Books without Trees

Ten free e-books to kindle your love of literature

noreply@blogger.com (Florian) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:26:00 +0000

One of the joys of owning a Kindle (or any other e-reader) is that you have access to tens of thousands of free books, e.g. through Project Gutenberg or the Amazon store. But where to start? Here is a list of my personal favorites. It is pretty diverse, so if you don't like a book, just delete it and get another one. After all, they're free...

1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
“The best book on programming for the layman is 'Alice in Wonderland'; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman”, says one of Alan Perlis’ famous Epigrams in Programming. This goes to show what reverence the book (along with its sequel, Through the Looking Glass) enjoys. While it perfectly works as an entertaining childern’s story, it also has deep philosophical underpinnings - it inspired thoughts on linguisitcs, logic, philosophy, feminism etc. etc.

This is a fine free edition, but you should consider splurging out $2 for the edition with the original graphics by Tenniel as they are an essential part of the book (I did not find a free version of that).

Pop culture is full of allusions to Alice, so go ahead and (re-)read the original!

Image from wikipedia

2. The Turn of the Screw

Henry James’ quintessential ghost story. Carefully crafted and extremely well written. It spawned a huge critical debate in which readers could not even agree what the story is about. See for yourself.

3. Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy’s Tess is regarded as one of the great English novels. Set in the English countryside at the time of the industrial revolution, it paints a rich picture of life and the changes it is undergoing - political, technical and moral. Above all, very beautiful prose.

4. Moby Dick

Moby Dick has been called "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world." It tells not only the story of Captain Ahab and his hunt for the legendary white whale - you will also learn a great deal about the industry of whaling (based on the author's own experience!), and why it was so important in the 19th century.

5. Leaves of Grass

Published around the same time as Moby Dick, Leaves of Grass caused quite a stir when it was published - among other things, Walt Whitman lost his job because his boss found the book too offensive. His poems celebrate every aspect of American life - the high and the low, the sublime and the sensual.

6. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce’s autobiographical novel is far easier to read than his big novels (Ulysses, anyone?) but full of literary innovation. Each chapter is written in the lanugage appropriate to this stage of life, and each ends with an “epiphany”, a sudden realization that turns the hero’s life in a new direction.

7. The Importance of Being Earnest

Hilarious play by Oscar Wilde about two guys trying to change their names to "Earnest" (at least that's what I remember). Famous for its excellent wit - try memorizing some quotes to spice up your conversation, e.g. "The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!" and many more. Read for yourself.

8. The Fall of the House of Usher

"House of Usher" tells of a visit to the last heirs of an ancient family who are living in a decaying house. Edgar Allan Poe shows how he is ahead of his time both in creating suspense and in the psychological insights in describing his characters.

9. Right Ho, Jeeves

P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories always work on the same principle: The rich Bertie Wooster and his "personal Gentleman" Jeeves go through a series of hair-raising events in order to avoid the ultimate catastrophe - Bertie getting married. With his encylopaedic knowledge and his gift for creative solutions, Jeeves always saves the day. Great fun to read.

10. Frankenstein

Frankenstein, written by the 18 year old Mary Shelley, is another of those classics that was way ahead of its time. Published in 1818, it is now considered one of the first Science Ficiton novels. The idea of the Doppelgänger, of course, became a perennial classic, spawning countless imitations and numerous films. But it all started with this novel.

What to read

noreply@blogger.com (Florian) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:18:00 +0000

Once you have your Kindle, you'll obviously want to fill it with content. :-) Here are some ways to get started.

Books

Obviously, the Kindle was made to read books on it, so this is what it's best at. Buying and reading books is very simple, and after a short time you forget you're using a Kindle. Did I mention how great the e-ink screen is?

Note that while many libraries provide access to e-books for members, this does not work for the Kindle at the moment (DRM issues). The company that distributes these books is called OverDrive - see their website for more details.

Magazines

One area that I had quite high hopes for as I would be very interested in following some international newspapers/magazines. I have subscribed to a German and an English printed newspaper, and of course it should be easier and cheaper to have the files sent to me rather than dead trees, printed on and transported across the continent.

There are some promising beginnings - there's a good enough selection of Newspapers and Magazines in the Kindle store, and I encourage you to give them a try - they all come with a free 14 day trial.

Limitations: often, images and graphics are missing. Sometimes, there are also mistakes in the articles' formatting. This really depends on how much effort the publisher puts into them. Prices I checked were 33% to 50% below the printed (national) subscriptions.

Other stuff

websites: First of all, you can read websites on the Kindle itself - the browser has an "Article Mode", which is similar to the "Reader Mode" in Safari, i.e. it just leaves the text of an article and removes all the stuff around it. Ideal for websites with long, good texts, e.g. longform.org
there is also a workaround using Instapaper and Calibre to get websites and feeds onto Kindle.
Finally, for feeds,there's kindlefeeder.com/ - this lets you subscribe to a number of feeds, which will then get pushed to your Kindle if you click a button.
files: You can email all sorts of files (word, HTML, pdf, ...) to an address Amazon gives you, and they will send them to your Kindle (this will cost something if you send it over 3G though).

mobile surfing (updated)

noreply@blogger.com (Florian) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:55:00 +0000

Surfing the web is obviously not what the Kindle was made for. That said, the browser can load most websites just fine (in Greyscale + too slow for video).

