Free Books on the Web

Manach

May I quickly say err I draw the wrath & fury of Lolth these aren?t warez.
The publishing house Baen has put some it?s books on the web in HTML format.
I gather this is an attempt to interest the reader in other published works by the authors. The books are of mixed quality but with some good ones (eg Fallen Angels).
www.baen.com/library

LoLth

Thanks Manach. Some good authors at that site.

I'd like to add:

http://promo.net/pg/

Project gutenberg. It's been mentioned a few times before but I'm going to make this a sticky thread so I'll mention it here again.

If that site is too slow, a google search (or whatever engine) will turn up plenty of mirror sites.

Please feel free to post locations of (preferably) free books/booklets/chap-books.

Just one or two limitations.
1. No WAREZ
2. No Lewd or otherwise Adult-themed material (especially donkey-pron)
3. make sure it's LEGAL

hopefully by the end of this we'll have a nice online library.

LoLth

- a bit hard to navigate, not to mention bland, but has a good mix of stuff.

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/

- boasts almost 20000 books, quite a good range as well.

http://www.books-on-line.com/

Deathtobertie

I found that using a file sharing program called 'xolox' was quite good for downloading free e-books. You can download the program from www.zeropaid.com. The program was disabled for a while but has since been re-activated. Definitely worth a look

yellum

It seems HP Lovecrafts works are in the public domain and someones put em in digital form:

http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/index.htm

Midnyte Rambler

A couple of good sites I've come across in my travels are:

1. esspc-ebooks.com (My personal favourite - check out the Computer section where they have three excellent reads in The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling, Underground by Suelette Dreyfus and a long essay by Neal Stephenson called In the Beginning was the Command Line. I downloaded these to my Pocket PC and thoroughly enjoyed all three, even on that little screen :-)

2.b www.hiddencave.com

Midnyte Rambler

Apologies...that url for esspc should have read
http://esspc-ebooks.com/

accensi0n

http://www.intelinfo.com/free_computer_books.html

an excellant source for free computer related books

yellum

Greg Egan stories

http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/BIBLIOGRAPHY/Online.html




Kevin Kelly - New Rules for the New Economy

http://www.kk.org/newrules/index.html

Kevin Kelly - Out Of Control

http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/index.html

Cheez

http://www.e-text.org/text/

Lots a great stuff here,Michel Foucault-Madness and civilisation!!

Savaiste cabaiste

LoLth

a few more sites:

http://www.awa.com/library.html
http://www.nerdworld.com/nw267.html
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7786/books.htm
http://gutenberg.net/
http://etext..lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html
http://human-nature.com/darwin/ebooks.html
http://www.bartleby.com/
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/
http://www.harrison.lib.ms.us/internet_sites/online_books.htm
http://www.classicbookshelf.com/library/
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
http://ebookdirectory.com/search/Literature/more3.html

Clintons Cat

online-literature

Some classics including Sun Tzu's art of war

Clintons Cat

This is quite a useful online study-note sit

GradeSaver

(includes Study notes on All Quiet On The Western Front,better late than never eh?)

sci0x

A site lauched by Mary Hanafin, Minister of State at the Department of An Taoiseach launched the Storytelling in the Liberties website at the Digital Hub Technology innovation centre. The website hosts 210 stories all produced by school children from the Liberties area in central Dublin.

Zoton

Jack Herer's book "the emporer wears no clothes". A book about the history of hemp and its uses, if you have and interest in that sort of thing,

http://www.bronowski.pl/~c4ntr33d/stuff/The_Emperor_Wears_No_Clothes_-_Jack_Herer.pdf

Capt'n Midnight

Note: many printers these days will print two (or 4) pages on one sheet of paper and will do duplex (both sides of the page) as well - so you can be environmentally friendly (and smaller bundles to carry out)

http://www.bartleby.com/
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/eng-on.html
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/lists.html
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/PerseusInfo.html humanities.

duridian

http://www.memoware.com

Most of the ebooks on this site are in formats for handhelds like Palm, but there are links to PC software that can open these formats too.

Capt'n Midnight

Internet Ancient History Sourcebook
code of Hammurabi

Choral sheet music - because it's there.

elvenscout742

This here is a great website for the holy books (and many others) of various mythologies. As you can imagine, there is no copyright on the likes of the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Vedas, or even on Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan, so it's okay.

Orizio

Check this out.

All political books i'm afraid but some good ones there all the same...

stagolee

i was just wondering what are the requirements for a book to go out of copywright? does the author have to be dead 70 years or something?

(i noticed all the hp lovecraft stuff mentioned at the start of the thread is gone now. ive never read any of his stuff but i loved the "alone in the dark" game on pc and i think that was based on his stuff so i was looking to read some)

bringitdown

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/

Poe, Orwell, HG Wells, and lots lots more, all out of copyright I assume

Frankie Smith

wikisource has some stuff. link yourselves..................

Capt'n Midnight

stagolee wrote:

i was just wondering what are the requirements for a book to go out of copywright? does the author have to be dead 70 years or something?

AFAIK for ROI and UK Yes.
Irish Law - http://www.gov.ie/bills28/acts/2000/a2800.pdf
US Copyright guide - http://www.gutenberg.org/howto/copyright-howto
in some cases books as recent as 1989 without copyright notice may be public domain.

esperanza

http://print.google.com/

What do you think of Google print?

stagolee

probably been mentioned here already but here is a couple of great short stories that i read recently:
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Irving Washington
and
The Guest of Dracula by Bram Stoker

gaf1983

66 Classic books in pdf format:

http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1&cachecommand=bypass

Son_of_Belial

Ok...

AdMMM

http://www.archive.org/details/texts

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already.

