OESF Portables Forum

General Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: ksignorini on November 04, 2004, 07:08:13 pm

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: ksignorini on November 04, 2004, 07:08:13 pm

Hey all.

I don't know if I just suck with google these days, but it seems every site I've tried after googling "free e-book" appears to take me in the equivalent of a porn-site loop but with e-book sites!

Can anyone tell me where a good place to get some good (free or pay or both) e-books might be?  It would be nice if they weren't all Charles Dickens (no offence, Charles).

Thanks,
Kent!

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: choonhow on November 04, 2004, 08:42:33 pm

Hi Kent,

Maybe you can try Fictionwise (http://www.fictionwise.com)

They do offer free ebooks once in a while.


cheers

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: Zauruman on November 04, 2004, 08:59:19 pm

As I use the plucker format, I tend to get quite a few books from the following sites:
http://www.xecu.net/bcollins/PalmDocs.htm (http://www.xecu.net/bcollins/PalmDocs.htm)
http://unpress.bandersnatch.org/ (http://unpress.bandersnatch.org/)
http://www.pluckerbooks.com/ (http://www.pluckerbooks.com/)
Of course, you've also got Project Gutenberg ( http://www.gutenberg.net/ (http://www.gutenberg.net/) ) for more texts.

Naturally, all the texts available on these sites are in the public domain so generally relatively old. You may not like Dickens but if Jonathan Swift, Machiaelli, Pascal, Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, Balzac, Edith Wharton or Jules Verne grab your fancy you're in luck.

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: ksignorini on November 04, 2004, 10:02:44 pm

Thanks!

Kent!

p.s. I actually like Charles Dickens.  Or is it Dickens with two p's and a silent q?

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: waalkman on November 05, 2004, 04:57:58 am

http://linuxhandhelds.org/ebook.html (http://linuxhandhelds.org/ebook.html)

Enjoy.

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: TimW on November 05, 2004, 04:59:50 am

Project Gutenberg Consortia Centre (http://www.pgcc.net/)...awesome!

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: omega on November 05, 2004, 08:36:35 am

www.memoware.com

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: vputz on November 05, 2004, 10:06:15 am

Manybooks.net (http://www.manybooks.net) has a ton of stuff; that's where I've been getting most of my reading material these days.  Mostly classics, but that's not all bad...

-->VPutz

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: yzord on November 05, 2004, 10:20:35 am

If you're into Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy books, http://www.baen.com (http://www.baen.com) is great. Has a free library, as well as a webscription model for selling ebooks. Best thing about it, is that they're the only publisher that doesn't use DRM (on purpose).

Here's a plug for a Toronto-based writer, check out Cory Doctorow's (http://craphound.com/) website for two scifi books released under the Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) license (go there for more Creative Commons distributed audio/video/images/text/etc).

Yz

Title: e-books - where to get them
Post by: acpkendo on November 05, 2004, 05:28:16 pm

If you can get a hold of a book in Microsoft's .LIT format, there's an application that lets you convert it into an open format.  Of course, by using it you violate the DMCA, but I'm of the opinion that if you pay for something you should be able to use it on whatever device you want.  It's called "Convert LIT."