Free Ebooks

[Pete Zicato]

I got an ipad last summer and have enjoyed a number of their free iBook selections. There's some really good stuff available for free, and not just the obvious classics.

Anyone else reading free ebooks? Want to make some recommendations?

I'll start.

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper. It's a fast read - some heartwarming science fiction. There are some claim that the Star Wars Ewoks were based on Little Fuzzy.

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I'd never read it before and found it quite readable.

[jimhelm]

i have a thing called wattpad on my blackberry. if you're willing to squint at it's tiny screen, there are like 10,000 free ebooks on there.

[Pete Zicato]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

i have a thing called wattpad on my blackberry. if you're willing to squint at it's tiny screen, there are like 10,000 free ebooks on there.

Cool. Have you read anything there you'd recommend?

[freshnesschronic]

Last year 7 million people had digital book readers, like the iPad, Kindle and others....this year 21+ million have them....
they are becoming quite popular!

[jimhelm]

Originally Posted by Pete Zicato

Cool. Have you read anything there you'd recommend?

I don't have time to read read. I do audio books during my average 11 hours/week in the car. I did find one book I couldn't find elsewhere. Malignant Self Love. by Sam Vaknin. It's about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He's a self proclaimed Narcissist and is very active in promoting his book as the definitive work on the subject. It's kind of an insiders expose on the disorder. Interesting, but only if you've some reason to be interested in the topic.

but again.. 10,000 books there. ipad app

[wolf]

Originally Posted by jimhelm

He's a self proclaimed Narcissist and is very active in promoting his book as the definitive work on the subject.

That is as funny as hell.

I am a professional, don't try this at home.

[richlevy]

There is a huge library of book on mobipocket http://www.mobipocket.com/freebooks/default.aspx , including a lot of Burroughs.

Unfortunately, they are in .mobi format and you have to download the free e-reader. The e-reader is good on PC, Blackberry, and a few other devices. They used to have software that would publish text files to mobi reader files.

P.S. It's been awhile, so I went to Mobi to install the reader on my new PC. It appears that Mobipocket was taken over by Amazon. I read the license agreement before installing and it is the most frightening one I have ever read. I didn't install the software.

P.S.S. I installed FBReader http://www.fbreader.org/

[DanaC]

Have to say, the kindle app is what finally persuaded me to get an i-phone instead of just buying another no-frills nokia brick.

I love it. It's awesome. Haven't gone for the free books much (one or two that looked interesting. Most of the free classics that i would want to read, i have done already through other means. I think one of the free books was 'Tenshun! : A Boy in the Penninsula - which is a 19th century boy's adventure story set in the Penninsula war (from a few decades earlier) - though I may be misremembering, and this one may have had a small charge on it. Definately not a full price book though.

I have found some excellent paid books.

So far I have bought:

To War with Wellington, by Peter Snow - a straight up biog of the man and his way of waging war.

Why Does E = MC2 ?, by Brian Cox and another guy - am checking it out to see if worth buying in print as xmas pressie for Our Kid.

A couple of others I can't recall titles of....and the best book I have read in ages:

Dave Barry Slept Here, by Dave Barry.

I am in awe of this man. It's a faux-history of the USA. I have yet to read more than two pages without laughing out loud, or if on the bus, snickering into my scarf.

I now have to buy his other books. If they're half as funny as this I'll be happy.

Battles in those days took longer than they do today. First off, it took a while for the British to form into strict military formations, which, when viewed from the air, spelled out nationalistic slogans such as GO BRITS!

The federal government had acquired assorted western territories like Utah through treaties with the Native American inhabitants under which the United States got the land and the Native Americans got a full thirty minutes’ head start before the army came after them.

One key lesson of history is that virtually anything, including afternoon or evening thundershowers, causes Germany to invade Belgium.

Oh, and for ease of understanding, Dave Barry employs the single dating system within the work. Everything in history always happens on 8 October.

[DanaC]

Oh, sorry, there were a couple of other free or almost free books I got: Maxims and Opinions of Field Marshall His Grace The Duke of Wellington, by Duke of Arthur Wellesley Wellington.

and Under Wellington's Command, by GA Henry.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Why Does E = MC2 ?, by Brian Cox and another guy - am checking it out to see if worth buying in print as xmas pressie for Our Kid.

What?
It's Brian Cox!
Of course it's worth buying.
I can't afford his books right now, so someone has to pay for his upkeep if he's going to continue to be so spunky. Buy two.

[DanaC]

I might at that. lol

[Pete Zicato]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

What?
It's Brian Cox!
Of course it's worth buying.
I can't afford his books right now, so someone has to pay for his upkeep if he's going to continue to be so spunky. Buy two.

I'm seeing a trend here. Hot Brit girls read physics for fun.

Good thing I'm Murkin. I don't think I could keep up.

[Sundae]

I don't read Brian Cox - I just drool over him
Dana does though, and she might fake a limp to let you catch up...

[wolf]

I get most of my free ebooks directly from amazon. I check the Bestseller Lists (one for paid and one for free) regularly. Usually "purchasing" one freebie leads to another.

I also use mobipocket to convert PDFs to Kindle-readable files. (yes, the newer ones read pdfs as a native format, but the display is cludgy on the k3, and I find i easier to convert. If there are formatting issues, I'll read on the KDX which displays pdfs at a readable size.

I hear there are some pirate ebook sites around, kind of like what napster was in the old days ... not that I'd suggest that people should read really bad scans of Harry Potter or anything like that.

[Gravdigr]

Anybody ever use DailyLit.com? Get entire books in short installments daily in your email. I recently finished a collection of Jack London short stories. I had one installment delivered at 3 am every Sunday morning for 72 weeks. You can get longer, more frequent installments, and have them delivered whenever you want. Tailor it however you want it.

Lots of books for free. They have lots to buy, also.