailbreaking Your eReader Worth It?

Release Date: August 7, 2025

Brea Grant and Mallory O’Meara dive into the intricate world of eReader customization in this week’s episode of Reading Glasses. Titled “Is Jailbreaking Your eReader Worth It?”, the hosts explore the pros and cons of freeing your eReader from manufacturer-imposed restrictions, sharing personal experiences, listener feedback, and expert insights. Below is a detailed summary capturing the essence of their engaging discussion.

---

1. Introduction to the Episode

The episode kicks off with Brea and Mallory briefly mentioning their current reading projects and teasing the main topic of jailbreaking eReaders. They set the stage by highlighting the aim to help listeners make informed decisions about customizing their eReading devices.

2. Understanding Jailbreaking eReaders

Mallory begins by demystifying the concept:

“So, what we're talking about today does not involve hardware. You are not opening your Kindle. You are not cracking anything open. This is all software stuff.” [15:02]

She explains that jailbreaking refers to removing software restrictions imposed by manufacturers like Amazon, allowing users to run custom software, read different file formats, and gain more control over their devices.

3. Benefits of Jailbreaking

Bria outlines several advantages:

“You can make a custom lock screen, you can run Linux, you can add custom reading software. You can read EPUB books.” [15:24]

Key benefits discussed include:

• Customization: Personalizing the look and functionality of the eReader.
• Flexibility: Accessing a broader range of eBook formats beyond those supported by default.
• Independence: Reducing reliance on specific platforms like Amazon, which can alter book covers or revoke access to purchased content.

4. Potential Drawbacks

Despite the perks, the hosts acknowledge potential risks:

• Technical Challenges: Jailbreaking can be complex, especially for those not tech-savvy. Bria shares her struggles:

  “I failed, so let's start there.” [17:18]

• Compatibility Issues: Certain features, like the Libby app for library books, may become unusable post-jailbreak.

  “You can't use the Libby app.” [19:10]

• Warranty Voids: Although the method discussed is reversible, tampering with device software can sometimes void warranties.

5. Hosts' Personal Experiences

Bria recounts her attempt to jailbreak her Kindle Paperwhite:

“I did try it and put everything onto my Kindle, and it didn't work. I realized my firmware was too updated.” [17:20]

She highlights the importance of following detailed instructions and being cautious about automatic updates that can hinder the jailbreaking process.

Mallory shares her experiences with a Kobo device:

“I turned developer mode on, which is pretty easy. There are some extra options you can unlock.” [20:17]

She appreciates the flexibility her Kobo offers without the need to jailbreak, primarily using it for ARCs and library books. Mallory also mentions enhancements like direct ARC submissions from NetGalley to Kobo, simplifying the process.

6. Expert Advice and Recommendations

The hosts emphasize that jailbreaking is suitable for those comfortable with technology or willing to seek assistance. They suggest:

• Watching Tutorials: Leveraging YouTube guides to navigate the jailbreaking process.
• Community Support: Engaging with online forums and communities for troubleshooting.

7. Listener Feedback and Questions

Beyond the main topic, Brea and Mallory engage with listener feedback, including:

• Cautionary Tips: Sarah warns about information security concerns related to jailbreaking.

  “If my husband wasn't a tech guy who loves technology, I would not have known to even look into it.” [04:58]

• Book Recommendations: Responding to Kyla’s request for approachable, funny sci-fi similar to Andy Weir’s works, they recommend authors like John Scalzi, Charlie Jane Anders, and the Murderbot series.

8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Wrapping up, the hosts lean towards endorsing jailbreaking for users seeking greater control and customization of their eReaders:

“Overall our verdict is worth it. Easier than you think. Reversible. Won't screw up your Kindle and, And worth it for to. So you can have full control over your books and Amazon can't stick its little fingers into your Kindle and take them away.” [26:05]

They encourage listeners to share their experiences and stay tuned for updates on new jailbreaking methods as firmware evolves.

---

Key Takeaways

• Jailbreaking eReaders offers significant customization and control but comes with technical challenges and potential compatibility issues.
• Personal experiences from the hosts highlight both successes and hurdles in the jailbreaking process.
• Listener engagement adds depth to the discussion, bringing real-world concerns and diverse perspectives.
• Expert recommendations help guide those interested in exploring this option further.

For those considering jailbreaking their eReaders, this episode provides a balanced view, equipping listeners with the knowledge to decide if the benefits align with their reading needs and technical comfort levels.

Transcript

[Mallory O'Meara]

Foreign. You're listening to Reading Glasses, a show about book culture and literary life designed to help you read better. I'm author and book devourer, Mallory o'.

[Bria Grant]

Meara. And I'm Bria Grant, filmmaker and E reader. This episode, we're talking about jailbreaking your E reader. What music is that?

[Mallory O'Meara]

The Shield. Breaking the Law by Judas Priest.

[Bria Grant]

Great.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Do it again.

[Bria Grant]

Love it. We're dancing. We're asking you when. We're trying to see whether or not it's worth the time. We may have had some trouble with this.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

So tune. Stay tuned. Plus, we talk about when to look at the photos in a celebrity memoir.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Such a glasser question, by the way.

[Bria Grant]

We have expert, expert advice from Chelsea Devontez on this one. And we recommend funny sci fi books.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But first, Bria, what are you reading?

