# So, Anybody Else Spending Hours Downloading Online Books? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 15, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061 "2007-12-15T02:21:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2007, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/21 "2007-12-15T10:27:14Z")
Give the Kindle or Sony’s eBook reader another generation or two and they’ll get it right. Or, according to Jerry Pournelle, get Apple to allow you to have a PDF reader on your iPhone (or iPod Touch) and you’ll have the perfect ebook reader for even old fogeys. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2007, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/22 "2007-12-15T11:01:10Z")
One site that has much more recent, still-in-copyright academic and scholarly books is [ebrary](http://shop.ebrary.com/). Searching and reading the books online is free, but you have to open an account and put $US5 in it. The money is then kept as credit against any printing or copying that you want to do. Prices vary, but it’s generally about 25c per page. Because the books are still in copyright, you can’t just download them. Basically, if you never want to copy or print out the books, but just want to read or refer to them online, you get unlimited searching and reading of 20,000 books by high quality presses for an investment of 5 bucks. I joined some months ago, and my $5 deposit is still intact. Reading the books requires downloading a browser plugin. If you’re on Firefox, it’s an .xpi file, like a regular Firefox extension. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/23 "2007-12-15T21:50:22Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Well, you could print it out. [/QUOTE] No, just doesn’t feel the same. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2007, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/24 "2007-12-15T22:19:31Z")
Try [http://www.mobipocket.com](http://www.mobipocket.com), which publishes books for mobipocket ereader software, which is free, and works on PCs and several handheld ereaders. Some mobipocket books are free, most are not. My books are published on [mobipocket.com](http://mobipocket.com). Mobipocket uses DRM to protect the copyright on the books, so if you’re against that, you won’t like Mobipocket. Also, most of mobipocket’s library (including my books) has been adapted for the Kindling ereader sold by Amazon, which is how Amazon got that huge library for its ereader device so fast. The Kindling is far from free. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/25 "2007-12-16T03:22:19Z")
I spend hours at [Distributed Proofreaders](http://www.pgdp.net/c/) helping to make these online books available for downloading. It’s a way to pay back for all the ones I have downloaded. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2007, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/26 "2007-12-16T05:25:50Z")
[www.wowio.com](http://www.wowio.com) is another free site for downloading books (including comic books). ---
**Author:** ![Spit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spit)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/27 "2007-12-16T18:02:11Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Well, you could print it out. [/QUOTE] I just tried that this week with _Company Aytch_, which is only 149 pages or so. The problem I found was the wasted paper (due to the huge margins). Is there some way to buy smaller printer paper, and set the margins in word to print more like a book? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061/28 "2007-12-16T18:23:53Z")
Sorry, but I know next to nothing about Word. Someone probably will be in shortly who does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-anybody-else-spending-hours-downloading-online-books/430061.md?page=1)