Free Books - Shouldn't this be everywhere?

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Book Thing, the coolest non-profit EVAR. I love this place. Where else can you carry off 2/3 of the Forsyte Saga, six volumes of The Story of Civilization, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Revisited, three Gore Vidal books, the 1987 Reaganite commission on pornography report, and a little Solzhenitzyn on the side and pay absolutely nothing?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

the dump?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, but the dump doesn't organize the books by subject!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Where else? Here else!! http://www.gutenberg.net.

They publish stuff that the copyright has run out on. They are gods.

― neil simpson (neil simpson), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

And you don't have to travel to Baltimore to get them as they are all online.

― neil simpson (neil simpson), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I need physical things I can take with me and not need expensive pieces of metal, plastic, and silicon to read. Plus, reading off the screen makes my eyes hurt (even with LCDs). I'm certain I'm not alone in those sentiments either - people need something they can touch, that won't be instantly deletable, and that doesn't require an interface to be read. Books forever!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:06 (twenty-one years ago)

We kid you not. These are real titles that have been donated to the Book Thing.

1. Alien Abductees Handbook
2. How to Enjoy Sex While Conscious
3. Handbook of Underwater Acoustics
4. How to Read A Book
5. Psychological Effects of Preventing Nuclear War
6. Population Control Through Nuclear Pollution
7. How to Make a Moron
8. Headhunting in the Solomon Islands
9. Elephants in Pink Tutus
10. The Screwing of the Average Man
11. 1978 Oahu Bus Schedule
12. Advice from a Failure
13. Suture Self
14. Superfluous Hair and Its Removal

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh my god. Are you going to free them all?

― nestmanso (nestmanso), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Free as in free beer, not free speech. ;)

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I hear what you're saying re the physical joy of holding a book. However, the point of the gutenberg project is that these books are proably too old and obscure to have much of a market. Obv. relationship to deluxe vinyl/cd versions of albums. Plus the fact that the copyright has run out means is another disincentive to anyone publishing them in a handleable form. You could always print them out. :)

― neil simpson (neil simpson), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 16:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I disagree - when copyright runs out, it becomes much more advantageous for publishers, because anyone can publish it and their overhead costs are strictly in-house publication costs. Witness things like the Dover Thrift editions.

I also believe that there will also always be good money to be made on scholarly editions of classics, with footnotes, essays, etc. And obviously if it requires translation, then a new edition with copyright can be created, probably with less expense paying for a translator than paying for an author's royalties.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Variation on a theme...

This is a virtual library for unpublished books based on a Richard Brautigan story.

http://www.riza.com/richard/library.shtml

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Yikes...Moby Dick in mp3 form! Read by a computer!

http://gutenberg.net/etext05/moby3-index.htm

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Thursday, 4 December 2003 03:28 (twenty-one years ago)

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