[Bria Grant]

I am listening to a book called Girl on Girl, How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves. Speaking of Chelsea Devonta by Sophie Gilbert, did she do this book?

[Mallory O'Meara]

She's doing it for her patreon right now.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. Oh, we should talk about it. I didn't know that. Wow. I'm not very far into it, but I'm listening to it. It's a great listen. And it's basically about exactly what it says about how there was this time where we were like feminism, yay. But it was, it somehow backfired and it's sort of a reevaluation of that sort of late 90s, early 2000s into like the OTS era.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It's a very big lot of girl on girl hate. Lot of calling each other fat.

[Bria Grant]

So much girl and girl hate. Right now I'm sort, I'm in the celebrity era. We've recently decided to say we're sorry to all of the celebrities, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears and all the celebrity Lynsky. All of these. Yes. All these celebrities that we, we as a culture just were so mean to and said so many things about their bodies.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Awful, awful.

[Bria Grant]

That are fudgeing. Terrible. And we're reevaluating that, I feel like publicly sort of on the Internet. But this book really dives into how we ended up with so much reality television during that time. This is a chapter I'm on right now. How we ended up with so much reality television and sort of what it did to the pop culture landscape and the way that we started treating women in response to them being on television, especially the very young 18 year old women, some of them not even 18 years old. It is so good so far. It's A really interesting dive into essentially like what happened to feminism in the early aughts.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Nothing good.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. What are you reading?

[Mallory O'Meara]

So I just finished a book that was on my most anticipated whatever ep, most anticipated episode we did recently and oh my God, I was correct in anticipating it. It's the original by Nell Stevens and it is a very queer historical fiction novel about. It takes place in 1899 in England. She lives in this like country manor house with her aunt and uncle. Her parents are both very mentally unwell and live in an asylum. So she's been kind of sent to live with this family. But she's very quirky, she's very strange. She has facial blindness. So she has a really hard time. Like a maid will come to her and she'll be like, oh, I've never seen you before. The maid's like I work with you every single day. But she just like has facial blindness. And so this big thing happens in the family where the. Their sort of long lost son comes back after 13 years away. And when he arrives they can't tell if he's the real guy or not. And because she has facial blindness, she doesn't know. But the thing they have, they both have a connection with art. She is a forger in secret. Like she's incredible at forging art. Yeah, I know you read is about.

[Bria Grant]

Art books is like some sort of art thief art. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I have to add this to my wheelhouse but. So she's. She's been keeping. She thinks that she's going to become an art forger in like, like get. Make her her own life. Because the thing is she doesn't want to marry anyone because she's queer and she finds out so is her cousin. So they're like forming an alliance while the family's trying. One half of the family thinks that he's an imposter. The other half of the family thinks he's real and they're trying to prove his identity while she her and him are forming this friendship or. And she thinks maybe rekindling a friendship. Like she can't really tell if he. If he's the real guy or not. There's two big twists in this book that I gasped at because I did not see coming. Wow, it's really, really, really good.

[Bria Grant]

Okay, I want to read this. This sounds great.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Fantastic. Big glasser nip for sure. Okay, so that is the original by Nell Stevens.

[Bria Grant]

And mine is Girl on Girl How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert. Read by Sophie Gilbert.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We want to take a moment to share some listener feedback. Sarah wrote in with some cautionary hot tips. Cautionary tips?

[Bria Grant]

Sarah the noise for that?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I don't know.

[Bria Grant]

Little qu I don't know.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Sarah says hello Bri and Mallory, I just wanted to give you a quick comment about books E readers. I know they are amazing because you can have the Kindle app on there, but there are some larger conversations going on around the Internet about information security. Onyx Books firmware is blocked by Google for security and privacy reasons. I think it's worth everyone looking into and deciding for themselves. But if my husband wasn't a tech guy who loves technology, I would not have known to even look into it. He he has asked me not to purchase one for this reason and since my information is often his information, I have respected that. I thought it would be nice if Glassers knew these concerns so they can make an educated decision on how they are using the devices or if it changes their mind on purchasing them. Yeah, I hadn't heard of this at all.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, I don't know about this either. Yeah, look into this I guess.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Good. Thanks Sarah. Thanks for the I know we don't have a noise for this, but a cautionary book tip.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, Camille wrote in and said hi Brian, Mallory, I just wanted to share a book tip I come up with recently that has helped me reduce my time on my phone and it's also given me a use for a particular type of book I haven't gotten into before. Non fiction books with shallow dive chapters of three to five pages about different examples of the same general topic. Whoa. Would love to know an example of. Okay, wait. Camille gets one. Okay, I usually read when I have time to settle in for at least half an hour or I don't at all. So I didn't like this kind of book before because the very short chapters don't progress into one larger story, but making it harder to stay engrossed for long periods of time until I was trying to cut down my screen time. These types of books are perfect for reading what I'm eating, breakfast or anytime I only have a few minutes when I'm waiting on something or deciding what I want to do next with my day. I have been reading Cursed Objects by JW Acker for over a month each morning while I eat breakfast. Okay, so that's an example of one. Okay, it's enough time to read one or two chapters of three to five pages each about a different cursed object. I'm over halfway through the book now. I won't pick up a novel if I don't have a decent amount of time to read because I don't want to interrupt my flow after just a couple of pages. But it's easy to pick up this book in those moments because I know I can finish a section quickly. My husband calls it brain fertilizer as an alternative to brain rot. I love it. That's nice. Anyway, I love the show and thank y' all for all you do. From a public librarian in North Texas.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This is cool. I. I've been. I do this with my National Geographics because then I'm like, all right. I. I'm eating my breakfast. I can have, like, an article.

