18 March 2012

1001 books in one device

Right now, my printed copy of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is about as useful as a doorstopper.

It's too heavy, so I keep it on my office desk wedged in between other books. It's pretty to look at, but even as a reference book, I don't get to use it much (weirdly enough).

So I was pleased as punch when I was browsing ManyBooks.net during the Christmas holidays, looking for free e-books for my Kindle--and I came across this massive collection of e-books from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list.

The best things in life are indeed free.

This blogger (I love you, whoever you are) has painstakingly compiled and linked all available e-book editions of public domain books from the pre-1700s to the 1900s. Naturally, majority of them are Kindle-formatted. I tried not to be too eager, and just downloaded a few (only just for starters)--those which I haven't gotten around to buying such as Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow and Herman Hesse's Siddharta. This list is just crazy beautiful, and it gives people like me the chance to access books that aren't necessarily on top of one's 'Books to Buy' list, like, uh, Gargantua and Pantagruel, for example.

Books printed in the 21st century aren't available yet due to copyright concerns, but that's alright. Amazon sells Kindle e-books at a good rate of $10-12 if these are hot off the press or are bestselling ones. And then there are those random sales that are held for around 2 hours only; I find myself scouring the Amazon site and even Twitter for sale announcements on a daily basis so as not to miss out on anything good. I managed to get Neil Gaiman's Tenth Anniversary edition of American Gods for less than $4, as well as new titles by up and coming authors for FREE.

The trouble with Kindle, I suppose, is that my list of books to read is now longer than ever. I haven't even managed to touch the ones I bought at The Strand in New York last August 2011...!    

 

1 comment:

  1. Great post! I've been meaning to re-read Nostromo by Joseph Conrad since I found out it was the inspiration for the movie Alien. Download, download...

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