7 ms·

A lot of free ebooks

249 points by ghosthamlet 14y ago

wfunction 14y ago
The gem inside that list: http://hackershelf.com/book/289/a-mathematical-theory-of-communication/ http://hackershelf.com/book/289/a-mathematical-theory-of-com...
- anonfunction 14y ago
  For me it was http://hackershelf.com/book/350/ai-algorithms-data-structures-and-idioms-in-prolog-lisp-and-java/ http://hackershelf.com/book/350/ai-algorithms-data-structure...
- snake_plissken 14y ago
  most important thesis ever? or he was an Alien?
hsmyers 14y ago
It is getting to the point where the only advantages to 'real' books left are: 1. they can be autographed (thank you Mr. Knuth and Mr. Brodie) and 2. they make really good insulation during winters...
- wfunction 14y ago
  3. You don't need electricity to read them
  - officemonkey 14y ago
    My kindle goes two weeks of heavy use between charges. At some point, these things are just going to have solar cells on them.
- nsmartt 14y ago
  E-books are still an inferior technology to physical books in some ways. I can't, for example, draw a diagram in the margins of an E-book. I can write notes and highlight, but it basically stops there. With Amazon (not sure about other providers), there's a risk of remote wipe. E-books are often not really yours, and DRM makes that doubly true. The risk of loss with e-books is significantly higher than with physical books.
  - ryankey721 14y ago
    I agree that the DRM issue definitely needs to be addressed, but I wouldn't say it's a flaw with electronic books so much as a flaw with the marketplace they are in. Especially in this case, that limitation doesn't apply. I definitely wish I could draw in my ebooks though, since some things can't be put into words.
  - gizzlon 14y ago
    Also: - it's nice to stare at something other than a screen - like the touch, feel and smell (?) of physical books - books carry some history, they age and change.. (that coffee stain reminds me of my time as a student)
  - EwanToo 14y ago
    I'm not sure you can quantify the risk of loss with e-books being significantly higher than with physical books. There are a lot of house fires, any one of them could destroy your book collection (even the smoke damage alone can make then unusable) - same with floods, vandalism, etc. How many people have lost their e-book collection due to remote wipe? And if you're going to talk about the person who was wiped by Amazon, it's worth checking the conclusion of that story...
    - nsmartt 14y ago
      I was thinking more along the lines of accidental data loss than everyone having to worry about remote wipes all the time. I should've made that more clear.
  - Semaphor 14y ago
- donniezazen 14y ago
  Problem with e-books is DRM. I have to put up with Amazon or Google Play books app which might not suit my needs. I can't export it. I can't share it with friends like a physical book.
  - grey-area 14y ago
    Many ebooks (prag prog for example) are available without drm.
- cjh_ 14y ago
  Physical books are much easier to quickly skim through, to jump to a random page (based on position rather than page number), I also find the search of most ebook readers (looking at the Kindle) to be rather bad. However these are more due to the current tech around ebooks more than a fundamental property of them.
- mandelbulb 14y ago
  Even though I rarely even used a classic paper book to read in the last years I still consider books to be more comfortable and less distracting. Furthermore as long as we don't resolve the issue of long term data storage books are going to continue to play an important role.
  - wladimir 14y ago
    E-ink sort of addresses the 'distracting' part for me. I find it much more pleasant to read than from LCD. No direct light shining into the eyes, and the low frame rate is also an advantage here as it means no annoying animations and 'real time' distractions.
- gtani 14y ago
  I make my own indexes. Example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41758452@N00/sets/72157632325530580/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/41758452@N00/sets/7215763232553...
- smartial_arts 14y ago
  I object - they also make good monitor stands!
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  3. They have a more pleasant reading experience (arguably the most important part of a book) for many people. I just roll my eyes when I see these kinds of dismissive statements. Just being honest.
- shared4you 14y ago
  Richard Stallman, The Danger of Ebooks (pdf): http://stallman.org/articles/ebooks.pdf http://stallman.org/articles/ebooks.pdf
  - nsmartt 14y ago
    This is much better than my half-baked response.
pramodliv1 14y ago
Thanks! I didn't see that there were more pages at first (Page 1 out of 16). It could be highlighter better.
- okal 14y ago
  Haven't had much time to work on it since last year. I'll look into this over the weekend. Thanks.
  - greenyoda 14y ago
    Thanks for assembling this wonderful collection! One more suggestion, though: Since many of the books don't have cover images, you actually have to mouse over the ":-(" images on the "shelf" page to locate a particular title. It would be nice to also have a simple textual list of all the titles on your shelf, sorted in alphabetical order. Another useful feature might be an RSS feed that gets updated when a book is added.
gtani 14y ago