[Bria Grant]

An article.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, because then you're not scrolling. I've been working. I mean, you know, I'm been working really hard to not be on social media.

[Bria Grant]

So hard.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It's so hard. But good old Nat Geo's got me covered. But yeah, these, like, non. I know exactly what Camille's talking about. These, like, non fiction books that are like, kind of like pop culture, pop science, pop history, and they're like little. Little. You know, we love an imag. Manageable chunk on this show.

[Bria Grant]

So true. So true.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Then John wrote in with the wheelhouse D Mallerie. I've been a fan of Mallory since before the lady from the Black Lagoon came out. I gave her a set of collectible Twin Peaks cards at a bar. I remember this. I have that set in bedroom.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, nice.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. My. My bedroom is all Twin Peaks and thank you, John. I remember this, but only started listening to Reading Glasses at the end of 2003. I should have started sooner.

[Bria Grant]

You should listen. You should have.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But reading glass, we can. You can join this party anytime.

[Bria Grant]

Parties train is moving. You just have to jump on when you're ready.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I can't tell you how many times I've recommended the podcast to friends and family. It's truly a joy to listen to and constantly adds books to my TBR pile SL list. You want to read John's Wheelhouse?

[Bria Grant]

Huh? Unreliable Narrators. Interesting formatting. Female protagonists in male centric genres, LGBTQ+lit, ACE relationships, small towns with big secrets, and books that don't have people on the COVID I'm a bit of a cover snob. I love that.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I love it. So you can email us at reading glasses podcast gmail.com if you want a list of all the books we talk about on the show delivered to your inbox every month. You can sign up for our newsletter. There's a link in the show Notes. Do you have any bookmarks?

[Bria Grant]

Br? Yeah, we have a couple of bookmarks. Both of us did a podcast called the Secret History of Nerd Mysteries. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Fellow Max. Fun show.

[Bria Grant]

And it's something we've discussed on the show in the past, but we got an answer to a big question.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Why do books come out on Tuesdays? Yeah. And we did an episode on it where we couldn't find that information.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. A lot of, like, professional book publishing professionals didn't know.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. And Austin from Secret Histories, we rolled.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Into that riverside room and he had a Stetson on. He's smoking a cigar.

[Bria Grant]

It takes like an hour to get through to what. Because he did so much research.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It was incredible. I was so impressed. It was so fascinating.

[Bria Grant]

You have to go check that out.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We'll put a link in the show notes.

[Bria Grant]

It's also on Maximum Fun, which we love. And then also our sister show drops some merch.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. I am looking at some of it right now. Reading Smut finally did a merch drop. We're so happy with it. The art is amazing. And say the last say for work designs.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You can be smutty in public secretly. And if you know, you know. But if you don't know, you don't know.

[Bria Grant]

So go check it out if you're a Wingspan enthusiast or your other car is a dragon. Wait, what is it?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, my other ride is a dragon.

[Bria Grant]

My other right is a dragon, which is really funny.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So before we talk about jailbreaking E readers, we're going to take a quick break. Reading Glasses is sponsored in part this week by Pear Eyewear. Folks, a lot of events going on right now, a lot of summer events. We just got back from Comic Con. I have a book tour coming up. And you know, when you're getting ready for a fancy event, you also want to have cool glasses. You gotta. You got cool shoes, cool outfit. You want to have cool glasses.

[Bria Grant]

Match those glasses.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And you know what is the perfect company that can help you match your glasses to many different events very affordably is pair Eyewear. But Bria, what's Pair Eyewear?

[Bria Grant]

Well, pair eyewear has these individual glasses and you have these little, little tops that click onto the top. Yeah, you get the glasses, the base frames, and you can get all sorts of tops to go on top, click them on, change them out. They have sun tops, they have new tinted lens tops. They complement any look from casual to Chicago, no matter what you're going for. They have tons of budget friendly shapes and styles that don't compromise style or quality. Plus, you get 15% off extra by using the code glasses, which we love.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. The base frame started just 60 bucks, which, you know, glasses are expensive.

[Bria Grant]

Expensive.

[Mallory O'Meara]

They're so expensive. $60 is so affordable, which includes your prescription and the top frame start at just 25 bucks. So if you have a cool event you're going to, you have a wedding, maybe. This is summer wedding season, baby.

[Bria Grant]

That's right. You got anyone to match that cute outfit that you know you're going to wear?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yep.

[Bria Grant]

It would be very great to have a pair of glasses that look chic and cool.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. I have so many of these tops. I have. I do have my sun tops, which I love because it's very frustrating when you're normally, I. I would like, wear regular glasses and then sunglasses and I hate going outside and be like, hold on, I gotta switch my glasses. But with sun tops, you just click them on, click them off. So easy.

