E-Books and E-Readers

This thread is for Club Read members to discuss anything having to do with electronic reading including,

  - pros and cons of e-reading
  - sources for e-books
  - e-book publishers
  - comparison of e-reader models
  - dedicated e-readers versus tablets
  - e-reading applications for PCs, tablets and smartphones
  - e-book management and editing utilities
  - general tips, techniques and traps
  - special deals on e-books or e-readers
  - offers to lend e-books to other members

On other threads there has recently been an exchange of links to sites with free e-books. I will use Msg #2 in this thread to compile a linked and annotated directory of e-book sources. As new sites are mentioned I’ll add them to the directory. The directory can be expanded to include e-readers themselves, publishers, PC utilities, etc. if there is any interest in those.

Sources for Free E-Books

25 Sources of Free Public Domain Books

Amazon.com - Thousands of free e-books and free reading apps for desktops, tablets and smartphones.

Free Read Feed UK - Lists a wide range of recently published titles that are free on Amazon UK, searchable by genre and other factors.

Hathi Trust - Their large selection includes books digitized by Google as page images but not available as e-text on sites like Project Gutenberg. These are downloadable as PDF files.

Manybooks.net - Mostly texts from Project Gutenberg but in a wider range of download formats.

New Zealand Electronic Text Collection - Site is currently offline.

Olympia Press – Publisher of erotic classics offers free downloads of several titles including Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Ulysses.

The Online Books Page (Univ. of Pennsylvania) - Large index to free e-books, mostly hosted at other sites.

Project Gutenberg (US) - Vast and growing collection of books that are public domain in the US.

Project Gutenberg Australia - Australian authors plus many works that are public domain in Australia but not the US.

Project Gutenberg Canada - Collection of books that are public domain in Canada, including many Canadian authors.

Roy Glashan’s Library - Works that are public domain in Australia. Topical indexes references both this collection and PG-Australia.

Silk Pagoda – Publisher of Asian classics offers several of its e-books free including Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

University of Adelaide - Collection of works that are in public domain in Austrailia.

University of California Press - Collection of 700 free e-books (also free online courses, audio books and movies).

University of Cambridge - Large annotated listing of various collections and topical indexes of free e-books.

E-Book Subject Indexes

Project Gutenberg Australia – SF Comprehensive catalog and index to speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, etc.) from multiple sources including PG-US and PG-Australia.

My immediate motive for creating this thread was to have a place to ask the following question:

I have a 2-year-old Kindle Touch and have been very pleased with it. But the new Kindle Paperwhite looks very enticing. Have any of you upgraded from the Touch to the Paperwhite, and did you find it worth the cost?

As I see it, the Paperwhite has three major advantages over the Touch: white screen, night light, and some software enhancements including page preview. There is one disadvantage, however, which is that the Paperwhite has only half the storage capacity of the Touch (2Gb versus 4Gb). I have a lot of "complete works of..." collections, so this could be an issue for me (though I know I'll still have them in the "cloud" if I delete them from my device). Have I overlooked any of the pros and cons?

I have both the Paperwhite and the Keyboard ones - I hate the touch screen (I really do not like touchscreens in general) but I really like the reading experience on the Paperwhite. The light is a life-saver when I am traveling or when I just want to read a story and fall asleep. On the other hand, I am a lot more comfortable reading magazines on my Keyboard one (better menus and abilities to go between articles)... but that may be part of the fact that I am used to it.

So if you are happy with the touch screen and the size of the kindle (the keyboard one is slightly longer), I do not think that you have anything to loose in upgrading to the Paperwhite (and the light is controllable so you can make it as bright as you need it to be).

As for space - noone says that you need to stop using the old one :) Seriously though - the cloud storage is helpful and you can always sync via USB from a laptop as well...

Great idea to create this thread, Steven.

Unfortunately I can't answer your immediate question. I still have the same Kindle, which is now called the Kindle Keyboard, that I bought three years ago. It still works perfectly, and I absolutely love it. I bought a cover for it from Amazon which includes a built in light source powered by the Kindle's battery that I've used half a dozen times or so. The Kindle Paperwhite is appealing and I'll seriously consider getting one if my current Kindle starts giving me problems, but I can't justify getting it when I'm completely satisfied with the model that I have.

Is this also a place to mention e-book deals? If so, Amazon US is offering the Kindle version of Wolf Hall for $2.99 today.

Is this also a place to mention e-book deals? Sure! A great idea, in fact. We can also use this space to offer to lend our copies of lendable e-books. (I've amended Msg 1 to include these as possible uses for the thread.)

How did you find out about the Wolf Hall deal, Darryl? I get their "Kindle Daily Deals" e-mail, and it wasn't mentioned.

