a free library for your Kindle?

[Mr. K]

anyone know of a free source of books for a Kindle?
TIA
--
Karma, What a concept!

[Mac Cool]

Amazon has a free lending library if you are a Prime member.

Also: http://overdrive.com/Solutions/Libraries/Public/

[Michael Black]

On Sat, 5 Nov 2011, Mr. K wrote:

> anyone know of a free source of books for a Kindle?
> TIA

Books that have fallen out of copyright. So an obvious source is Project
Gutenberg. Note that due to some oddities in US copyright laws, there was
a period in the fifties or so when books could fall out of copyright,
because nobody bothered to explicitly renew the copyright, and later
changes to the US copyright laws apparently were not retroactive.

Hence there are books and stories by science fiction writer H. Beam Piper
who killed himself in the early sixties and left no family. Tom Corbett
Space Cadet books are at Project Gutenberg, I had an almost full set (it
was a small series) in the late sixties, and foolishly sold them to a used
book store in the early seventies, thinking I'd grown up. Didn't get much
for them, never saw another copy until about 1994, seeing two volumes in
the store of a local used bookstore, late at night. I rush over the next
day and pay five dollars each for them. "A Year When Stardust Fell" by
an author I suddenly can't remember, was one of the books in the classic
Winston Science Fiction series of the fifties, seen at many children's
libraries, which is where I read the book in the late sixties. Unlike
some in the series, it was never reprinted, making it hard to find. But,
a few months ago I see something saying it's at Project Gutenberg, and
indeed it is, another book fallen out of copyright. (I gather there are
lots of technical books from the fifties out of copyright, some very
classic books, but of course whether they are available online or not
depends on whether someone's bothered to digitize them.)

For that matter, google has been digitizing books and the ones out of
copyright can be downloaded I gather.

You can get "Astoria" by Washington Irving at Project Gutenberg, his take
on the founding of Astoria, Oregon in 1811, only five years after Lewis &
Clarke (and Sacajawea) got to the Pacific in about the same spot. Lovely
Astoria (named after John Jacob Astor, the fur trading capitalist) has
been celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, kind of a weird
situation since it's the oldest US settlement on the West Coast (or is it
the Pacific Northwest?) but 200 years ago, it was mostly Europeans who
were there.

Astor gave my great, great, great grandfather a free trip to the Sandwich
Islands 200 years ago, before going to set up Fort Astoria. I'm sure it
was more fun than the overland route, that got there later. Somewhere
around one can find Alexander Ross's book about those early days in Astor,
I don't happen to have the title handy. I'm still trying to find out the
exact time and location when he met my great, great, great grandmother.

Likely any well known classic is available as an ebook.

Oddly enough, it is old books that I'd be tempted to get an ereader for,
especially now that one can get one with color and wifi, more like a small
and cheap tablet, for $199. I'm even hoping that is what I'm waiting for
as a late birthday present. I'd have to think twice about buying actual
current ebooks, when popular fiction can be had cheap at used book sales
and garage sales, and lots of other books too, for less than ebooks sell
for.

There's probably lots of people writing books that can't get published,
so those are likely available free or for a very minimal price. Though
they may not be worth reading, lots of books have been published over
the years that weren't worth reading, and lots of books have had a
successful life as a bestseller (and/or as the basis of a popular movie)
and then completely faded into the past, nobody remembering they were
popular books.

But if it's popular and in copyright, I don't think there's much
discounting going on, and I sure hope you weren't asking for
some illegal download site. Good authors (and their fans) work hard to
keep track of bootleg editions of their books.

Michael

[Michael Black]

On Sun, 6 Nov 2011, Mac Cool wrote:

> Amazon has a free lending library if you are a Prime member.
>

But I thought when they introduced "prime" some years back, it got a
trashing here in this newsgroup. People couldn't see the point in it,
since they paid a fixed price per year, and the free shipping that came
with more than a certain amount ordered was fast enough. Certainly at the
time, there seemed no more incentive to become a "member", though perhaps
that has changed by now. "free books" isn't likely a good incentive, I
thought I saw something about there being limits, like maybe one a month,
and only a small number of publishers taking part.

Most new fiction is hardly frugal, too many people buying because it's a
bestseller and popular, then tossing it out some time later. Some even
waste the money on hardcover when it comes out first. Far better to wait
till others have bought it for you, and are discarding at used book sales
or garage sales, for a dollar or so. Admittedly that wouldn't work if
there weren't others so eager to "read it now". And while there are so
many books that it will take a long time for them to dry up, I suppose if
ebooks do take over, eventually the used market is gone, unless there are
means of transferring the ebooks.

Michael

[Annie Woughman]

"Mr. K" <geor...@toast.net> wrote in message
news:georgeswk-24F0A...@news.toast.net...

Some libraries are now offering Kindle version of e-books. Our local
libraries (in Oregon) have had e-books and audio books for quite a while. I
have a Nook and have been "checking out" e-books for several months. In the
last few weeks I have seen books for the Kindle being offered now. Here we
have to have a current library card (our libraries are county libraries),
sign up online for the digital library and then download the software which
allows one to transfer the books to our device.

[Rod Speed]

Mr. K wrote:

> anyone know of a free source of books for a Kindle?

Yep, plenty show up on any decent torrent system.

[Susan Bugher]

Mr. K wrote:

> anyone know of a free source of books for a Kindle?

There are many, many soutces for free ebooks. This MobileRead web page lists some of them:
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Free_eBooks


Susan