[Bria Grant]

They're like magnets. They're like little, like magnets. So it's like we're saying click. It is as easy as clicking. It's not like you have to like secure them. They just click right on. It's pretty amazing.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. So you can, I mean, if you can literally change your look multiple times a day, you can wear your work glasses. You're going to an event, boom, click on your. A different pattern, a different color. There's queer ones, there's Marvel ones, there's Disney ones. They have collaborations with a lot of different cool stuff. They have sparkly ones, they have Star wars, they have NHL, which I'm very excited about. Even though it's the off season, I'm still rocking my cap stuff, so check it out. You should at least go look at these glasses because they're extremely cool. Everyone knows sometimes you're late at night, you want to browse some stuff, go check out these pictures.

[Bria Grant]

So switch up your summer look. Go to Pair Eyewear.com and use code GLASSES for 15% off your first pair. And support the show by mentioning that reading glasses sent you in your post checkout survey. That's p a I r-eyewear.com code glasses, glasses, glasses.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Hello, Internet. I'm your husband, host Travis McElroy.

[Bria Grant]

And I'm your wife, host Teresa McElroy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And this is a promo for Schmanners. It's exciting. Extraordinary etiquette for ordinary occasions. Every week we're going to tell you about a bit of culture, a bit of history, how etiquette still applies in the modern day, all that stuff. We also love to do biographies and histories of, and, you know, general procedurals.

[Bria Grant]

How to do etiquette in today's society.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So come check it out every Friday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you find your podcasts. Manners, manners. Get it this week. Cue the alarms. We're jailbreaking e readers. We are. We've got a spoon. We are.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, digging out. We're digging out. Okay.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That's how most people do. That's how they did in the Shawshank Redemption, right?

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. Behind the poster.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. You're your Kindle sitting in. In its cell with a Rita Hayworth.

[Bria Grant]

That's right.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And we're digging. We've got spoons, and we're digging them out. So, folks, big questions we're solving here. Is it a difficult process? What is even the point? And most importantly, is it even worth it? We're getting into it. Ms. Bria Grant did some boots on the ground research with this with her own Kindle. So, Bria, you do have two E readers. You have the books that we got that you use mostly for work, but you are mainly for your pleasure reading, a Kindle person. So what kind of Kindle are we working with here?

[Bria Grant]

I have an agave green Kindle paper, white, with 32 gigabytes of storage. Signature edition. I don't know what that means, but that is what I have. Paper, white paper, white, Kindle paper. That's all we need to know. And it's pretty new. Which affects what we're going to talk about.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. So what does jailbreaking actually mean? So it sounds like an intense hacker term. Don't worry, you do not have to have cool hair or like in.

[Bria Grant]

You don't have to click on there and say enhance. Just imagine. Remember that thing in hackers they carried around so they could make free calls on payphones?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Bria Grant]

That was. Seemed so relevant at the time. And now what we realize is in the future, you don't know payphones.

[Mallory O'Meara]

There are no payphones.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. You don't need it. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So even though it sounds like an intense hacker term, it just means what you're doing is you're removing some of the restrictions imposed by the manufacturer. You people used to jailbreak ipods. People still jailbreak iPhones. You can jailbreak your e reader. Any sort of device that is, like, put out by a company, and that company puts restrictions on them. You're breaking them out.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. And so then you can do other things on them that you couldn't normally do. They're not. They were not the intended purpose. Yes. But you can do that.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So what we're talking about today does not involve hardware. You are not opening your Kindle. You are not cracking anything open. You are not getting out wires. You're not in the lab. This is all software stuff. So, Bria, what are the theoretical benefits of jailbreaking your Kindle?

[Bria Grant]

Well, there's all sorts of benefits. You can make a custom lock screen, you can run Linux, you can add a custom reading software. You can read Epub books.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Which different kinds of books. And also you can disconnect from Amazon. We're gonna link to a video about this. But Mallory, why would it be good to disconnect from Amazon?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. So it's not just like a, it's not just like a vibes thing, you know, it's not just like, oh, Amazon is evil. I don't, I don't want to be connected. Like there are actual like tangible things. So because your books are connected to your Amazon account, if something happens to that account, you can't read your books.

[Bria Grant]

Right.

[Mallory O'Meara]

They talk in the video that I link someone. They give an example or a friend of the person who did the video got her Amazon account suspended and therefore she just couldn't read any of her books.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So. And something that really was bonkers is that they talk about is that if you've purchased the books and Amazon decides to change those covers, he uses the example of the Wheel of Time books. They change them all to movie cover or the TV show covers. When the TV show comes out and he's like, I already bought these. But you've gone in and changed the covers to them without my consent.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So you're. Even though, even if you buy it, you're still kind of technically long term renting them from Amazon.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. And that's kind of the point that people are unhappy about because there are terms within when you buy something from Kindle that it is just a long term loan. So if at any point they're like, hey, we're not going to carry this book anymore or something, they can pull that from your Kindle.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Which is you can pull your, take those books back. So you bought them, but they can take them back. The same with movies you buy. Like this has kind of become a thing where we've realized that we were buying these things, but we actually don't own them.

[Mallory O'Meara]

No, you were. Yeah. It's just a long term rental.

[Bria Grant]

Right.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So this method that is in the video that we're talking about, it won't mess. It's not going to mess up your Kindle, you can turn it off. It is reversible, which is nice.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. You can't turn it off, but you'd have to. You can factory reset your Kindle.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. And then you're okay. So it's not like if you. If you do this and you're nervous about it or you don't like it, you can turn it off. So, Bria, was this hard to do? How long did it take? Was it. What did you think?

