Where can I find free e-books?
 

I just want to test how frReader works, and I am looking for a reasonably good enough free ebook. Any recommendations? (I would like to keep it with my N770 for showing off to others when time comes)

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

did you try here?

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

the Baen free library has many free books.
http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

http://www.gutenberg.org has all the classics. gutenburg Australia has copies of some books that are still under copyright in the U.S.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

I wish eReader would support the internet tablet. Having pouring several hundred into eBooks I can read on my Cingular 8125 and my wife's Treo 650, I'd be in heaven if I could read them on my N800 or N810.

Last I emailed them, they wrote back "we have no intent to support the Nokia Internet Tablet as this time." I'm still trying to find a solution to reading contemporary fiction on my tablet. fbreader doesn't support Adobe activation and reading PDFs downloaded through Adobe eBookMall, does it? If it did, I'd be tempted to switch to a more tablet-friendly eBook vendor.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Trust me: Step away from Ereader NOW!

The reason? That reply they gave you (and me, and many others). Any DRM-based platform that doesn't come with an open source access program is to be avoided at all cost.

There are ways to recuperate your investment in Ereader material, ranging from a DRM-stripping program for Ereader books to simply torrenting the ebooks you already purchased in a more convenient format (Microsoft's lit format, although technically DRM-ed, is ridiculously easy to crack).

And if you need non-DRMed commercial books, these guys
http://www.ebookmall.com/
have lots of unencrypted ones. I'm sure there are other vendors that don't treat their customers as criminals...

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

A related question you did not ask is "What format is best for FBReader?". I started using Plucker, but have recently switched to MobiPocket which I still think is best for FBReader on a 800x480 screen. An alternative is .LIT exploded to .OEBZIP, which is good for "secure" e-books, and generally gives larger images than MobiPocket (which can be a disadvantage on the 770 if the images are too large for the screen).

Books I have used as examples include Ring of Fire:
http://www.webscription.net/p-352-ring-of-fire.aspx
from Baen's Free Library. This is good (e.g. as MobiPocket) because it is a collection of short stories navigable via its TOC and because there is an embedded image in the last short story. The very best examples are probably recent SciFi "magazines", such as Jim Baen's Universe or Grantville Gazette. These have extensive color illustrations which work very well in MobiPocket format on a 770. However, they are not free as e-books.

Another source of manually formatted public domain MobiPocket books is MobileRead at: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=128

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Heck, just use RTF or HTML. Even TXT is fine most of the time.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Adobe e-books are not supported, but note that Adobe Digital Editions (which does read them) is supposed to have a Linux version this year. That does not necessarily mean it will run on the N8X0 though.

It is embarrassingly easy to break the DRM of "secure" .LIT (MS Reader) e-books, e.g. using ConvertLIT. Use ConvertLIT to "explode" the .lit to a directory containing the corresponding OEB e-book (with a .opf file). FBReader can read the book starting from the .opf file, but the usual approach is to create a .zip file of the directory (renamed .oebzip) which FBReader will recognize as a zipped OEB e-book. So you start with a secure .lit and end up with a DRM-free .oebzip. If you have devices without both .lit and FBReader support, the OEB file can be converted to DRM-free MobiPocket using mobigen (again start from the .opf). FBReader can read the .mobi file, and MobPocket has reader software for a wide range of devices.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

RTF and Text do not render correctly in FBReader (at least the version for the N800).

HTML works very well, but FBReader does not support all the tags and takes a liberal hand at the formatting.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

You can convert txt to Plucker, which Fbreader does support well.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

If you have suggestions about how to change the level of liberty :), please share them at FBReader Google Groups.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Thank you everyone for the comments. Now a stupid question...

How do I download a book? I clicked and downloaded to my PC and copied it over to my N770. It says the file has unrecognized format (I picked the one said Plucker with Palm format).

Could someone show me a step by step guide to downloading a book?

Thanks...

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Open FBReader.
Click on the single book icon with the + sign.
Navigate to where you put your new book on your 770 and have FBReader open it.

That's about it.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

If you are not used to Linux, FBReader's file navigation screen can be confusing. It will only show directories and e-books (i.e. files it can open and read). Your MMC card will be something like /media/mmc1 and you select the ".." directory to get nearer to the root, "/", of the filesystem. Once you get to your primary books directory, FBReader will remember where you are for next time.

There is a tour of FBReader on the N770 in the screenshots at http://www.fbreader.org/screenshots.php

FBReader should work "as is", but if you read a lot of books you may want to take advantage of its extensive customization options. There are more details in the screenshots, or just experiment with the options.

Re: Where can I find free e-books?
 

Great! I got it now. Thanks guys.