There was a recent discussion about Kindle vs. Nook on a discussion list I'm a part of. Here a response (not mine) that I thought was well thought out:

With all the responses talking about other tablets (like Kindle Fire, Asus, iPad mini) I would recommend that you keep on eye on your goal.

If you want something *only* for reading, then the e-Ink devices (black and white) from both Kindle and Nook will be your best bets. But if you also want to be able to browse the internet and watch videos etc, then the 'full color' tablets are the best option.

Another factor to consider is the 'ecosystem'. If you're already a big Amazon shopper, and perhaps already have music/video you have purchased from them, then a Kindle device will be your best bet. Other tablets do have apps for Amazon media, but they are often a little limited. For example, the Amazon media apps for Android tables or iPads do not let you download movies for offline viewing (eg on a plane). And the Kindle apps on non-Amazon devices also tend to be a little limited compared to a 'real' Kindle device. For example, the apps often have fewer typefaces to choose from.

Also, if you plan to use it for night-time reading (e.g. in bed) - your should think about screen brightness; I find most of them too bright. A Kindle Paperwhite is still very bright even on the lowest brightness setting. As are many of the color tablets (Nexus 7, Kindle HDX, iPad).

I got a Kindle HDX for Christmas but returned it because the screen was too bright for night-time reading. So I have reverted to my Kindle Fire (first generation) - which I could dim enough to be fine in a darkened room. Obviously that is very subjective though.

But, for everyday reading (and no videos etc), it is tough to beat e-Ink. (Available from both Kindle and Nook).

I would agree with the comments about Nook maybe being a risky choice; given that Barnes & Noble are struggling. I feel that Amazon and a longer and brighter future.

6 > I just read about eReaderIQ. Let's say you like historical fiction and want to see what recently price dropped to LTE $3 for Amazon: http://www.ereaderiq.com/drops/?c=157059011&hp=300. Wolf Hall is #4 on that list. When you click on the title, it shows you data about price, tracking, etc. This most recent price drop happened 20ish hours ago.

>6 StevenTX: The 75 Books group has a thread titled The Great Booksale/E-Book Alert, and Laura (lauralkeet) posted a message about the Wolf Hall sale this morning. I get the Kindle Daily Deal e-mail from Amazon as well, and I didn't see it there.

My first E-reader was a Kindle. I loved the Kindle Touch. Then I got an iPad. A lady and her iPad are not soon parted.

>10 urania1: Mary, I have both the Kindle Touch and an iPad. I still prefer the Kindle for reading. It is more book sized, and the page looks like a book page. I do use the iPad as a complement to the Kindle when pictures and maps are involved though. They show up much better on the iPad, and I can zoom in on the images that I might have trouble seeing.

I have the kindle paperwhite. I love the lighting feature and the screen is much bigger than the kindle 2 with keyboard that I used to have. I don't have that many kindle books so I don't have a space issue.

>11 NanaCC: Colleen wrote what I was just about to write. I agree with her completely (except that I have the Kindle Keyboard instead of the Kindle Touch). When I travel I bring my iPad to use as a portable computer, using a ZAGGfolio case with a built in Bluetooth keyboard, and my Kindle as an e-reader.

Thanks for all the comments. I should also mention that in addition to my Kindle Touch, I also have a NookColor. This was a gift, not my choice. It's more like a tablet than an e-reader, but it will only run apps from B&N. I used it for a year and a half before getting the Kindle, primarily because of Amazon's much wider selection (at that time) of e-books at lower prices. Since getting the Kindle I rarely use the NookColor, chiefly only for books in PDF format which it handles much better than the Kindle does. One of it's big drawbacks is the short battery life--only a few hours of continuous reading--which makes taking it on a long trip out of the question. I also like the e-ink much better for reading than the LCD screen.

I have a Nook, but I'm not sure that it makes much difference what you have. It's pretty easy to convert files using Calibre.

>14 StevenTX: That's another good point about dedicated ereaders. You only need to charge them every few weeks. And reading using the e-ink technology is a very similar visual experience to a physical book. No eye strain, as with a computer or tablet screen.

I have the Kindle keyboard, so can't say if the Paperwhite is the same experience. I gave one to my daughter for her birthday in November, but she's been too bogged down in schoolwork for much pleasure reading.

I thought I had an I pad but my wife seems to have it now. I have an old kindle keyboard which I use for most of the books I download from Project Gutenberg. I like the blank screen on the kindle, but the I Pad can't be beat for magazines and colour pictures.

>17 baswood: Agreed. That's why I have both. :-)

Last year, we bought a heavy wooden bookcase that only has 12 shelves of about 75 cm each. When it was delivered and set up in my study my partner said: "There's where you can put your books, and if you have more you can put them in the store room." (Mind you, I estimate my current library at 12,000+ books, not all catalogued on LT).