[Bria Grant]

Well, I failed, so let's start there.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But this is an important thing.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. So I update my Kindle automatically, and I think I have updated to recently, and that's the problem. So winter break, which is the jailbreak method slash software that you're putting on your Kindle. It said I had. My firmware was too updated.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. They haven't released a new one yet.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. So I did try it and put everything onto my Kindle, and it didn't work. And I was like, why did this not work? And I realized what was happening.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But did it take a long time? Was it. Was it, like, technically difficult to do?

[Bria Grant]

No, it helps to watch the video that we'll link to, and then it sends you to a website, and the website has all the information on what to do. There's a lot of jargon, and I. In spite of the fact that for reading glasses, I'm in charge of all the technical stuff.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We talk about this all the time.

[Bria Grant]

It is somehow it is. Is like literally the person who knows the least leading the person who knows the second, the mostly more least.

[Mallory O'Meara]

The leastest.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I am so technically bad. It is.

[Bria Grant]

It is that somehow I'm above you, and I don't know how that's possible, but. So it wasn't hard, but it was like, I couldn't have done it without instructions.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes, but that's why lovely YouTubers exist, and they show you kind of step.

[Bria Grant]

By step, 100, and you just download. I didn't get farther than actually seeing, but I. I downloaded everything. It was not. It was not difficult.

[Mallory O'Meara]

How long did it take? Like, 15, 20 minutes?

[Bria Grant]

No, like, once you. Well, I mean, I read all the FAQs because I was just curious. So that took a minute. But once you download it, it's just downloading it and resetting your Kindle. Yeah. So it's five minutes, really?

[Mallory O'Meara]

And then it, like, takes a minute to load. Right.

[Bria Grant]

I guess it takes a minute to load. But mine never loaded, so I didn't know. So it never. I don't know how long that took after that point. But no, it would be pretty quick and wouldn't be a problem. And I wish I would like to do this because then I. I think I could read books from bookshop.org on there.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. Which would be really exciting. But the thing, one bad thing that you discovered is you can't use Libby.

[Bria Grant]

Well, you can't use the Libby app.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Bria Grant]

So that's a big question that classrooms are having. Yes. You can't read. Like, you know, I have the Libby app, like on your phone.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

You can't do that. But you can send books from Libby to your Kindle.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It's just an extra step.

[Bria Grant]

It's gonna be an extra step because you're gonna have to do. No, because you can still do the same. The same thing that we use. Sent a Kindle.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, okay.

[Bria Grant]

It still will work. It's just that you can't read. I think people are probably hoping you could just open the Libby app and.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, so it's not the Libby books, it's the Libby app itself.

[Bria Grant]

The app does. Will not work still. But it doesn't work currently on a Kindle. So it doesn't really. It doesn't. It wouldn't change that for people. But I do think it would be moving over to epubs and downloading those epubs and then sending them over. So it is going to be an extra step every time you get a book, I believe. But correct me if I'm wrong, everyone. I again don't know that much about technology. This is all very new.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But this is good for. For. So for people. These are the people who have the questions right. It's people who are not great about technology. People who are tech people have already done this. They're not worried about it. So this is where we are being bad at tech. So you don't have to be right.

[Bria Grant]

And so what about you? You, did you mess around with this because you have a Kobo?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes, I have a Kobo. And you don't really. You can kind of jailbreak a Kobo, but it. You don't have the same fears because Kobo is not connected to Amazon. But I did. There's a couple things you can do. I did turn developer mode on, which is pretty easy. So there are some extra options you can unlock, but those already kind of are in Kobo. You know, you turn your dark mode on, you could turn large print mode on. There's some games which I can't imagine a thing I'd want to do less than play A game on my E reader. I don't know, maybe I was trapped in a well or something and wanted to take a break from reading. But, like, I don't. I would not use that. But I don't. Thing is, I don't buy ebooks. I use my Kobo almost exclusively for ARCs and for library books. Although, hot tip that I noticed, for all of the ARC readers out there, this. They only did this recently and I was so happy, I almost levitated out of my chair. Is that NetGalley? You can now send ARCs directly to your Kobo, specifically from NetGalley. Before, they didn't have. They weren't connected to Kobo, so I used to have to Download them from NetGalley, put them through Adobe Digital Editions to convert them, and then put them on my Kobo.

[Bria Grant]

That's pretty tech savvy, Mallory.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Well, I used to make Jeremy do it.

[Bria Grant]

What'd you do when you broke up?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Stopped reading ARCs. Jeremy and I are still very good friends and I almost. One day I was like, should I ask Jeremy to hang out so I could put some arcs on my coba?

[Bria Grant]

And so what are you doing now?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I don't have to worry about it.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, you don't have to worry about it because it sends it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Bria Grant]

Thank you, Kobo, for making. So Melody. I have to call her ex boyfriend.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes, thank you. Kobo was like, oh, Mallory and Jeremy aren't together anymore. I gotta help her. Thanks, Kobo. You're a real one.

[Bria Grant]

What an admission. Wow. Yeah, well, no, listen, we're modern women, but we don't have to be able to do it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You know that I'm really bad with tech stuff and something that I could.

[Bria Grant]

Have showed you how to do it, that I can do, I can do that.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But something that's. That throws a wrench into all of our gears is that I work on a Chromebook.

[Bria Grant]

That actually is the biggest problem of your life.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It is. It's.

