For years, I’ve wanted to read Jaroslav Pelikan’s five volume series “The Christian Tradition.” I’ve owned the first volume but never got around to read it. With it being Lent, I wanted to start.

As I went onto Amazon to look at the other four volumes, I was surprised to see versions of the books on the Kindle store. I immediately pressed “Buy Now.” But when I opened my Kindle Scribe and tapped the cover, I received this message.

Huh.

I opened it up on my iPad and, to my surprise, it was a scan of the book. Not what I was expecting. I went back to the Scribe and, even though it has a larger screen, no dice for reading it in that device.

Going back to the book listing, it’s there in the title: “Print Replica.” I was willing to pay $21 for the digital edition, and even considered keeping the reluctant, but not being able to read it on e-ink or make notes or even search, it doesn’t fit for me. I wonder if there are people who use these versions, could be good for accessibility. But I’ll have to pick up the print version and read and note the “old-fashioned” way – maybe as it was intended.