6 ms·

Amazingly enough it’s not even possible to be sure you’re buying a legitimate Kindle book anymore. I often buy classic books but want a particular edition whic

• _9xrb 4y ago
  For classics, Standard eBooks is pretty good (and free): https://standardebooks.org/ https://standardebooks.org/
  • politelemon 4y ago
    I remember seeing Standard Ebooks when it first launched, it only had a handful of titles. Great to see how much it's grown.
    • WithinReason 4y ago
      They have RSS feeds for newly released books, among other things: https://standardebooks.org/feeds https://standardebooks.org/feeds Some things to check out: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/philip-k-dick/short-fiction https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/philip-k-dick/short-fictio... https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fiction https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/edgar-allan-poe/short-fict... https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jules-verne/the-mysterious-island/stephen-w-white https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jules-verne/the-mysterious...
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • nicolapede 4y ago
    Thanks - that is amazing! As a Kindle Oasis owner, which I love in terms of screen size (7 inches) and auto adjusting light, is there any non-Amazon e-reader device alternative that anyone would care recommending?
    • orangeyjuicey 4y ago
      I've been using Kobo devices for over 10 years probably, I'd look at them for something equivalent to your Oasis!
    • infinityio 4y ago
      Depending on your firmware version (a fairly recent build was found to be exploitable), it might be worth looking into jailbreaking your kindle and installing Koreader to it, instead of buying a new device?
      • nicolapede 4y ago
        Thanks I’ll check it out!
    • lozenge 4y ago
      You can use calibre software or just Windows Explorer to transfer open ebooks with USB. No need for another device.
      • nicolapede 4y ago
        That is a good point, thanks. It is not that I want to change device only because of lack of support for open ebooks. In general I’d like to start being less reliant on Amazon and I just thought of asking for advice starting from this discussion.
      • knolan 4y ago
        You can set up a kindle email address and email to your device too.
    • MengerSponge 4y ago
  • MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Anybody know why their copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas is "unavailable for legal reasons"? It's linked from wikipedia, but the link is dead (in America anyway) This book was written and translated into English ~150 years ago. Gutenberg has it. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jules-verne/twenty-thousand-leagues-under-the-seas/f-p-walter https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jules-verne/twenty-thousan...
    • Aransentin 4y ago
      That URL contains "f-p-walter", so it was presumably his translation from 1993: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_the_Seas#English_translations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Thousand_Leagues_Under_...
    • acabal 4y ago
      We produced it using Project Gutenberg's modern F. P. Walter translation. At the time, there was no copyright notice on the text, only PG's public domain boilerplate, so we produced it thinking it had been dedicated to the public domain. Some years later PG added a copyright notice, so we were forced to take our edition down. There is no acceptable PD translation of 20,000 Leagues; all the classic translations are widely considered to be slapdash, very bad, or severely bowdlerized.
      • JJMcJ 4y ago
        Also some other classics like The Three Musketeers.
        • acabal 4y ago
          Yes, bowdlerization and poor translations were common in those days. We do our best to select a single "best" translation that scholars/readers agree is the most faithful of the public domain options. But in some cases, like 20,000 Leagues, we'd rather not host a book at all than host a bad translation, if that's our only option.
    • JJMcJ 4y ago
  • zeckalpha 4y ago
    Libby is the other one that comes to mind, for non-Classics too! https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby
• rmbyrro 4y ago
  > all the reviews are bunched haphazardly together I only read the three-start reviews, they tend to be the most useful for judging whether a product is right for my need/want.
  • taskforcegemini 4y ago
    for me it's similar. bad reviews are usually the ones containing any believable or even constructive information.
• mark_l_watson 4y ago
  Yes, it is amazing that there would be counterfeit Kindle books. I own an Amazon Oasis which I like, but I try to split my eBook purchases fairly evenly between Google Play, Apple, and Amazon. It seems wise to not put all of my digital library on one vendor’s platform. I also like to sometimes buy directly from authors or publishers. I have both editions of Chollet’s book. It irritates me that he is getting ripped off.
  • massysett 4y ago
    The only safe thing you can do is strip the copy restrictions immediately upon purchase. Or just be OK with the fact that you are really renting an ebook when you "purchase" it.
• ChrisRR 4y ago
  I noticed this some months back when a deals site posted a complete collection of The Witcher for £1. It was very clearly not uploaded by the original publisher/author, but that didn't seem to deter people. They were just happy to be getting a collection of ebooks for a quid, and didn't seem to care that the money was going to a pirate