Lately, On My Kindle

Being a Kindle owner for a little more than a month now, I haven't exactly been going all out to build up a collection of books on it.  I recently did check out, through my library, an e-reader version of Isaac Asimov's Foundation, the first novel in a series of his about the results of historical planning on a galactic scale.  But even though this book was relatively short, I had just a few days to read it before the expiration date passed and it disappeared from my Kindle.  I wonder why, if I check out a hard copy book from the library, I'm given four weeks to read it (with the option of twice renewing the loan) while I'm supposed to apparently just zip on through the material if I electronically check it out on an e-reader.  Also, why, after my online request was made for Foundation, did I have to wait a few days for it to become "available", when the whole process of transferring to a Kindle is virtually instantaneous?  Go figure...

These days I'm rereading another of my favorite authors, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes stories are among my favorites.  I bought the complete Holmes works, plus some bonus stories, for 99 cents.  I just finished the initial Holmes story, titled A Study in Scarlet (with a not-so-complimentary view of Mormon history) and am now undertaking The Sign of Four, in which the good Doctor Watson falls in love with Mary Marston.  I love the idea of being able to carry these stories around with me and reading them so conveniently...