Sign Up for a Free Ebook Each Day
Forgotten Books is a site all about out of print books. You can download free ebooks (PDF format), subscribe to a mailing list and get sent a link to a free ebook on a daily basis, and read books online. Forgotten Books are also partners of both Amazon and Google Books.
To visit:
http://www.forgottenbooks.org/index.php
The link below is to a website where you can see photos of other peoples bookshelves. Let’s face it, if you’re something of a bibliophile like me, you just love having a look at the bookshelves of family, friends and those of other people. This site brings that whole experience to the Web.
For more visit:
http://bookshelfporn.com/
I have come across an interesting article on the future of books in The Australian newspaper.
The following article Wired lists five reasons as to why ebooks are not there yet. I would say that ebooks will never be the same as traditional books and they probably are never meant to be the same. I would also say you should probably never expect them to be the same. Television is not the same as going to the movies and never will be. I think waiting for ebooks to be the same as traditional books is to ensure you never use ebooks all that much. Just my opinion.
There are some useful considerations in the five points raised in the article – but there are also some fairly ordinary ones also, which suggest to me a bias against ebooks from the start. Being concerned that ebooks don’t allow you to use them in home design – I mean, really??? If that is a major concern with ebooks – you have to be kidding.
Some years ago I never thought I would ever like ebooks – I love them now and I don’t even have an ebook reader (I use by laptop) at this stage. I can see myself buying one in the near future – that would make ebooks so much more convenient to me. I could read one on a bus or ferry, I could read at work without too many difficulties (in my breaks of course), etc.
How many books can I now own? For a bibliophile like me ebooks are a dream come true. I have well over 1000 traditional books and I will soon eclipse that number in ebooks – many of which are old and out of print works which are very precious to me. These brilliant old books are now so accessible to me and I can store them all in such a small place. Fantastic I say.
See the article mentioned above at:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/ebooks-not-there-yet/all/1
I have started a book reading club/group in association with the Blog here – ‘At the BookShelf.’ The reading club/group will feature some of the books I post about here and will give opportunity for members to obviously discuss the books being read. This is something I’m quite excited about and look forward to seeing grow. I hope you will get involved with the club/group.
The reading club/group will also be networked with my websites, including the http://particularbaptist.com site, providing a social network feature that has been missing at the site for some time. In doing so, I will also try to network the website, the Blog and the Facebook page into the particularbaptist.com community that is slowly being built. Please get involved – over time as the network grows, the interaction increases and the fellowship expands, I’m sure it will be a blessing to us all.
The book reading club/group is simply called At the BookShelf (the same as the Blog).
Visit at:
http://www.bookclubit.com/bookclub.php?id=404
If you like to read but have limited time to find a book to read, perhaps DailyLit could be the answer you’re looking for. Simply put, DailyLit sends you books to read via email.
Go to the DailyLit site and set up a profile, which doesn’t take long to do. You can then browse the book list and select the book you would like to read. You then set how often you would like to receive a portion of the book via email. Once you confirm that you want to receive the book via email, DailyLit will begin sending you portions of the book to read according to the settings you have set.
For more visit:
http://www.dailylit.com/
Once upon a time I was never a fan of ebooks – that has changed. I love them and I don’t even have an ebook reader (I use my laptop). I am thinking of getting one though. The number of books available now (in print and out of print) and the number that can be owned in such a small space has convinced me otherwise.
It would seem that the world is seeing the ebook revolution in a similar type of way, with the world’s largest bookseller (Amazon) now telling us that they sell more ebooks that printed books.
For more visit:
http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/05/19/huh-amazon-com-announces-for-a-second-time-its-selling-more-kindle-books-than-print-books/
Google is one of my favorite brands. Sure, it cops plenty of flak and probably some of it is deserved, but I have to say they are a company that has largely got it altogether. I’m a fan anyway – for what that’s worth.
I am a big fan of Google’s ongoing project to digitize the world’s books and literature. Sure, they need to conform to copyright laws like the rest of us while doing so and they have had some questionable episodes in this project to date. But what an amazing opportunity to read books that have been out of print for years and even centuries. It is a great service and project.
Google was also digitizing the world’s newspapers and this also could have been a major gift to the world, but sadly the project has been shut down. They have managed to place a huge amount of archival material onto the net and it is fully searchable – which is just brilliant. How amazing it would have been if all of the world’s newspapers had been digitized and made available on the web?
Have a look at what is available at:
http://news.google.com/archivesearch/about.html
http://news.google.com/archivesearch
http://news.google.com/newspapers
For more visit:
http://searchengineland.com/google-shuts-down-ambitious-newspaper-scanning-project-77970
Page 99 Test is a social network for authors to post page 99 of their book so that users of the site can test their book. The theory is you open page 99 of any book to get the feel of it and to see if it is something that you would like to read – does it grab you enough for you to want to read more? So authors post there page 99 for book lovers to read and then to rate and comment on. So it is a site that you can give feedback to an author prior to the book being published. Anyhow, have a look at the links below and learn more.
You can listen to a podcast about Page 99 Test and the founders of it at:
http://5by5.tv/founderstalk/3
Visit Page 99 Test at:
http://page99test.com/
At the BookShelf 
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