I was aware and interested in Project Gutenberg very early on, but hated reading from the screen of my computer, and therefore did not realize or realized much too late where things were going.

Bookmooch and Bookcrossing did a terrific job in undermining my sense of the value of books combined with the incantations of my partner that I have too many books, resulting in my acceptance that most books will have to go. My aim is to eventually end up with about 2,000 books, while scrapping anything I did not particularly like.

I haven't done much reading on my Kindle yet, as paper-copies abound in my library, and I do not want to drop them unread.

Paradoxically, I keep buying books -- the temptation of handling and buying is still too obvious. While regretting the lack of many of the aesthetic and tactile pleasures of real books, I can see that in the future I will have a small set of books + a large set of ebooks.

I agree with some members the diverse eBook formats; I think in the future I may own several e-reader devices, so I keep an interest in reading other members' experiences here.

http://uk.freereadfeed.com/ has a lot of free kindle content on it.

I have a 3rd gen kindle with no keypad which is a lovely light weight to hold. It's getting very battered though from my travels as it is always kicking around in the bottom of my handbag. I'm getting an ipad mini shortly and will put a kindle reader app on there (have it on my iphone at the moment), I'm expecting that to be the short-battery-life option with a backlit screen! I tried a paperwhite and wasn't all that excited about it but we will see, I'm getting quite attached the the e-ink flicker now but I do miss page numbers, % complete gets messed around by how much junk is packed on the end of your book. I use Calibre to keep my ebook library backed up/ sorted/ tagged.

A number of my older books were printed on cheap rough paper. When I touch it, the sensation is that of someone pulling fingernails down a blackboard. I have replaced a number of these with e-books. Touching an iPad to turn pages is a pleasure. I dim or increase the light on my iPad depending on the light in which I am reading. At its dimmest, the screen on the iPad feels almost like that of the Kindle Touch.

>21 urania1:

Tr to read for 6-8 hours off it though :) Although admittedly the screens of the Ipads had improved a lot compared to what you could get from a computer screen 10 years ago.

>22 AnnieMod:

I have read on an iPad for that long in a single sitting with no ill effects. However, who knows what the long-term results of reading on screens of any kind will be. I suspect not good. Probably Kindles are much better for the eyes over a long period of time.

The absolute best place to get free ebooks is at your public library. I get Overdrive, Axis 360, and 3M; Zinio for magazines; Overdrive and One Click Digital for audio downloads. There are also a few video downloads but I've never used them.

Since they are downloads and don't require a personal visit to the library, you can check to see how many libraries you are eligible to get a card from. I have 3 county and 1 city accounts. Look for reciprocity agreements on library websites and check big city libraries in your state, some allow any state resident to get a card. For about $50 per year, anyone can join the Free Library of Philadelphia, which has a huge collection.

I'm behind the times with a Nook GlowLight ereader and a Sansa Clip for audio, but they work for me.

I would guess that I only read e-books about 10-15% of the time. Right now I am using a Kindle App on a Nexus 7 tablet. My main frustration is that maps and illustrations are not very legible.

What would be the most noticeable differences reading from a Kindle paperwhite?

>25 wildbill: Bill, I can't comment on the Paperwhite, as I have the Kindle Touch. But I can say that I appreciate your problem with illustrations and maps. Fortunately, I also have an iPad, and I use the Kindle app there, which I can synch to the book I am reading on the Kindle. Pictures and maps are very clear, and I can zoom in on them. That works well for me.

Amazon has a number of books on the Daily Deal for $2.99 or less today, including Patti Smith's excellent memoir Just Kids.

Last week I sold off a bunch of my books, many of the still unread, because of lack of space. I tried to pick books that could be replaced by e-books if and when I was ready to read them. To ameliorate the pain of saying goodbye to a big chunk of my library, I used some of the proceeds from the sale to buy a Kindle Paperwhite, even though I already have a Kindle Touch (see Msg 3 above).

The biggest and most obvious advantage of the Paperwhite is the illuminated screen, which makes it much nicer to read in poorly lit areas like many hotel rooms. The page preview feature is also useful for thumbing ahead or back without losing your place. There are other features that involve connecting to Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, none of which I use, so I can't comment on these enhancements.

There are some other changes and enhancements in the Paperwhite over the Touch that I hadn't noticed in any of Amazon's promotional materials:

- If you buy a case from Amazon it will have a magnetic catch that automatically puts the Kindle to sleep when you close it and wakes it when you open it. You almost never have to press the power button.

- There is no "Home" button at all. You use the touch screen to navigate back to the Home screen.