[Bria Grant]

That's. That problem plagues me all the time, where I'm like, wow, the Chromebook.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I guess I love my computer.

[Bria Grant]

So love it. That means it should be sponsored by Chromebook.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Chromebook. Hold me up. Because I. I love my Chromebook because for what I do, for work, for. As a writer and a podcaster, it is everything that I need. It is super fast. It is. Everything's connected to my. I. I like. See, I didn't buy a Chromebook because they're cheap and like, that's all I could have. I sought out a Chromebook because that's what I like, but because it uses a different operating system than everything else, it drives everyone in my life to tears.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, it's awful. That's awful. No, it just is. A few times I've been like, oh, you have a Chromebook. Yeah, but for the most part, it's fine.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, there's certain things, but. So it used to make doing stuff on my Kobo very difficult. So I would make Jeremy do it because he had a MacBook. But then Jeremy and I broke up a year and a half ago, and again, we're still very close friends, but I didn't want to be like, hey, buddy, old pal, can I use your MacBook? But anyway, it doesn't matter. So. Hot chip for arc readers. Big tangent. So one thing you can also do on a Kobo, and I think you can do this on Kindle as well, is you can install KO Reader, which is kind of like, I guess, kind of like jailbreaking it. Ko Reader is a. It's. It's not like calibre. I think it's like, it. You can change different fonts. You can, like, you can, like, really custom. It offers you a lot of custom features, but nothing it offered seemed really exciting to me. I went through the whole thing. So. But if you're someone who, like, really is interested in, like, custom fonts, custom sizes, you want to change what all the buttons do, that's worth looking into it. I'm happy with my Kobo. Like, I, I. There was nothing there where I was like, oh, yeah, that's what I want. I'm, like, very pleased. Like, I've had the Same Kobo Libra H2O for, like, since. For, like, five years. I love this thing. So. But, I mean, that might be worth looking into. But yeah, yeah.

[Bria Grant]

The thing that I really. We were gonna talk about whether or not it's worth it. The thing I would really love is to be able to read bookshop.org books on their app is fine, but it's not great. Not great. It. I'm assuming it will improve. Yeah, but still, then I'd be reading on my, like, iPad or something, and I, I would love to be able to read it on my Kindle.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So you think doing this is worth it?

[Bria Grant]

I think it would be worth it if I could do those bookshop.org books.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So we're gonna keep an eye. I'm sure that winter break is eventually going to come out with a new version that is for this new Kindle firmware and. But we would love to hear from glassers who have done this. I mean, that's when you are watching these videos and doing this jailbreaking. That's the first thing. They're like, don't update your Kindle. Like that's the big thing.

[Bria Grant]

I know.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So. And if it does update, then it kind of reverts.

[Bria Grant]

And yeah, mine was set for automatic updates. It's not set for that now. So hopefully we'll be able to. I turned that part off. So.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So we'll keep an eye on it. We'll do a follow up. But you think this is worth it?

[Bria Grant]

I think it would be worth it. Especially if you feel pretty comfortable with technology. If you don't feel super comfortable, you may want to have, you know, some nice, nice young person there to help you.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Nice, nice gen Zoomer teenager in your life.

[Bria Grant]

Zoomer. And yeah, I mean, or even start dating Jeremy Lambert. Yeah. Jeremy, call Jeremy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Jeremy.

[Bria Grant]

Jeremy's gonna kill us.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Jeremy does not listen to the show.

[Bria Grant]

Okay, good. Don't tell him. Don't tell him. But I think, I think it's. I think it's very cool. Would be very nice. Would be great to be able to own those books. That's my concerns. If one day Amazon's like, you don't own these books. And I'll be like, but I paid for these.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Freaks me out.

[Bria Grant]

And I paid like 12 for them. I paid book price for them. I mean, a full, full price.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. So that was. That would be if this, if you were a person who buys a lot of ebooks, even if you're like doing the glasser thing and only buying them when they're on sale, you still paid money for this stuff. And it really freaks me out that Amazon can be like, nope, that's gone. Or nope, noob cover. Like, I don't like that.

[Bria Grant]

Don't like it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So for glassers who have jailbroken their Kindles, let us know, weigh in. And we'll keep an eye out for a new version of Winter Break. But I think overall our verdict is worth it.

[Bria Grant]

Good. Could be worth it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Easy. Easier than you think. Won't take that much time. Reversible. Won't screw up your Kindle and, And worth it for to. So you can have full control over your books and Amazon can't stick its little fingers into your Kindle and take them away.

[Bria Grant]

And from what this YouTuber said, which I guess I believe this man, is that it's not only reversible, but also Amazon is not like coming after people for doing this. So if that is. Yeah, This. I mean, don't worry about it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

They have a lot of other problems.

[Bria Grant]

They got other shit they're worried about. Like people stealing packages off my porch.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, my God.

[Bria Grant]

Just kidding. I don't order from Amazon anym.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You just put out decoy packages for people. I've heard. I've heard of people doing that. I know, I know. Someone, a friend of a friend put got really annoyed with people stealing their packages, so they filled a package with used cat litter.

[Bria Grant]

Nice.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And left it out and someone took it.

[Bria Grant]

Impressive.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, Pretty cool.

[Bria Grant]

Okay, nice.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, well, don't do that. Maybe, but. Or actually maybe do, maybe do but. Send your thoughts on jailbreaking your E readers to reading glasses podcastmail.com before we solve a glasser problem, we're going to take a quick break.

