It's amazing what you can get free, legally, on the Internet's book sites. Would you believe there are items on Project Gutenberg that you would never have thought were out of copyright?
I have been able to download early novellas by the likes of Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber and Harry Harrison. Do you like the Stainless Steel Rat, Slippery Jim DiGriz? There's a story called "The Misplaced Battleship" on Gutenberg. I also found his short story "The Repairman". There are some Fritz Leiber stories I have read and loved before and am pleased to have in ebook form, "The Big Time" and "No Great Magic". I have both of these in a collection somewhere on my shelves, but it's nice to be able to carry them around on my cybershelves. I've also found some I'd never heard of. Can't wait to read them!
There are, of course, the classics. I found an Andrew Lang book I didn't know about - Lang did all those fairy books back in the nineteenth century and I have his edition of Kirk's Secret Commonwealth of Elves(I did have to pay for that one a while back, but it was worth it - you could read it online, but I prefer ebooks). This one is called Helen Of Troy; I've been back in the mood for things Trojan since my nephew Mark rang me last week, asking for evidence of the Trojan War, to help with an assignment he was doing for uni. I found him some good web sites and then felt hungry for Trojan War stuff myself.
There's The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I'm having great fun rereading. It has occurred to me that both Percy and Marguerite are blonde, something I've never seen in any film version - the closest was the telemovie with Anthony Andrews, who is blonde, and Jane Seymour, who isn't, but made a lovely Marguerite. Mr Andrews, incidentally, is the only actor who's played Ivanhoe who fits Walter Scott's description of the character. That was a great telemovie, by the way. It was generally well-cast, in my opinion, with Olivia Hussey as a gorgeous Rebecca, Sam Neill as Brian De Bois-Gilbert, James Mason as Isaac of York, Lysette Anthony as a wonderfully whining Rowena and Athelstane played perfectly by the actor who played Arthur's Saxon foster brother Cei in Arthur Of The Britons. And a Robin Hood who could have done his own Robin Hood movie.
I've downloaded John Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps, which I read years ago. It will make a fun reread. And Andre Norton's All Cats Are Gray, which came with the original SF magazine cover.
It's worth looking in the iBooks store because there's often a first-of-a-series offered free temporarily by publishers. I managed to get hold of Kerry Greenwood's first Corinna Chapman novel, Earthly Delights, which was being offered free that week. I have it, I've read it, but this is a series I read and reread. There was a first of a series Jessica Shirvington novel being offered free this week. This is an author I haven't read, but our students like her, so time to check her out.
This week I discovered why the University of Adelaide web site is able to offer free ebooks of Joephine Tey's books: they're out of copyright in Australia. The books are not the best; the covers don't show title or author and the text is crude. But they're free if you live here and better than Australian Gutenberg, which doesn't offer mobi or ePub, only HTML which you have to read online, text or zipped versions which you have to unzip and can then read in Pages. There are ways to convert, but too much bother.
The Baen web site is worth checking out. It offers some ebooks by their authors free. These are mostly temporary, so good to go back now and then to see what's up.
I did buy some books this week. I'm enjoying the Agatha Raisin whodunnits, by MC Beaton, who aso wrote Hamish Macbeth, and also bought Keith Roberts' Pavane, through SF Gateway, a project that is digitalising quite a few classics.
A nice haul this week!
I have been able to download early novellas by the likes of Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber and Harry Harrison. Do you like the Stainless Steel Rat, Slippery Jim DiGriz? There's a story called "The Misplaced Battleship" on Gutenberg. I also found his short story "The Repairman". There are some Fritz Leiber stories I have read and loved before and am pleased to have in ebook form, "The Big Time" and "No Great Magic". I have both of these in a collection somewhere on my shelves, but it's nice to be able to carry them around on my cybershelves. I've also found some I'd never heard of. Can't wait to read them!
There are, of course, the classics. I found an Andrew Lang book I didn't know about - Lang did all those fairy books back in the nineteenth century and I have his edition of Kirk's Secret Commonwealth of Elves(I did have to pay for that one a while back, but it was worth it - you could read it online, but I prefer ebooks). This one is called Helen Of Troy; I've been back in the mood for things Trojan since my nephew Mark rang me last week, asking for evidence of the Trojan War, to help with an assignment he was doing for uni. I found him some good web sites and then felt hungry for Trojan War stuff myself.
There's The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I'm having great fun rereading. It has occurred to me that both Percy and Marguerite are blonde, something I've never seen in any film version - the closest was the telemovie with Anthony Andrews, who is blonde, and Jane Seymour, who isn't, but made a lovely Marguerite. Mr Andrews, incidentally, is the only actor who's played Ivanhoe who fits Walter Scott's description of the character. That was a great telemovie, by the way. It was generally well-cast, in my opinion, with Olivia Hussey as a gorgeous Rebecca, Sam Neill as Brian De Bois-Gilbert, James Mason as Isaac of York, Lysette Anthony as a wonderfully whining Rowena and Athelstane played perfectly by the actor who played Arthur's Saxon foster brother Cei in Arthur Of The Britons. And a Robin Hood who could have done his own Robin Hood movie.
I've downloaded John Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps, which I read years ago. It will make a fun reread. And Andre Norton's All Cats Are Gray, which came with the original SF magazine cover.
It's worth looking in the iBooks store because there's often a first-of-a-series offered free temporarily by publishers. I managed to get hold of Kerry Greenwood's first Corinna Chapman novel, Earthly Delights, which was being offered free that week. I have it, I've read it, but this is a series I read and reread. There was a first of a series Jessica Shirvington novel being offered free this week. This is an author I haven't read, but our students like her, so time to check her out.
This week I discovered why the University of Adelaide web site is able to offer free ebooks of Joephine Tey's books: they're out of copyright in Australia. The books are not the best; the covers don't show title or author and the text is crude. But they're free if you live here and better than Australian Gutenberg, which doesn't offer mobi or ePub, only HTML which you have to read online, text or zipped versions which you have to unzip and can then read in Pages. There are ways to convert, but too much bother.
The Baen web site is worth checking out. It offers some ebooks by their authors free. These are mostly temporary, so good to go back now and then to see what's up.
I did buy some books this week. I'm enjoying the Agatha Raisin whodunnits, by MC Beaton, who aso wrote Hamish Macbeth, and also bought Keith Roberts' Pavane, through SF Gateway, a project that is digitalising quite a few classics.
A nice haul this week!
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