Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks • Hacker News Board

Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#1

Post by yosefjaved1 » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 4:17 AM UTC

Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks
gutenberg.org

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#2

Post by ghaff » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

Project Gutenberg, which long predates the web, is probably less well-known than it deserves to be. While there are various reasons you might want digital or physical copies of out of copyright texts--such as commentary and annotations--Gutenberg means that you can get the original text of most books of any note before about the 1920s for free. And with tablets/ebook readers, they're easy to read.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#3

Post by 8b16380d » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

One of my favorite places to get new books to read.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#4

Post by NelsonMinar » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

Such a remarkable and useful project. I had to look this up in Wikipedia; it was started in 1971 (!) by Michael S. Hart. They've never done much for aesthetics or curation. I like https://manybooks.net/ as an alternative. It's mostly Gutenberg sources (with credit) but the site and epub downloads are nicely designed. Although they've gotten pretty spammy.

If Sci-Hub is more your speed then Z-Library has 10 million books available for download. However most of them are not licensed copies. The neat thing about Gutenberg is it turns public domain books into something easily accessible.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#5

Post by azaras » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

8b16380d wrote: post #3

One of my favorite places to get new books to read.

Any recomendation? Please.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#6

Post by kristofferR » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

I like Project Gutenberg, but I like Library Genesis or other shadow libraries even more.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#7

Post by mrweasel » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

azaras wrote: post #5

8b16380d wrote: post #3

One of my favorite places to get new books to read.

Any recomendation? Please.

Discoverability really is the main “problem” with Project Gutenberg.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#8

Post by InCityDreams » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

azaras wrote: post #5

8b16380d wrote: post #3

One of my favorite places to get new books to read.

Any recomendation? Please.

The Devils Dictionary - always a good start.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#9

Post by endemic » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

azaras wrote: post #5

8b16380d wrote: post #3

One of my favorite places to get new books to read.

Any recomendation? Please.

https://standardebooks.org/ sources notable literature from Gutenberg and packages it up into modern ebook formats.

Re: Project Gutenberg – Library of over 60k free eBooks

#10

Post by FabHK » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

endemic wrote: post #9

azaras wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recomendation? Please.

https://standardebooks.org/ sources notable literature from Gutenberg and packages it up into modern ebook formats.

Standard Ebooks are great, typeset to a much higher standard than Project Gutenberg, though with a much smaller selection, which on the other side facilitates discoverability.