New Nook

[Wood Rose]

Hi all,
I just got a Nook, and have heard that there are web sites to download public domain books for free. Does anyone know what some of these sites are?

When I have done a search I come up with 100's of sites and I am not sure what ones are legit and what ones are not.

Thanks.

[Chakabe]

Hi all,
I just got a Nook, and have heard that there are web sites to download public domain books for free. Does anyone know what some of these sites are?

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
I know of Project Gutenberg
No idea if they will have what you are looking for.
Aside from using: type:pdf <-- in google. (Trick I learned from linux community)

[Starglade]

 
Project Gutenberg is great for free, public-domain works (pre-1923, so I got tons of stuff like Hawthorne, Bierce, Hodgson, Confucious, Goethe, Wilde, etc. etc. etc.).

Googlebooks is decent, but IMO one must either a) be prepared to accept a less-than-optimal scan of a book, or b) be prepared to keep downloading and deleting different versions of a title until one finds the one one likes best. Me, it depends on the book. Some I just took "as is," others I kept at it until I got what I wanted (or close to it).

The same applies to Amazon's free ebooks collection, frankly. Some are better than others. (Not sure if you can get Nook-friendly files from there or not, without using an inbetween program like Calibre to convert. Probably not worth the effort, IMO.)

[Chase]

The same applies to Amazon's free ebooks collection, frankly. Some are better than others. (Not sure if you can get Nook-friendly files from there or not, without using an inbetween program like Calibre to convert. Probably not worth the effort, IMO.)

 
Doing so would require stripping the DRM protection from it, which is a shady area ethically at best. You're better off looking at BN for such books.

Feedbooks.com has a lot of free books. Many are from Project Gutenburg, but formatted to work better with your form of E-readers. There's a version for every device, generally.

[RandallS]

Doing so would require stripping the DRM protection from it, which is a shady area ethically at best. You're better off looking at BN for such books.

Amazon puts DRM on free (generally public domain) books? If so, I am very glad I have a Nook, which used the standard epub format.

[Starglade]

Amazon puts DRM on free (generally public domain) books? If so, I am very glad I have a Nook, which used the standard epub format.

Got me--I have a Kindle, so I get mine from there, or Gutenberg, or Googlebooks, or Buddhanet, or FPMT . . .

If there's a reason NOT to get them from there for a non-Kindle reader, then I'd say let ethics prevail, and don't break the law just for a file. I mean, really . . .

I only mentioned it because I know there are free ebooks available. I'm not savvy about what types use which file formats, but I know that I can use just about anything on my Kindle (the WiFi, but not 3G, version).

[Nitz]

Hi all,
I just got a Nook, and have heard that there are web sites to download public domain books for free. Does anyone know what some of these sites are?

When I have done a search I come up with 100's of sites and I am not sure what ones are legit and what ones are not.

Thanks.

 
The best way to see if those websites are legit is to download something and see if it works.

[Wood Rose]

Hi all,

 
Thank you everyone. I have copied the sites down and check them out. I have no problem with books that are from before 1922, some of them are great.

I would not do an illegal download for a file. If I want to read something that badly and can't get it in e form for my reader well that is what a library is for.

[Asch]

Thank you everyone. I have copied the sites down and check them out. I have no problem with books that are from before 1922, some of them are great.

I would not do an illegal download for a file. If I want to read something that badly and can't get it in e form for my reader well that is what a library is for.

 
Actually some libraries have a system for ebooks, you dl the book from their database and after a certain amount of time passes the book is deleted from your reader. I haven't done this so I'm not sure how feasible/functional it is. The idea of a third party deleting a book is a bit weird tbh...

[Chatelaine]

Thank you everyone. I have copied the sites down and check them out. I have no problem with books that are from before 1922, some of them are great.

I would not do an illegal download for a file. If I want to read something that badly and can't get it in e form for my reader well that is what a library is for.

Another place to check is ManyBooks.net. Lots of overlap with PG in the public domain, and a lot of newer works as well, in a variety of formats, so you don't even have to convert into epub.

[Jane]

Hi all,
I just got a Nook, and have heard that there are web sites to download public domain books for free. Does anyone know what some of these sites are?

Project Gutenberg was mentioned already. Also do a search using 0.00 and you'll get a ton of what Barnes and Noble has for free. You may already know, but they have free Friday books every week too, some are pretty good, others are kind of meh, but hey it's free.

[Wood Rose]

Hi all,
I just got a Nook, and have heard that there are web sites to download public domain books for free. Does anyone know what some of these sites are?
Thanks.

tly
I have checked out some of these sites and WOW book heaven thank you all so much.

I will say that my library only has 300 books for e readers, and unfortunaly none of them are anything that intreset me.

[Jenett]

tly
I will say that my library only has 300 books for e readers, and unfortunaly none of them are anything that intreset me.

 
Tell your library!

Libraries are really struggling with how to deal with ebooks - none of the options for libraries are particularly great (though there's a couple of recent developments that might be improving things). And many libraries are also struggling with amazingly tight budgets, so they tend to be wary of spending money on things that might not be used.

300 books sounds to me like a library that is dipping its toe into trying out ebooks, starting with some high-circulation titles (bestsellers, etc.) But if you give them feedback, they may be looking to expand, or at least able to keep it in mind.