The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (with Cross-References): Old and New Testaments [Kindle Edition]

I really like the ESV text so why the 2 stars? Because of issues to do with formatting and navigation. I use Kindle 3 (I do not know if my comments apply to other Kindle models) and here is what I have found:

- It is hard to know which book of the bible you are in. The chapter headings consist of chapter and verse number only (e.g. 5:1) and if you press the menu button (which is the usual way of finding the book name) hoping to see Isaiah or whatever, you will instead see "The Holy Bible English Standa..." which you probably knew anyway. How do I know if the 5:1 at the top of the screen means Isaiah 5:1 or Jeremiah 5:1? It would be better if the start of each chapter identified the book name (or its abbreviation) alongside the chapter and verse.

- Similarly, bookmarks do not identify the book that they are in. I keep seven bookmarks - one for each day of the week. When I look at the list of bookmarks I see the location number (Kindle's equivalent of page number) and a few lines of text from that location. It would be so useful to see, for example, Ps 51:3 alongside the location number.

- With some Kindle e-books pressing the right or left arrows on the 5-Way controller takes you to the next or previous chapter respectively. On the ESV this doesn't work. It would be useful if it did.

- To my eye the section headings are disproportionately big compared to the font size of the text. It would be aesthetically more pleasing if they were smaller.

- If a chapter starts with a section heading and you use the table of contents to go to that chapter, the section heading will be on the previous page. This is especially significant in Psalms. When using the Table of Contents to go to Psalm 57, for example, the top of the screen shows "57:1 Be merciful to me, O God..." and only by going to the previous page do I read (in extra large font - see above) "Let Your Glory Be over All the Earth To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Mitkam [137] of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave." The Table of Contents should point to the location of the chapter heading which is not the same as the first verse.

- The footnote marks consist of square brackets around a 1, 2, or 3 digit number, underlined, and in the same font-size as the text. This is obtrusive; and accessing the footnote is more complicated than it could be. Currently if you are reading a verse containing a footnote and want to access the footnote you have to: move the cursor onto the footnote mark, press the 5-Way which then displays the relevant page of the footnote list, read the footnote, and then press Back to come back to the text. A better way would be for footnotes to be accessed in the same way that word definitions are from the dictionary. With all Kindle books putting the cursor in front of a word brings up a small window showing that word's entry in the dictionary. It would be excellent if a similar system could be used for footnotes, so that putting the cursor in front of the footnote symbol caused the footnote to appear in a small window. This would allow you to see the footnote and the text at the same time (as you can on paper bibles) and also permit the bulky footnote mark to be replaced with a less obtrusive symbol.

Finally be aware that it is not possible navigate to a specific verse by typing the book, chapter and verse reference (something that many people will want to do in an electronic bible). Instead, if I want to find Luke 2.17, for example, I need press Menu, Select Go to.., Select "table of contents" in the "Go to" window, Page forwards twice to get to the page containing Luke, Select Luke, Select "Chapter 2", and finally page forwards twice to verse 17. Phew.

In summary this is the excellent ESV text with unaesthetic formatting, within which it is cumbersome to navigate and easy to get lost. I wish the publishers had paid as much attention to the structure and appearance of the text on the Kindle Screen as they have done in their paper editions and given more thought to the ways people might want to use the bible on their Kindles.

I'm a writer and have just bought myself a Kindle. Over the years a number of colleagues in the biz have recommended that I read The Bible - or, at least, some of it - as literature, as it has some cracking stories and characters. (I'm not out to offend anyone who follows the Book in a religious aspect!)

This Kindle version - The Holy Bible English Standard Version (ESV) - I've found to be the best for casual reading. There is a linked TOC to each book plus all the chapters (displayed as a long list). Verses are not linked, but there are so many of them that it hardly seems worth it anyway. The verses are indicated by embolded numbers within the text. At first, I thought this would be a distraction - it isn't. New chapters are indicated by slightly larger embolded numbers at the beginning of the first line, followed by the first verse number (e.g. 24:1). Footnotes are indicated by hyperlinked numbers contained in square brackets within the text. What is also great about this edition is the inclusion of "story sub-headings" - these are not officially part of The Bible but they help to indicate the key stories of the text (such as Noah and the Ark, Abraham and Isaac, etc). As these headings are not linked in the TOC, they are handy to use as bookmark points.

This English Standard Version translation is very suitable for modern-day readers. It does not contain "modernised" text, but it is updated just enough to provide a comfortable read.

I would recommend this to any Kindle user who has a casual interest in The Bible. I'm a bit bummed that it's free from the Amazon US store, but for UK users it's only six quid or so (at the time of writing this review).

If you want a more in-depth research-based experience then try the ESV Study Bible which contains the same text but links to a wealth of research material. Or, pick up the original King James Version - The Kindle Holy Bible (The Definitive English Authorized Version) Complete Old Testament and New Testament (Special Kindle Edition with DirectLink Technology) (Bible Revised Edition) - which has been formatted perfectly for the Kindle, but you may find the language more "old fashioned" and difficult and there are no story sub-headings.

I wish I'd seen this first! To get to a book, go to Menu, Index and type the first letters of the book abbreviation. As you type, a list appears of books that start with those letters. As you continue to type a space and a number (use the Alt key to type numbers) the list scrolls to the chapter you want, space and type your verse number which will scroll to the top of the page. You can press the down arrow on the 5-way controller to get to the verse you want at any time when you've had enough of typing.

There are some handy footnotes (eg. a hin was about 3.5 litres). The ESV text is a reasonably good version.

At last, a Bible that really works with the Kindle.

Update - and now the newly discovered bad news: Unfortunately, this version isn't very good at optimizing Kindle's native text find. A search for Take my yoke found 2 Sam 24:16 which contains the 3 words but not in that order, however, it didn't find Matthew 11:29 where the exact phrase appears. The KJV Easy Navigate eBook by Hendrickson Bibles(which does not have the same ease for finding a chapter and verse) did find Matthew 11:29, while the American Standard Version found both the 2 Samuel and the Matthew 11 references. I don't understand why the free bible on my antiquated Palm VX can take me easily to a chapter and verse from any page AND find an exact phrase while a sophisticated piece of kit like a Kindle can't do it.

Further update: I now see the problem with the Find. The verse in Matthew had a hyperlink immediately in front of the word Take. Because the Kindle only finds whole words, it read the hyperlink as being part of the word. The Find function could thus be vastly improved simply by putting a space between the hyperlink and the word. The example was unfortunate - text without hyperlinks within it could be found.