Looking for an eBook
 

After having become hooked on History Channel's "The Expedition" show ( http://www.history.com/expedition/episode-3/ ) I really want to read the book "Through the dark continent" by Stanley - and I was hoping to find a free eBook version that I could download.

Now...thanks to Google's book project there IS a version out there: http://books.google.com/books?id=XvA...ummary_r&cad=0 BUT...it's a 20MB PDF file and a) that's pretty big and b) it may not be that good for reading on an N810...maybe I'm wrong?

Anyone know anywhere where I can download a text (non-PDF) version of said book? I've looked on guggenheim and some torrent sites but have not seen a single one.

(Also, since this is scanned and available through Google does that mean that there is no copyright restrictions anymore and it would be legal to download a text copy without paying for it?).

Thanks!

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

dunno... threads like your last two threads probably should go in off-topic.

it's not a BIG deal, but ... u know. generally stuff with some pertinence to tablets or maemo or whatnot goes here (in General). otherwise, off-topic.

no harm, no foul.

:D

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I have seen some threads talking about ebooks, you might do a search and see what was said before on the subject.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I did and spent time looking for it online through browsers and ebook sites but no luck. Sorry, was just asking to see if anyone knew of a place I could find it. My bad.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

It wouldn't hurt to try the 20mb one. Plus, the size shouldn't be an issue if you get that 16gb card!

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

For me, reading ebook pdf's on a tablet sucks. If you can download the pdf, I suggest you convert it to text or .doc. Try FoxIt reader on a desktop (see Post #1 here) or on the tablet use poppler-utils (same thread, post #2)

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

This probably should have gone in off-topic, as was suggested.

You should first tell us about your efforts to convert this pdf to txt.

Google the words pdf convert and txt

You will see a number of programs that do that. Try them and let us know the results.

I don't see why this won't work.

This looks like a great book, and I have read a more modern version that was even greater, but I forget the title. I think that Stanley was accused of not being completely reliable.

After you get it into txt (or html) form, FBreader would be the perfect way to read it.

Oh, the book I read was

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard

It was great.

Edit: And while you're reading this kind of book, check out The White Nile and The Blue Nile, both by Alan Morehead. Also fantastic.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I've got a 15 MB PDF that loads and performs fine in eVince and PDF Reader.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

Jself is right; the first thing is to TRY IT on your tablet. No reason to speculate about how well or poorly it works.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

Yup, Geneven and jself are right: try it first. My dislike of reading ebook pdf's on the Tablet is that I find the font too small, which is a personal matter.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I have all my ebooks (200+) in pdf format, I use evince to read them and I have no complaints about it at all.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I just tried reading the 20meg file mentioned here through Evince..and man..that's 600+ pages...the constant loading and sluggishness makes it pretty much impossible to read.

For smaller PDF's that are not scanned books it may work though...

For now I'm looking into a way to get the PDF converted to TXT and read it that way.

Thanks all.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I scanned a technical manual for deeps space nine...170+ pages and over 120 megs and it works great for me

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

You want FBReader, anyone would say that, at least for the non-pdf formats it handles. Gutenberg.org provides the most books. Important, also use (and bookmark) the Newbie link in my sig. E.g., you could use it to Google "free ebooks"

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I don't know what to think about that. My file is 20 meg, 600+ pages (apparently scanned at a much lower res) and I get the words 'Loading' on the first pages for the first 1-2 minutes and whenever I scroll down to a new page there is an additional 30-40 secs loading time.

I got virtual memory maxed and the book file is on the internal 2gig card.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I read a ton of ebooks on my N800. I personally stick with FBReader for the most part, but recently switched to using Evince for PDFs. I just avoided PDFs for so long, because most apps suck. Evince tends to do a good job, and I've not had any problems with it going through 300+ page PDFs.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

It's the file mentioned in my first post (The Dark continent book). If you get really bored maybe download it and let me know what you experience :)

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

I apologize in advance, but I came in on the tail end of this. I'm trying to understand where you all are going to get these eBooks from. I kinda like that all of you are also giving advice on which program to use to read them with, but the only thing i dnt get yet is the big difference between PDF and TXT file formats... i can obviously google it but since i'm here and its really a question of if the tablet can do it when i get it, I thought, why not ask... and also @Munky261 or any body knowledgeable, could you be more specific on ( like "exactly" what sites with not only old but new FREE eBooks) sites to go to.. I havent got my n810 yet since i'm wanting to get paid this week to order it (so excited!!) but aside from that i really wana get into reading eBooks and was gona get a Kindle but thought this was an answer to my prayer when i found out that the tablet could do it ( and so much more). my only worry is it seems really hard to even find the books i like from just a reagular search on google for free eBook site... any suggestions?... thanks guys!

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

PDF is an image of a page.
Text is text page (sometimes modifiable). Often smaller in size and often displays/reads better/easier.

For a lot of free eBooks you can start by checking out:
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

Another source: http://books.google.com/

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

If you are interested in free and current, you of course aren't going to get stuff from publishers who are trying to make a living (unless you try alt. newsgroups -- look for ones with "e-books" in the name of the group -- warning, this is not legal), in most cases.