BossArky

http://www.readprint.com/

luckat

One of the children's books that was central to my childhood was James Stephens' Irish Fairy Tales - basically retellings of some of the Fiannaíocht. You can actually still buy it, with some difficulty, and if you can get a copy (especially the beautiful Gill & Macmillan reprint of the 1924 edition using the original plates issued in 1979, which has the illustrations by Arthur Rackham) it's much more pleasurable to read that way.

But if you can't get hold of a physical copy, the book is available here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/ift/

Take a look at "The Birth of Bran" if you're doggy Tuan Mac Cairil if you're pantheistic, and any chapter if you're a lover of good writing and great storytelling.

Talliesin

luckat wrote:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/ift/

Take a look at "The Birth of Bran" if you're doggy Tuan Mac Cairil if you're pantheistic, and any chapter if you're a lover of good writing and great storytelling.

That entire site is a great source of free texts. It's extremely popular with all sorts of people who have an interest in religion, theology, thealogy, mythology etc. but lots of the texts are good reads for anyone.

Capt'n Midnight

stagolee wrote:

i was just wondering what are the requirements for a book to go out of copywright? does the author have to be dead 70 years or something?

Under Australian copyright law, literary, dramatic, & musical work published, performed, communicated, or recorded and offered for sale in an author's lifetime are, if the author died in or before 1954, protected for the life of the author plus fifty years from the end of the year of the author's death. Therefore, for a work to be in the "public domain" in Australia, it is only necessary that the author died in or before 1954 and that the work was published (not necessarily in Australia) during her/his lifetime. As an example, the works of George Orwell, who died in 1950, are in the "public domain" in Australia. Where an author died after 1954 the copyright period is the life of the author plus seventy years from the end of the year of the author's death.

Not much use for those of us who aren't in Oz but here are the links anyway.
http://gutenberg.net.au/index.html
http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html

Capt'n Midnight

The above would be better off on bargin alerts http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=246

Gunther_Gloop

Well I can recommend this (free) book... www.thehighkickingkungfusoccerplayingbunnyrabbittree.com/

It's about a guy who does nothing. Always.

Johnny Meagher

complete short stories of Anton Chekhov: http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/index.htm
great search page for online books:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

don't forget audio books, quite a few resources out there, I've joined up with Audible.co.uk so don't use much but this is worth a look:
http://librivox.org/ interesting "let's all get together and read public domain books aloud", listened to a few stories, surprisingly good quality.

lmmoonbeam1976

Deathtobertie wrote:

I found that using a file sharing program called 'xolox' was quite good for downloading free e-books. You can download the program from www.zeropaid.com. The program was disabled for a while but has since been re-activated. Definitely worth a look

just tried to check out the site here-- not working !!

ZorbaTehZ

Clausewitz's Vom Kriege

NightmareHero

Here's my own that I wrote:
http://www.freewebs.com/thenightmarehero/Nightmare%5FHero%5FNovel.pdf

owlwink

BossArky wrote: »

http://www.readprint.com/

Brilliant one this. Thanks a mill

irishpaddy

Manach wrote: »

May I quickly say err I draw the wrath & fury of Lolth these aren?t warez.
The publishing house Baen has put some it?s books on the web in HTML format.
I gather this is an attempt to interest the reader in other published works by the authors. The books are of mixed quality but with some good ones (eg Fallen Angels).
www.baen.com/library

can you tell me how to get them d/led i would love to be able to get books onto cd. my eyes get very tired reading; and listening to them would be great. if anyone knows i sure would be appreciate it.:)

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Slightly OT:

Would I be right in thinking that in the EU & Ireland copyright expires 50 years from date of first publishing?

I'm almost 100% that that's the case for music anyway.

xebec

Sean_K wrote: »

Slightly OT:

Would I be right in thinking that in the EU & Ireland copyright expires 50 years from date of first publishing?

I'm almost 100% that that's the case for music anyway.

Nope, it's actually typically the author's lifetime + 70 years. See here.

Gu3rr1lla

www.scribd.com the best site ever for books (apart from google books)

turgon

I dont know is this alright here, but Bookmooch.com is pretty good. Basically a book trading website. You send books to people, earn points, and spend those points getting books back.

Its technically free, you pay for the postage of the books you send.

It can work out quite good if you manage it well! I just earned nine points for 3 books to spain, costing me €7.50. I could get about 5 or 6 books back depending on where I get them. Thats about €1.50 a book, pretty good!

Capt'n Midnight

Sean_K wrote:

I'm almost 100% that that's the case for music anyway.

Broadcast over the radio or TV are only copyright for 50 years. This refers to the performance and not to the Music or Lyrics themselves.

For example Sir Cliff is a performer and you can show stuff recorded 50 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Doll_(song)
Living Doll would is 50 years old http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Bart died April 3, 1999 so at present the song is still copyright until 2069 barring yet more extensions, so you most definately can't do covers of it. The trained seal is not entitled to a copyright extension because there was no creative process in the performance, unless he copyrighted the choreography :pac:

[EDIT]
AFAIK you can't duplicate the original record,just a recording of it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7974727.stm

The copyright on sound recordings currently lasts for 50 years in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
In European Union (EU) countries the copyright in the song will expire December 31, 2016. Until then it's public performances are illegal unless you pay royalties. And they are making about two million a year on it's use in films and other mass media.

teamB_macro

Gu3rr1lla wrote: »

www.scribd.com the best site ever for books (apart from google books)

i also get class notes, outlines and reviewers from that site. pretty helpful one.

Jako8

The Complete works of H. P. Lovecraft

Gunther_Gloop

Best book I've read in years is now free.