Another shortcoming is that you can only have one tab/window open at the same time. Oh, and typing URLs on the small keyboard is a bit tricky, so make sure to bookmark sites you need frequently.

Reinoud sent this list of sites he has used on Kindle. Try them out! (update: Reinoud significantly extended the list. Thanks!)

Google (mobile) - http://www.google.com/m
Gmail (mobile) - http://mail.google.com/mail/x/
Google Reader (mobile) - http://www.google.com/reader/i/
Google Local (mobile) - http://maps.google.com/m/
Google Mobile Gateway - http://google.com/gwt/n
Google Talk (mobile, non-flash) - http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m
Google Buzz (mobile) - https://m.google.com/app/buzz
Google Calendar (mobile) - http://www.google.com/calendar/gp?source=mobileproducts
Google Images (mobile) - http://images.google.com/m
Google Books (mobile) - http://www.books.google.com/m
Google Notebook (mobile) - http://www.google.com/notebook/m
Google Local (mobile) - http://www.google.com/m/local
iGoogle (mobile) - http://www.google.com/m/ig
Picasa (mobile) - http://picasaweb.google.com/m
Google Powermeter (Mobile) - http://www.google.com/powermeter/site/mobile
Google Latitude - bookmark frame from the Google Latitude gadget in iGoogle.
Google Translate - http://translate.google.com/m
Google Docs (mobile) - http://docs.google.com/m
Google News - http://news.google.com/news/i/

Twitter (mobile) - http://mobile.twitter.com/
Facebook (mobile) - http://touch.facebook.com/
IMO (gtalk, skype, facebook chat, etc) - http://imo.im/
Dropbox (mobile) - http://www.dropbox.com/m/
Evernote (mobile) - http://www.evernote.com/mobile/
Yelp (mobile) - http://mobile.yelp.com/
Digg (mobile) - http://m.digg.com/news
Reddit (mobile) - http://i.reddit.com/
KindleQuest - http://www.kindlequest.com/

Free books!

noreply@blogger.com (Florian) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:43:00 +0000

Once you have your Kindle, how do you get content on it?

Well, there is a lot of free e-books around. Try out:

The Kindle store - many out-of-copyright books are available here for free. Best thing is you can already "buy" them before your Kindle even arrives - they will sync once you switch it on. Of course, you can access the store directly from your Kindle - hit the Menu key and select "store".
Project Gutenberg: Check out their mobile site at http://m.gutenberg.org/. Even nicer: download the "Magic Catalog" onto your Kindle, then you can get books directly from there. Here's how.
There's plenty of other sites that list free e-books, e.g. http://manybooks.net/

FAQ

noreply@blogger.com (Florian) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 20:57:00 +0000

Ok, so if you leave the Kindle lying around in a geeky environment, you will get a lot of questions. Here are some common ones I came across:

What's all this then?
Amazon has recently released the Kindle 3, the latest version of their e-book reader. I bought one and am very happy with it - in fact, I am convinced it has a big future ahead of it.

What's so great about it?
Well, a number of things really. But the killer features I found to be:

The e-ink display. It really looks a lot like a piece of paper. Apparently, it is now faster and has better contrast than in earlier Kindles. It also has a very high resolution, and you can read in the sunlight with it as well. Reading is much easier than on a computer screen, and it takes very little energy (if you switch off the wireless features, the Kindle should last for a whole month)
Free 3G Internet! This is one many people find hard to believe, but you just switch on your Kindle and it will go online (in large parts of Europe, the US and many other countries - see map)
The whole ecosystem - the Kindle is a very mature product, and Amazon has put a lot of effort into making the Kindle experience seamless and enjoyable. E.g. you can buy books before your Kindle even arrives, sync between different devices (there are also Kindle Apps for iPhone and Android). Everything just works.

Can I surf the web with it?
Yes! There is a webkit-based browser on board which lets you surf to wherever you choose (you can also search Google or Wikipedia from within your books). Of course, there are limitations (after all, the display is greyscale and a bit slow e.g. for video).

What formats does it support?
Bit of a rub here - Amazon's default format is .mobi, whereas the quasi-standrad for e-books seems to be .epub (e.g. Google Books uses this). There are ways though to get other files on it - you can email them to an address that Amazon will set up for you, or use an external tool like Calibre.

Where do I get it?
Ah. Only at amazon.com/ at the moment, or amazon.co.uk/ if you live in the UK (they don't deliver to e.g. Ireland). Delivery is super swift though - I ordered mine at amazon.com, and it arrived within two days (plus I could track its journey online).

How much memory has it?
4 GB, which should be plenty. The website says you can carry 3.500 books on it.
battery?

By the way, Wired had an excellent blog post recently called "How to do (almost) everything with a Kindle 3". Check it out!

My Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Florian) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 20:37:00 +0000

So this is what my Kindle looks like. When it's off, it shows random images. The e-paper display only uses energy when pages are turned, so showing these images is actually a very good marketing idea - it attracts far more attention than a blank screen. ;-)

And this it what a "book" would look like. Click the image to zoom in.

welcome!

noreply@blogger.com (Florian) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 19:40:00 +0000

Since I bought my Kindle, people keep asking me questions about it, and I keep showing off how cool it is. So I figured I might as well start a blog.