[Bria Grant]

Jackie Cashin.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Hi, and welcome to the MaximumFun.org podcast, the Jackie and Laurie show, where we talk about stand up comedy and how much we love it and how much it enrages us. We have a lot of experience and a lot of stories and a lot of time on our hands. So check us out. It's one hour a week and we drop it every Wednesday on Maximum fun.

[Bria Grant]

Org.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Time to answer a bookish question from one of our listeners, Rhonda Rodin. Hi, ladies. A total glasser question, I think. Correct. Rhonda is very correct. I read a lot of memoirs, including celebrity memoirs. And when I do, I never know when to look at the photos in the middle. I feel that if I do it too early, there will be spoilers. But I don't want to wait until the end either. It seems that where the photos are placed depends on the total number of book pages. I've just been looking at the photos when I get to them, which feels random, wondering what other people do, but also what book publishers might expect readers to do. And you want to read Rhonda's wheelhouse?

[Bria Grant]

I do memoirs, of course. Micro histories and litfic.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, so Bria tapped in friend of the show and celebrity memoir expert Chelsea Devontas.

[Bria Grant]

So we're gonna drop that in. But first, Mallory, you want to answer this question.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm going to answer it from a technical standpoint.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, please.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But first, course. Yes. This is truly a total glasser question. I love this so much. I personally wait until the end unless the author points out something specifically that I get kind of curious about. For me, it's like my end of the book ritual. Like, I read the book, I have this knowledge of this person's life in my Head Now I want to look at all the photos and be like, oh yeah, I remember this part and this part. And I love that even audiobooks usually come with the PDF attachment. That's really fun. Like when I did the Elvira's memoir, there's a PDF attachment where like photos of everything she was talking about in the book. But. But reason why I'm saying this before, Chelsea's answer is the reason why they're in the middle is a binding thing.

[Bria Grant]

Right? Right.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So to make them in color, they have to use a different type of paper that is thicker and glossier and deals with photos. If they bound them in the back, there would be corresponding blank glossy paper at the start because you know, you. A book is bound with anything you put on one side is on the other side and they can't really mix it in because it would be a huge. I mean they could. It would just be a huge pain in the ass. It would involve someone like placing them specifically. Yeah, they couldn't like couldn't do it with a machine.

[Bria Grant]

Right this way.

[Mallory O'Meara]

They plop the book down and then they plop the gloss the photos down in the middle and then they bind it. That's why it's like that. It's just the way that it is. It's a. It's a publishing thing. Like if like a really famous person really wanted the mixed in, I'm sure they could make it happen. But it's just a pain in the ass for them, printing wise.

[Bria Grant]

I also think it's interesting that Chelsea will get into about whether or not they actually. If they have photos versus they do. I don't have photos. I'm back. And consider what people consider like a classy, upscale. I know. Memoir versus not one. But we'll let Chelsea get into it because if you don't know Chelsea, she does glamorous trash where she covers celebrity memoirs.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, she's the celebrity memoir girl.

[Bria Grant]

And I think this is a fantastic answer.

[C]

Yes, I love this question because I too put a lot of thought into this. And also I read so many celebrity memoirs that oftentimes when I read a non memoir book, my fingers go to look to see if there's photos. Just like where the photos writer.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Right.

[C]

Only celebrity memoirs have photos. So I do not believe that for the most part on the whole publishers, editors, and even the authors, co authors and celebs themselves are even thinking of your experience looking at the photos and where they lay in the text. Unfortunately I did. I don't think this is something that is Often planned or thought of as like a teamwork situation in that I know that a lot of people still think that memoirs that include photos are more like merch or more like like a cheaper book experience. Not that I agree, but I think they think of it that way and that memoirs that don't include photos are like a true literary experience. Which also goes to kind of show you how they're thinking of the photos. I also know like when I was putting my memoir together, it was hard to. I wanted to make sure that the first, very first page of the book ended on a certain line. But when you go into the actual like printing and publishing of the book, you're not really in control of that process. Unless you have a lot of power. You're kind of guessing to. To see where things are going to land. When an author has black and white photos, they've placed them very specifically. Oftentimes celebrity memoirs with photo sections in the middle. They, some of them have photos in the middle that weren't even talked about in other parts of the book. It's like they put all these photos in that really aren't talking to the rest of the book. Yes, I agree. It goes right in the center because that is just like for the book weight, the ink weight, the glossy pages. That's where they fit the best. With the exception of one recent memoir, I thought did a photo section really well, which is Tina Knowles memoir and she split the photo section into two. So you get to the first photo section and it's like childhood photos and her wedding photos and you've read all those parts of her life. Then you read the Destiny's Child and things about her marriage. And then you get to the second photo section which has all of those photos. However, my answer being I would stop thinking that for the most part they have even thought of your reading experience. And so it really is a choose your own adventure and what you want to do. Because I don't think there's a like, like something they were hoping for you to do when you picked up a book. In my personal opinion, I always read the acknowledgments first. I love the acknowledgments. That's where the secrets are. And then I do photos second. And I like looking at the photos, even if they're spoilers, because this is a person's life, they've already lived it non fiction. So I'm okay with the spoilers. And I like seeing the photos of characters I'm reading about. And then I will often revisit the photo section when I get to it. And then you have like more depth depth when you're looking at the photos that second time around.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So you can send your glass or question or problem to reading glasses podcast gmail.com. now let's answer a recommendation request from Kyla, who says, hi, I just discovered your podcast and I've been binging it all week. Welcome, Kyla. Welcome to the Reading Glasses train. I'm a former book buyer and have been a freelance reviewer for years for middle grade in ya and I've been reading for as long as I can remember. So I'm absolutely loving your show. I've added a ton to my to be read list and I'm thinking of starting a blog. All that being said, I had to email you with a recommendation request. My recommendation request. I have a hard time getting through sci Fi. I'm working on it. I enjoy it, but it takes me longer to get through. But I really love Andy Weir. What books and or authors strike a similar tone of the approachable, funny humans in outer space feel? I have a fairly broad range of what I'll read, so I'm still working on my wheelhouse and would love any suggestions. Oh, man. Yeah, I knew this was okay.

