The next time an unemployed actor pounds on your door trying to sell you magazine subscriptions to help him pay for "college," you can tell him you belong to Mygazines.

This may be the final nail in the coffin hastening the demise of publishers... free on-line access to all those magazines you wouldn't buy, but covertly thumb through to kill time in grocery store check out lines.

Now, break it up, folks... move along... tain't nothing else to see. Johnny Appleseed's just a figment of your imagination. This is his brother, Frederick von Kumquatseed.

Oh, thank you, maizeydaze! I meant wallpapers when I said cover art. It is cover art for download as wallpaper. I was in a hurry last night to get off-line before the thunderstorms hit. Thank you for clarifying it for me. :-)

Ambrosia, I see they have a nice selection of wallpapers for download too! Thanks!

http://tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=577

Free download of a number of Tor Sci-Fi and Fantasy books along with cover art through July 27th. Scroll down to the end of the article for the list of books. Downloadable in PDF and HTML.

Hurry. Time is running out!

another fun one is http://books.google.com/books

"You can see books in Full View if the book is out of copyright, or if the publisher or author has asked to make the book fully viewable. The Full View allows you to view any page from the book, and if the book is in the public domain, you can download, save and print a PDF version to read at your own pace."

It's actually a great reference source too, because all the books are searchable, and even many of the ones still under copyright will show relevant snippets, that can be several pages long. Great for research projects, or just general reference.

100 Addictive Book Sites

how about Demian?
one of my all-time favorite books.

happy (very)belated birthday, hermann hesse!

Yesterday was Hermann Hesse's birthday * July 2, 1877
time to remember "Steppenwolf and Siddharta the cult books 10 the 60ths:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhartha_%28novel%29
Siddharta as e-book
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2500
and as audio-book
http://www.archive.org/details/siddhartha_ap_librivox

I had some on/off-line problems, therefore the belated birthday celebration, sorry Hermann ;)

FWIW, Johnny Appleseed sowed a couple of FREE E-Book seeds over here.

Several threads deal with books, and glumpki-for-brains always seems to sow his seeds on the least apropos. Sigh

I've been using Paperbackswap.com (PBS) for quite a while and I'm happy enough with it to suggest it to others. You must list 10 books (hardback, paperback, audio books, fiction, non-fiction, et all) that you are willing to trade to get started. Each time someone wants one of your books, you pay the minimal postage (calculated for you by PBS). In return, you get one point for each book that you send and 2 points for audio books. You use your points to order books that other people list and THEY pay the postage for those. Average paperbacks cost around $2.23 to mail at Media rate. Most trades are in the US, though I've gotten books from Canada and APOs.

You can keep an online (sortable) Wish List of books you want and they will be sent to you as they come available. You also have a Reminder List and a To Be Read List. There's also a forum of great folks (like this one) who share books and book information.

I know there is at least one other book trading website like this one, but PBS has worked just fine for me.

Johnny Appleseed's paths take some interesting turns. One minute he's reading a BoingBoing article about a Frenchie intent on spending 300 days on a sparsely populated South Pacific island with nothing but a swiss army knife, a machete, rust-proof escargot tongs, a video camera and a picture of Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) taken long long lonnnng before her DUI mugshot.

Next thing I know (wondered where this was going, weren't you?), I've found a free copy of Robinson Crusoe at Bibliomania.

Don't think that bookshoppe has found its way to this list, yet. Give 'er a try. Bibliomania offers:

• Free Online Literature with more than 2000 Classic Texts
• Literature Book Notes, Author Biographies, Book Summaries and Reference Books
• Classic Fiction, Drama, Poetry, Short Stories and Contemporary Articles and Interviews
• Study Guides and Help for Teachers
• Reference Books, Dictionaries, Quotations, Classic Non-fiction, Biographies

RM, it says "Amazon and other retailers".

I did not know about Libra! You do keep me on my toes. As for Shelfari, I didn't have time last night to do more than skim it. When I stumbled across it via a blogger's site, it looked to offer a way for affiliates of Amazon AND/OR other booksellers to earn a bit of cash. If it's limited to Amazon and only feeds Shelfari's coffer, then it isn't for me.

Thanks, Rune. I just took a peek. Looks like a neat graphical forum-like environment. Too bad they don't link to free ebooks. Probably not profitable since they get a cut from Amazon whenever someone purchases a book through a link on the site.

BTW, the bookshelf interface looks very similar to the one used in the software database, Libra.

Johnny Appleseed's got a couple of intriguing little seeds he hopes to sow today without jamming the dibble into his big toe. Coincidentally, this seed plays into a link Maizey the Mindreader just posted on the For Da Men thread.

