Free books Online…in a decent format
Friday, March 13th, 2009I like free online goodies as much as the next person (though pirated films, books and music make my hair go the wrong way.)
However, never one to flinch from looking a gift horse in the mouth, I can’t stand the text versions of many of the free online books. The formatting is unattractive, and the lousy legibility gives me a headache. My thrill at Project Gutenberg evaporated as I realized I could not manage to get through almost any of the online books there because of the formatting.
If you’re having the same problem, you might want to try E Book TakeAway.com instead.
Not only are there thousands of books by classic authors to have for your very own, but they are in attractive, easy-to-read PDF files.
I was delighted to find The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Nibelung by William Morris, but the Andrew Lang Fairy books are there, too. It took me ages to find hard copies of these and I have never managed to track down the complete Andrew Lang collection at a good price. It gives me a pang to have to read them without the glorious pictures (the files have no illustrations), but fairy tale enthusiasts will enjoy having hundreds of stories at their computer fingertips with these.
I’ve got a small library on my computer right now and have been enjoying Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth all week.
It’s lovely to be able to get these books, and know that I am not picking the pocket of some poor author to do so. I am not spending moolah on a dead author. I can reserve my cash for the living authors who need it, and now have a much bigger budget to spend on books I want to keep in good editions. No more annoying, cheap paperback classics! At $5 a whack, those things add up. I used to spend at least a couple hundred bucks a year on classic paperbacks, and now I don’t need to.
I’m sure the pockets of many publishers are groaning these days: no more easy money to be had cranking out classics year after year! I’m sure most people will just download their Plato. You can also find the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and many other popular authors.
And unlike some of these other free ebook resources, you get them in a format you can actually see.
PS: I am having connectivity issues due to a winter storm which has decided to obliterate the gardens which have decided it is spring. So, if I can’t answer email in a timely fashion, it’s nothing personal. The storm is supposed to last a couple of days. My apologies.
There are some drawbacks to this internet thing…
c
