e-book or paper book?

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Originally Posted by Abookinthebath

Yes, I have seen the e-ink - much better. But it's good that you can give the experience a try without forking out £100.

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There's a nice review of varuous e-readers by the founder of Project Gutenberg on the Gutenberg site -he actually recommends the approach you are taking - by combining a lot of function in one device you can really keep the costs down. He argues that having it on a phone like this makes it more likely you will read more - you'll always have it with you and you'll be able to read at odd moment s of the day. By just reading in spare five minutes, here an dthere, yo will not suffer much of the tiredness that comes from non-e-ink.

I'm such an old fashioned bibliophile, though, that I'm much more likely to have a paperback with me than a mobile phone :)

I'd also be worried about muggers mistaking my Kindle for a fancy iphone - I'm unlikely to be mugged for my Wordsworth classic...

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

There's a nice review of varuous e-readers by the founder of Project Gutenberg on the Gutenberg site -he actually recommends the approach you are taking - by combining a lot of function in one device you can really keep the costs down. He argues that having it on a phone like this makes it more likely you will read more - you'll always have it with you and you'll be able to read at odd moment s of the day. By just reading in spare five minutes, here an dthere, yo will not suffer much of the tiredness that comes from non-e-ink.

I'm such an old fashioned bibliophile, though, that I'm much more likely to have a paperback with me than a mobile phone :)

I'd also be worried about muggers mistaking my for a fancy iphone - I'm unlikely to be mugged for my Wordsworth classic...

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I tend to agree with the Gutenberg view - I have found myself reading at odd moments because it is on my phone!

But I do like the touch, smell and feel of a book - as you say, no-one is going to mistake a book for something that you can sell in the pub to pay for drugs!

I'm keeping myself on the fence on this one....for now....:)

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Originally Posted by Abookinthebath

I have just popped my ebook cherry, but on my android phone. I'm not 100% convinced, but I love some of the features, like looking up a word and the bookmarking - very handy! And surprisingly more readable than I thought it was going to be.

I think I might see if Santa can sort me out with a Kindle.......

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Yes I think you would be very happy with it if you got one. Also if you read on your phone there is a setting which allows to sync it with your kindle so that it remembers where you are on both devices. Pretty neat, but the new kindle is very small and fits into my coat pocket so you would probably read on the kindle anyway. Yes the e-ink on the kindle is spot on too.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Thanks for that information - good to see Amazon have now got their act together with this. I wish they had a Spotify model, though - imagine paying £10 a month and reading whatever you wanted! I'd buy a Kindle then...

How Long will it take you to read 1500 books, many the length of "Bleak House"!?

By using the library, buying the cheapest paperbacks from charity shop, ebay, closing down sales, etc., you can really keep the costs down. By selling them again on Amazon Marketplace, you could even make a profit!

Actually, Neely, there's a definite gap in the market here for an enterprising Kindle scholar - fix the typos and add notes to (say) the free Oscar Wilde versions, and sell the complete Oscar for whatever the market will bear - you'd only have to beat the silly Penguin prices (to start with...) Who knows? You might get a Med. holiday out of it :thumbsup:

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Amazon don't set the prices for many of the ebooks on there though, the publishers do, so there's no way that a pay per month thing would work. Besides if you're reading classics they're free anyway.

In terms of overall cost though, not to mention the practicalities, space etc, etc, you still can't beat the kindle. Yes you can get good deals by scratching around but I prefer the instant download with no fuss to be honest. I also like the function where you can read a free sample of any book before, I think that's a good idea.

Yes I can see a gap in the market with fixing the odd typo and sticking in a bit of bumf in, I wonder if that sort of thing would be possible?

So I have a Kindle now. I mostly interested in getting free classics. Has anyone found there are a lot of typos and weird formatting issues with many of the Kindle downloads on archive.org? What sites are people using to download free classics to their Kindle? How do they feel about the quality of the free downloaded books? And what books have you all actually downloaded for free?

Has anyone paid for e-books and what did you think of the quality of those?

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Originally Posted by Neely

Yes I can see a gap in the market with fixing the odd typo and sticking in a bit of bumf in, I wonder if that sort of thing would be possible?

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Why not try it? Try one of Oscar's more popular short works and see how it goes... You could start with the Project Gutenberg text version, add "bumpf" and corrections, and then generate Kindle files (with good formatting!)

I have a ebook reader and its way better reading my ebooks from it rather then the screen, and i can carry a whole library with me

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Why not try it? Try one of Oscar's more popular short works and see how it goes... You could start with the Project Gutenberg text version, add "bumpf" and corrections, and then generate Kindle files (with good formatting!)

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Knowing me though I'd probably make the typos worse.

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

So I have a Kindle now. I mostly interested in getting free classics. Has anyone found there are a lot of typos and weird formatting issues with many of the Kindle downloads on archive.org? What sites are people using to download free classics to their Kindle? How do they feel about the quality of the free downloaded books? And what books have you all actually downloaded for free?

Has anyone paid for e-books and what did you think of the quality of those?

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Good move in getting the kindle. I honestly think that the complaints about the formating are exaggerated and mostly unfounded. This is especially so with prose. Poetry I've found has not been as good, but I've only downloaded a few bits of poetry compared with much more prose, short stories/novels and non-fiction and I've been very happy with them.

In terms of getting the free classics I either go direct to Amazon or from Project Gutenberg. I've paid small amounts for some of the non-fiction pieces and they have been equally good (besides if you pay and the formating is poor you can request your money back and Amazon will do that no problems).

If I was you I would take advantage of the free samples direct from Amazon. This is a great idea they have put in place and works well.

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

So I have a Kindle now. How do they feel about the quality of the free downloaded books?

Has anyone paid for e-books and what did you think of the quality of those?

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I have a Nook. The free Ebooks from the Barnes and Noble site to be filled with typos, often to the point that reading to too frustrating to continue. Maybe the file is corrupted during transfer to the Barnes and Noble's Web servers. I recommend getting free eBooks from other sites.

I have purchased eBooks for both the Kindle and the Nook. (I now read on my Android smartphone.) They are virtually typo free.