I was always having to recharge until my son watched me, took my Kindle (he has one too) and did something and no more frequent flier recharging. I discovered that if you go to the Menu where you order books over the Kindle - what a wickedly bad feature - you can turn off Internet access. When you need it turn it back on, and it's been amazing. Now that's it's not connecting to the 'Net all the time, I can read much longer.
My first post! Whee.