It is interesting to note that Project Gutenburg was one of the first producers of electronic books (ebooks), and can only offer text from books published before 1923, so you will definitely not have a problem finding classics written by authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to name a few. The only downfall with Project Gutenburg is that it cannot offer the lastest bestsellers or even up-to-date computer books, as these books are not in the public domain and are subject to copyright. I looked at my favourite classic author Jane Austen ( I must admit I got hooked onto Jane Austen because of the movie Pride and Prejudice) and was amazed at the different ways you can download the titles you want to read. You can download Pride and Prejudice using the formats Plucker, Plain Text, Adobe PDF and TeX. I also looked at Sense and Sensibility and the formats that were offered here were Plucker, HTML, Plain Text and Adobe PDF. I must admit this is a great way of reading classics because you can access the whole novel online and read it in your own time and it's free. I guess this is definitely a selling point for people who love reading classics but cannot afford to purchase the novels. Maybe Manukau Libraries could have a link on their website to Project Gutenburg, so library customers who love classics can have access to these books from the comfort of their home or in the library.
Finally a word about Kindle, this is a wireless electronic book reader. The great thing about the Kindle is that it can store up to 200 books, and these can include best sellers, and it takes less than a minute to download a book. However the downside is that you are charged for any content that you download, so downloading a bestseller could cost you $9.99, which I guess is cheaper than buying the bestseller. I however still prefer to hold a book in my hand to read, there's just something about curling up in bed with a great book. You can also download blogs or newspapers to the Kindle, however this will cost you e.g. subscribing to the New York Times could cost you $13.99 per month whereas you could read this newspaper online for free.
Finally a word about Kindle, this is a wireless electronic book reader. The great thing about the Kindle is that it can store up to 200 books, and these can include best sellers, and it takes less than a minute to download a book. However the downside is that you are charged for any content that you download, so downloading a bestseller could cost you $9.99, which I guess is cheaper than buying the bestseller. I however still prefer to hold a book in my hand to read, there's just something about curling up in bed with a great book. You can also download blogs or newspapers to the Kindle, however this will cost you e.g. subscribing to the New York Times could cost you $13.99 per month whereas you could read this newspaper online for free.
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Have been hunting around online to find an ebook reader as good as Mobipocket for my Mac. Been reading heaps of forums etc., and you wouldn't believe the number of ppl who say they find it normal to have diff eReaders for diff formats. That's insane! Why can't there be ONE eReader to read ALL formats *sigh* You know, 'One ring to rule them all.' But it'd be 'One eReader to read them ALL.' I'd be happy with a converter that wouldn't stuff up the format of my files in the transition :)
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