[Bria Grant]

For some reason, I must. Not only am I talking. I talked about John Scalzi last week. I'm gonna talk about him now. I'm gonna talk about him next week too.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. On John Scalzi is an evergreen recommendation on the show.

[Bria Grant]

He is. But I think also he's the first one I thought of because it's approachable, funny. Yeah, his stuff is really funny. I feel like it's gotten funnier over time.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Hilarious. Like, it started more military sci fi.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. And now we've moved into the era where John Scalzi is just having a great time.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Bria Grant]

I. Next week you're gonna hear me talk about his new books. I'm reading it right now. So I thought of John Scott. I also thought of Charlie, Jane Anders. That was the. The second person I thought of. Neither person are fully immersed in space all the time. But they're all character first. Right. I think they're all very funny and clever and. Mallory, are you doing a wreck?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm doing kind of a wreck.

[Bria Grant]

You're doing a wreck. Okay, I'm gonna do one more because I didn't think, you know, I'm leaning.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Heavily on you for this one. This is your wheelhouse.

[Bria Grant]

Gonna say, try the Murderbot books, which is.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, yeah. Because they're real fuzzy.

[Bria Grant]

Right. Now, because they're clever. They're not a human, they're a murderbot. But they are in outer space. The robot is funny. It's a funny, relatable character. First robot story in outer space. So those are also totally worth checking out. So there's three places I think you could start that you would. They're not hard sci fi, which I think I would encourage you to look at, is not hard sci fi. Go for like, yes. Character first. More literary fun genre Sci fi.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

What. What do you got?

[Mallory O'Meara]

So, Kyla, since you're new to the show, I will tell you. I don't. I'm not. I am the fantasy one. Bria's the sci fi one. We come together, predator handshake style in the middle for horror. This is really kind of outside. I probably read like one or two sci fi books a year. I don't think I've read a sci fi book this year yet.

[Bria Grant]

Well, the only fantasy I've read is for our other podcasts. Yeah, well.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, you know what? That's not true. I have read a sci fi book.

[Bria Grant]

For our other show podcast.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, for our. Our biggest alien.

[Bria Grant]

Alien smut.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Alien smut. Anyway, I did read this one book last year that I think will qualify. It's called Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis. So this is a cozy sci fi. It's about this gigantic luxury space hotel. And each chapter is from the point of view of either a staff member or a guest. And all of them have their own secrets. Some of them are sweet, some of them are funny, but it's very. I mean, if you're looking for approachable humans in outer space sci fi, this might be perfect. It's not super fun. Like, I wouldn't think of it as like a funny book, but they're. It's like very sweet and adorable and adorable in their art. Some funny moments. So I think it has that same kind of flavor.

[Bria Grant]

I haven't read this one.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It's. It's. It's Glasser Nip for sure. So that's loading Hotel by Grace Curtis.

[Bria Grant]

And I'm saying John Scaly, Charlie Jane Anders and the Murderbot books.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So if you want us to answer your recommendation request, send it to reading glasses podcast gmail.com. as always, we want to thank the wonderful mods who run our Discord server and our Facebook group. Remember, you can buy all kinds of cool merch. Folks, it's summertime. You need a tote bag to put. Put books in for the beach. You need a T shirt to crop or chop the sleeves off because it's hot out. It's starting to get real hot here.

[Bria Grant]

You can also wear the T shirt. Just like a T shirt.

[Mallory O'Meara]

No, Bria knows. I never saw, I've never seen a T shirt. I didn't want to immediately chop up into something. But it's hot out. You know, you want a nice new tank top. We do have tank tops. There's all kinds of fun summer stuff and it goes directly to feeding our hungry animals. So we really appreciate that. There's a link in the show notes and if you like the show, please rate and review us on the podcast listening app of your choice. Choice, Bria. We're Getting close to 2,000 on Apple on Apple Podcasts. All Apple podcast listeners. We'll do a special episode. We'll do another like AMA or whatever. Email us and let us know what you'd like to do. But we're gonna do a special episode when we finally hit 2, 000 reviews. We're getting close. I think we're like 100 and something away. If you were an Apple podcast listener, get out your phone, open the mobile app, give us a five star rating or a nice little review. You got an extra couple seconds. It's really great for us and helps us reach more readers. You can email us at reading glasses podcastmail.com find us on Instagram at Reading Glasses Podcast. Thanks for list and thanks for reading. Maximum Fun. A worker owned network of artist owned shows supported directly by you.