How to cite a Kindle book

I received an interesting question:

     How do I cite a Kindle book that has no page numbers? 

The most common style of citing that is still used at Dutch history departments and journals is the Buck-style. I also use it a lot. However, the last book on this citation style dates from 2002. In that year the problem of citing scholarly e-books with no page numbers probably did not occur. But nowadays it is different. 

No or flexible page numbers
Besides no numbers, e-books could also have flexible page numbers. This means that, for instance, page number 20 of an e-book on your mobile phone could be page number 5 on your tablet or an e-book reader, like Kindle. How do we cite all those different kinds of e-books?

From Buck to Chicago
The book Geschiedenis Schrijven that was published in 2016 and is now one of the standard books for historical research refers to another style for historians: Chicago. Although it is not the same style as Buck, it does resemble it.

Online Manual on Chicago
In our library collection there is a helpful manual on the Chicago style that offers solutions. One of the chapters deals with the question on how to cite an e-book without page numbers. It states that if page numbers are missing, you should put in the chapter number or section heading instead. For instance:

Adam Begley, Updike (New York: Harper, 2014), chap. 2, Kindle. 

The short version would be:

Begley, Updike, chap. 2. 

With flexible page numbers it could be possible to include them with the total page numbers of the book on your device in the following way:

Mary Ann Noe, Ivory Trenches: Adventures of an English Teacher
(self-pub., Amazon Digital Services, 2016), loc. 444 of 3023, Kindle.

In short

When you are not sure how to cite in Chicago-style, consult the Notes and Bibliography sample citations or use the search box option in the online manual.