- Bookmarks are handled much better. Tapping the top right corner, instead of just toggling a bookmark on an off, gives you a drop-down list of your bookmarks plus the option to set a new one. This makes it possible to use bookmarks to jump back and forth between the page you are reading and a reference page such as a list of characters or a map.

- Footnotes now appear in a pop-up window like dictionary definitions instead of navigating you off the page you are reading.

- On the Paperwhite's Home screen your cloud content appears along with the list of books on your device, only the cloud contents are grayed-out until you tap on them to download them. Additionally the books in your cloud are sorted into collections (if you have put them in one). On the Touch the cloud contents are listed separately, and there is no option to view them organized by collection.

- The Paperwhite has a faster processor. This is rarely noticeable except when doing something like zooming an illustration.

- There is no difference in the display of maps and pictures, but the ability to control lighting levels in the Paperwhite may help bring out more detail.

- The touch screen on my Paperwhite is less sensitive than on my Touch. This may just be something peculiar to these two units and not a difference in design. The screen on my Touch is so sensitive that I occasionally get accidental or multiple page flips. With the Paperwhite I'm more likely to have to tap a second time to get it to respond, but that's probably because I'm so used to the other unit's sensitivity that I barely touch the screen.

Overall I would say that unless the ability to read in dimly lit rooms is important to you, there's not enough difference to warrant an upgrade from the Touch to the Paperwhite, though the Paperwhite is definitely an improved model in more ways than just the illuminated screen.

I like my Paperwhite (2012 version), read a lot on it and as I am running out of room for books its very handy. I must have about one hundred ebooks now. But something has been on my mind recently - I do not own the books I buy, I license them, they are linked to my amazon account, I can't transfer them between accounts and I don't think I can bequeath them, which is just a little bit annoying - especially as the page you "buy" them on says "buy". So everyone's future legacy library may be a lot slimmer.

Steven - Thanks for your thoughts! I have a Kindle Paperwhite, but you've keyed in on features I didn't even know exist!

Tony - It's funny that you say that. I always imagine some future post-apocalyptic survivors coming across a Kindle that contains the summary of human pre-apocalypse knowledge and being unable to access it for lack of power, cables, etc. While there is no doubt that I love ebooks and paper is certainly subject to the ravages of time, there is also a certain unreliability and untrustworthiness about ebooks.

Do you feel like you own an ebook in the same way you own a physical book? I just can't reach that point. A big part of that is that I can't pass a book on to someone I know would like it -- which is what happens to many of the books I buy -- or even loan it to a friend. And it's not there, visible on the shelf, which may be over-stuffed, but is at least tangible. I like my kindle well enough, but keep the books there limited to the copyright free and library books.

Yet, the appeal of carrying every single book I own with me on one tiny device is attractive, at least in theory. And, really, my physical library is of value only to me.

What's appealed to my ever expanding buying habits is getting books that would be quite expensive a lit cheaper, but clearly thi is a step back.

>29 tonikat: - if you have a PC it's quite easy to make backups of your Amazon books. You just need the Kindle for PC (not Windows 8 as Amazon have started to split ebooks up to make it even harder to make copies) and Calibre with the correct plug-in. When you import the books to Calibre it stripes off the DRM and then you can do whatever you want with them.

Interesting, thanks.

Do you feel like you own an ebook in the same way you own a physical book?

Not really. There's always that bit of uncertainty that Amazon could withdraw a book because of a copyright dispute with the publisher or that Amazon's cloud could be hacked, destroying user accounts. But those are remote possibilities that don't affect my purchasing. I'm buying e-books almost exclusively now because of limited physical space.

I hadn't given much thought to what will happen to my e-books when I die, but, again, that doesn't really matter. The few members of my family who do any reading don't share my interests, so I'm sure all my physical books will be sold off to the nearest used book store (which is where most of them came from to begin with). My Kindle will probably go in a drawer somewhere or be sold off in an estate sale with no thought given to the books on it.

I suppose you could bequeath your Amazon account to an heir just by giving him or her the password. Your heir could then simply update the e-mail address and payment information on your account and continue to use it, as well as your Kindle, indefinitely. The only problem is that your heir couldn't combine your account with his or her own account, so the inherited books would have to stay on a separate device from any bought on the heir's own account.

https://www.bookbub.com/home/

Sign up at Book Bub and you will get a daily e-mail alerting you to limited time free or reduced price offers for e-books. You choose your genre(s) and reader platform for a customized listing. I thought this might just duplicate Amazon's Kindle Daily Deals, but the first e-mail I got had five or six free e-books, via Amazon. It appears that these are mostly new authors that the publisher is trying to promote.

Thanks, that's a cool resource. Unless I feel an urgent need to read something, I often let books sit on my wishlist in wait of a good deal.

Slammerkin is 2.99 on Kindle today.