Are you bibliophilistic? Don't be ashamed... tell the world! SHELFARI (Shelf + Safari, get it?) allows you to create a very cool, interactive virtual bookshelf (or shelves) to display your personal library on your blog or web site. Claims to be free. Applicable to all literate male and female audience participants. (Graylox, you gotta take a peek at this!)

Whether you have but 4 (all unread) of the 100 in Maizey's list, or 99 of 'em plus 763 more dog-eared, broken-spined good reads, the only risk I see is if you display your signed first edition of the unabomber's manifesto and the DHS takes an interest. :-)

Thanks Rune for your books, which don't will collect some dust; therefore I like e-books.
The Asimov collection is spacy :) - love it. Lost all my Asimov books some years ago to the second-hand market.

Free podcast books, two private author sites, quite a few sci-fi, horror and fantasy short stories, incl. recent Hugo Nominees:
PODio Books (Drop down menu shows breadth of selections)

Escapepod
Podcastle
Pseudopod

Hutchins' Thriller Trilogy
Sigler's Free Audio Books (Maizey posted a different link to Sigler's 'Infected'; this site and PODio offers his other works)

and finally...
SF Signal NOTE: Short fiction titles here link to free online versions, if available.

here is one that i've been using. i choose a book and they e-mail me a chapter a day. you can also read online.

free books from arcamax

i've been getting other e-mails from them for years, so i recommend them as a company.

Voluminous is a tool to find, download, organize and read free books. It is a subscription service for about $30 US and £15 UK.

FYI, here's the link to the official Random House, INFECTED site

HURRY! Free download ends Monday, March 31, 2008! Scott Sigler's new book INFECTED is in stores on April 1 and for the next four days, it will also be available as a free PDF download from Random House's website. Scott made his name by writing and podcasting high-quality science fiction novels under Creative Commons, and eventually, Random House's Crown imprint came knocking.

Link to PDF

Hey All,

Since we are talking about book I though I would give you the link to a site that I set up a little while back. http://booklist.freehostia.com/ I built this site for our family and friends because they were always asking us for list of our favorite books. So we compiled a list of them and created a website of them. Our site also has a few public domain e-books for those of you who want them.

Enjoy!

UPDATE 3-8-2008:

There's a new CD image (and zipped contents) posted at baencd at the Fifth Imperium - the RCN 'When the Tide Rises' CD.

All books are in: HTML, Word DOC, Mobipocket PRC, Rocketbook RB, Microsoft LIT and RTF formats.

All with absolutely *no* DRM.

Oh, When the Tide Rises also has an MP3 audiobook rendition.

Just to prove these are not 'bootleg' or restricted in any way- here's the CD label.

That brings the total to 21, though some are smaller than others- but still a great way to read entire series as each CD has the series complete to the book it was bound in, plus usually many others.

The Baen Free Library is now up to 112 books as well.

This may be a bit off topic but I found some great audio files at the Internet Archive. While a teen in rural Pennsylvania, I would enjoy summer evenings on the porch with my transistor, multi-band radio listening to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. The series began in 1974 and ran until 1982. I don’t recall listening to the broadcasts past 1976 when I left home to explore the southern states for awhile. Below is a link to several episodes.

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mystery%20AND%20mediatype%3Aaudio%20AND%20subject%3A%22CBS%20Radio%20Mystery%20Theater%22

Kudos to Maizeydaze! I got another one today by the same author. Thank god they are short stories or I wouldn't get anything done.
A couple of years ago I started reading a few of the classics that somehow you always think you will read later... I figured later had come and it was time to read them. I found out Peter Pan was nothing like what I thought it was!! I particularly loved Mark Twain. I had read and reread Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, but that was it. There were some wonderful things I had missed.

Not that I've seen, used to have some mp3's... I'll give InsideCat a go and see if I recall the titles. (on the order of 1000 optical discs cataloged, over half DVD-R)

in the meantime-
http://www.studyspanish.com/freesite.htm
http://www.123teachme.com/
http://radio.weblogs.com/0142338/ (podcasts, downloadable mp3...)

Kudos to maizeydaze for that one, not me! Credit where credit is due.

I try to be honest as well as a gentleman.

(I signed up, had a delay due to mail domain & now working up the nerve to cancel the account aimed at my despised isp email).

goodgotd,thanks for the link to WOWIO! I signed up yesterday and then found a pretty interesting book to read. I should write a book called, "How to Never Leave Your Computer".hehehe!

GL and MD, I'm trying your links today! Now I can use Maple to make a library!

Would you have a suggestions for eBooks or audio downloads (MP3,...) that are "free" to learn Spanish - especially those that are conversation oriented.

Thanks to all.

Here is a link to a blog where the owner collect links to free ebooks from all over the internet. I thought I had some others bookmarked but this was it. There should be enough here to keep you reading for a very long time!

http://www.getfreeebooks.com/