However, take a look at www.wowio.com. You can read just about anything there on your web browser, including on a tablet. And if you want something you can take with with you when you aren't in range of wifi, you can purchase most of the books for a pretty small fee and get pdf files that I would expect to work.

If you add books to your library on wowio.com, the site keeps your place for you, so you can pick up reading from where you left off. I think it's a cool site.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

Thanks SO much guys, @ silvermountain for the definitions and sites @geneven for the site that offers the free, online readable, and priced eBooks, i'm sure if something catches my eye I wont mind paying for it. I'm glad you mentioned the site that allows online reading because I was probably gona ask about that too once I actually got my tablet.:)

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

check out:

http://manybooks.net/authors/stanleys.html

didn't see "travels through a dark continent"

I have to say that manybooks.net has to be my favorite site for e-books with one caveat....if the book you are loking for has illustrations (manybooks does not offer more than the coover) check to see if there is a project gutenberg choice in the drop down list as they have copies fully illustrated
one other site for "free books that may intrest you is:

http://truly-free.org

he has an amazing selection of books (ok some of them need to be tweaked into a format compatible with fbreader but there is plenty of windows freeware to do this

have fun

Edit: ok the link (to gutenberg) at manybooks to stanley's book no worky....here is the correct link

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5157

ofcourse since it appears that this is a non-ilustrated book just grabbing the fb2 from manybooks would be easiest.
(occasionally when grabbing fb2 files from manybooks I get a file with no content...I have found in this situation that hitting the back button three times and renavigating to the book allows me to get a good copy.
I have alerted the site's author about this and neither of us can figure out why this is happening, but I suspect it has something to do with the engine that converts books on the fly not playing nice

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

Thanks a lot for adding to the free Ebook sites list,

manybooks.net is very nice as it give you so "many" formats to pick from like the ipod notes which i assume is some type of format so you can read it with your ipod... truly-free, like you said isn't the best if you dnt like not being able to see a cover of or getting description of the book first but its still nice to have in your arsenal of "free" eBooks. Thanks again i really appreciate your advice and help. :)


If any one else would like to just add in a site they go to that hasn't been listed yet please feel free, i am enjoying the input from everyone...

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

OK, what the heck:

http://www.friedbeef.com/best-places...ltimate-guide/

http://finding-free-ebooks.blogspot.com/

This last site recommended two eBooks novels I quite liked. The Penal Colony by Richard Herley -- it's even a published book (apparently made into an appallingly bad movie), and he asks you to voluntarily make an about-$5 (in British pounds) donation if you liked it. I thought that was a cool sales model. I also liked the unpublished Dreamers' Cat by Stephen Leather.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

If you like SciFi / Fantasy check out:

http://www.baen.com/library/

lots of free books

have fun

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

As I recall, I saw "travels through a dark continent," the whole thing, in Google books.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

hey i looked to see and i couldnt find "travels through the dark continent" it just pulled up "through the dark continent" if thats the same book your referring to then i apologize for sounding silly, but what is it about?... I'm trying to expand my genre to other things besides sci-fi, fantacy, poems, adventure, and any thing about alternate life stories... um has any one heard of this program called "power search tool" or "PST" that allows you to download any eBook free. i seen the video on youtube and it seems okay i guess, it is a tool bar app that is made for internet explorer & fire fox so i thought that the tablets version of fire fox might work with this but its just a thought i'm sure you guys would know about something like that if it worked. well here is the link if you wana check out the video on it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPsIg...eature=related


@geneven your are like one of my favorite posters here, I have fell in love with the site you told me about (Wowio) its amazing! i am on there looking up books about all kinds of stuff,the only thing that i would like to see is the amount of books available to become more robust to match the vast verity which is by far the most categories I've seen on an eBook site but its perfect for when i'm at work since we cant go to very many sites due to us being on government pc's and them restricting us from streaming media sites and others,but this site works fine and it gives me something to do while i'm board to death... two of my favorite books are "flexibility eWorkbook" and "breaking out" awesome books thanks so much you'll never know how much enjoyment you introduced me to, its like reading became alot more enjoyable due to it being on the web:confused:

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

Through the Dark Continent is the book Stanley wrote about his travels through Africa looking for Dr Livingstone.

It's kinda topical right now with the TV show 'Expedition' playing on the History Channel.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

This is not wholly true. Some PDFs are scans of books (like google's), and these are images of pages. These types of PDFs are miserably slow on the NIT.

However, there are PDFs that are of text and embedded graphics (every professionally published one I've owned). And these are a joy to read on the NIT. I really like being able to touch the bottom of the screen and have it page down for me. I think it's better than using the volume rocker the way fbreader does.

I prefer PDFs of books and evince over non-pdfs and fbreader - as long as the PDFs are not of the scanned variety. I mostly read technical manuals with lots of diagrams.

Re: Looking for an eBook
 

In FBReader you can also touch the screen to go to next page. You may have to select it in preferences.