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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 27, 2010 22:40:08 GMT 1
Project Gutenberg has royalty-free books from the likes of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and many, many more. They're all available for download in the States, but those outside of the U.S. may want to check copyright laws, etc. before downloading.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 27, 2010 22:47:03 GMT 1
ooh tempting but without an e-reader it does not really do much for me. My computer desk chair cries everytime I sit in it. I tend to lounge around in weird poses and locations like a cat when I read. My chair was never up to that. ;D
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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 27, 2010 23:10:54 GMT 1
From their site: "All our ebooks can be easily downloaded: Choose between ePub, Mobipocket, HTML and simple text formats." And yes, you can put these on iPod Touches, Androids, Kindles, etc. too.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 27, 2010 23:35:38 GMT 1
I know I know, but just as my chair cries when I sit in it my computer chair is not very comfortable for me either. My computer is also my smallest electronic device aside from my screen less mp3 player. I have to be rich to use some free stuff.
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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 27, 2010 23:42:22 GMT 1
LOL. Never heard of a chair "crying" before.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 27, 2010 23:51:39 GMT 1
When it's a cheap put it together yourself jobber and you weigh over 300 lbs if it's not crying it damn well wants to. ;D
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Post by lieden on Aug 28, 2010 7:11:45 GMT 1
I've been devouring books from Gutenberg since... Gosh... must have been nearly a decade. Things improved greatly since I got a laptop!
Bronte Sisters, Jane Austen, George Macdonald, Mark Twain, many, many others -- I've all read them (or read the original English works) at Gutenberg. I love it!
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Post by Mister Buch on Aug 29, 2010 18:24:15 GMT 1
Oh, cool! I like to read classics online, but this would probably be more convenient.
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Post by Mr. Glow on Aug 29, 2010 21:56:30 GMT 1
Wow, this sounds really handy, I'm sure I can save a bit o' money with this!
By the way, I'm a bit out of the loop, what is an ePub? I have a pretty cool mental image, but I don't think the reality will live up to it.
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Post by ommadawn on Sept 1, 2010 4:17:34 GMT 1
I've been a Guternberg fan for many, many years. I've been reading on a PDA of some sort since 2002, and don't read novels on anything else now. My beaten up old Dell Axim X51v (the third of it's kind, thank you Ebay) has a 16GB SD card in it, and it holds literally hundreds of ebooks - again, most of them already read. It's pocket sized, hi resolution screen is easy on my eyes and is always with me. I read more now with that little beasty than I ever could with a paper book.
As for the sticky issue of copyright, remember it's different for each country. Australia for example, has its own Gutenberg site with books that aren't available legally in the USA due to different laws.
And for buying current ebooks... well, don't even get me started on geographical restrictions. Grrr.
Oh, and ePub is a relatively new standard for formatting readable and portable ebooks that will be good for different devices and their respective abilities. It's really just a zip wrapper for xml files that contain the text and images, but it's fast becoming a defacto standard for many publishers; many sadly who then place their own dastardly DRM (digital rights management) on the file as well, but that's another story.
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Post by Battlechantress on Dec 3, 2010 5:07:16 GMT 1
Here's another free book provider: manybooks.net/I haven't spent much time over here, I'm just throwing it up here in case you find it useful.
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Post by Mister Buch on Dec 6, 2010 16:21:51 GMT 1
Nice one.
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Post by ommadawn on Dec 7, 2010 3:18:40 GMT 1
Another site that's been around for a LONG time, is Memoware ( www.memoware.com/). It's got a lot of ebooks on it, and many original as well as out of copyright pieces as it survives on user submissions. Well worth a look, even today.
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Post by ommadawn on Jan 23, 2011 23:41:02 GMT 1
A lot of DRM'd ebooks won't let you print them out (yet another reason to despise it). I do all my reading on my old Dell Axim X51v PDA or my shiny new HTC Desire android phone. Both are a joy to read on and I can fit them in my pocket. Each holds literally hundreds of books.
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Post by ommadawn on Jan 24, 2011 23:45:27 GMT 1
Well, it depends on the book and the publisher you buy it from (and also on your taste in books). Baen for example, are DRM free and you can get their ebooks in HTML or RTF for easy printing. I personally love Baen and throw scads of money at them, but they do service a particular niche of fiction (mostly Military S/F, though they are getting more and more S/F and Fantasy as we speak).
What are your reading tastes?
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