Free online books and a book swap site

[mainmarine]

Found this site: www.gutenberg.org you can download free books or read online. This one may interest some of you: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6317 it's one of Slocum's. They are in various formats so you can read them on your computer or iPad etc.
There is a book swap site here: www.readitswapit.co.uk
Please forgive me if this has been posted before.

 

[cynthia]

Downloading books

I found this information helpful, so just in case there are other computer numpties around:

Download http://calibre-ebook.com/ onto your pc and store it in a separate file.
You can then download books from gutenberg in Kindle format directly to this file.
Link your Kindle to your pc using the lead supplied and Kindle will automatically locate the calibre file download the books.
Seemples (even for me!)

 

[prv]

Found this site: www.gutenberg.org
[...]
Please forgive me if this has been posted before.

I don't think it's been posted here recently, although since it's been around since the 70s and is pretty famous, it did make me chuckle slightly at being told of this "new discovery"

Pete

 

[Talbot]

Another source of free audio books is http://librivox.org/newcatalog/

 

[mainmarine]

My computer couldn't find any websites in the 70s, the one I had from Babbage in the 40s didn't have a modem.

 

[Searush]

My computer couldn't find any websites in the 70s, the one I had from Babbage in the 40s didn't have a modem.

You may not have been able to access it, but is was there;

Wikipedia entry:

Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."[2] Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library.[

 

[planteater]

I downloaded Slocums "Sailing Alone Around the World" onto an ipad and have been reading it of an evening. In chapter 2 he writes:-

"I know the roof where we boys, night after night, hunted for the skin of a black cat, to be taken on a dark night, to make a plaster for a poor lame man"

WTF does that mean?

 

[Poignard]

I downloaded Slocums "Sailing Alone Around the World" onto an ipad and have been reading it of an evening. In chapter 2 he writes:-

"I know the roof where we boys, night after night, hunted for the skin of a black cat, to be taken on a dark night, to make a plaster for a poor lame man?"

WTF does that mean?

Alternative medicine

 

[Poignard]

I downloaded Librivox's recording of 'Sailing alone around the World'.

As it's a pro bono service it seems churlish to complain but but the reader's rather monotonous voice sent me to sleep. It's a pity they couldn't persuade someone to read it who sounds like the hard-bitten, down-East Yankee skipper that Slocum was, rather than a bank clerk from Surbiton.

I also downloaded another book about the history of the Titanic from a free source and that was read by a woman with a high-pitched American accent who did not know how to pronounce many of the nautical terms used.

'Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice' - or not.

 

[SAWDOC]

Searush has posted his own admirable variation of the free book club in the books section of this forum - seems well worth supporting.