Missed some haskell books, if that's your site http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1af3iw/9_best_free_haskell_books/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1af3iw/9_best_free_... http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20130316105209238/BestFreeHaskellBooks.html http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20130316105209238/BestFree... and scala staircase 1st ed http://www.artima.com/pins1ed/ http://www.artima.com/pins1ed/
- okal 14y ago
  Hey. I'm the developer behind the site. You could submit those if you'd like. That's where the "community" bit comes in :)
  - akavel 14y ago
    Feat suggestion: would be nice if you allowed for a TOC to be attached to book description, to ease a quick glance over the contents. Occurred to me when browsing http://hackershelf.com/book/344/speeding-through-haskell/ http://hackershelf.com/book/344/speeding-through-haskell/ - as the target link has no TOC, if someone took care to provide a TOC on the Shelf, I'd know better what to expect. After more browsing, the topics list at http://hackershelf.com/topics/ http://hackershelf.com/topics/ looks like it could take some more care: probably case insenitiveness, maybe fix the strange duplication of letter topics (or does it have some hidden purpose?), maybe put a list of quicklinks to letter-sections on top. Just some feedback from a random Internet guy ;) the site does a very good first impression!
    - okal 14y ago
      Thanks :) The TOC sounds like a great idea, obvious in hindsight. The case sensitivity of the topics is just a reflection of my laziness, I should have taken care of that a long time ago. Hope you keep finding the site useful.
  - pc86 14y ago
    The curation here is pretty poor. Most of the books are not free and many have nothing to do with programming (or even technology in general!)[0] [0] http://hackershelf.com/book/386/the-god-delusion/ http://hackershelf.com/book/386/the-god-delusion/
blaireaug 14y ago
Cool! I like this a lot.
eaurouge 14y ago
I counted close to ten free books by Allen B. Downey [http://allendowney.com http://allendowney.com].
- sshrin 14y ago
  He publishes all of his books at: http://greenteapress.com/ http://greenteapress.com/
McUsr 14y ago
Thanks for sharing this, Now this was a great link! I want to recommend Eric S. Raymonds books for those that haven't read them.
nabaraj 14y ago
DOM Enlightenment sounds like a treasure. Cheers
ajessu 14y ago
Don't mean to hijack the thread, but there is another great resource for this (in spanish, though) with a very high amount of ebooks: Open libra: http://www.etnassoft.com/biblioteca/?search_term=&books_category=libros_programacion&books_criteria=post_date_DESC&lang=english&since=all http://www.etnassoft.com/biblioteca/?search_term=&books_... (I took the liberty to pre-filter the link with "programming books in english", since there are a lot of them in spanish on this site)
ichinaski 14y ago
This one is brilliant: Mathematics for Computer Science. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr10/cos433/mathcs.pdf http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr10/cos433/mat...
kossmoboleat 14y ago
A lot of these aren't actually free. It doesn't say that on the website either, but it would be nice if you could filter by free books.
- falsedan 14y ago
  Submission guidelines say, 'only link to free (as in beer) books'. No one is reading the submission guidelines...
  - roryokane 14y ago
    Right. Nothing on the main page or Submit page mentions free books; the guidelines are hidden in the “about” link in the footer (http://hackershelf.com/about.html http://hackershelf.com/about.html). Because of that, I’ve seen a certain poor misguided user submit 30 non-free books, complete with cover art, that are going to have to be deleted eventually. All we can do for now is flag non-free books until the site owner deletes them or creates a separate section of the site for them.
- grumps 14y ago
  It's a bit of a bait and switch.
  - okal 14y ago
    It's not. It's pretty explicitly stated in the guidelines what sorts of books are allowed. I have a day job, I don't sit and watch submissions all day. I manually review them every evening to cull non-free books. All commercial titles you'll find on the site were added today. I personally don't see any ambiguity in the word "free". If you find anything displeasing, you can make my work easier by flagging it. Thanks.
    - trhtrsh 14y ago
      Consider adding a "New" section, or sorting the New books to the end of the list, so Knights of New can flag bad submissions, while casual browsers can avoid the bad experience. At the submissions levels you (usually) get, you could even review all submissions before they are published.
cathustler 14y ago
Yo, developer guy, it would be nice if there was some curation involved; some, if not most, of these books are not free. Perhaps allow the community to also remove books that don't fit the guidelines or report them for just not being free? Otherwise, this is going in my bat-belt. Totally awesome idea.
- Splendor 14y ago
  There's already a "Flag book for abuse" link for each item.
puzanop 14y ago
Spam please delete this link, misleading the books are not free
- fuzzix 14y ago
  Annoying, as the entries are user submitted. The site should be more upfront about its intent. There are still many free (beer) texts on there.
- LordMoriarty 14y ago
  It was better this morning. It seems people are adding non-free e-books since the submission.
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
+1 for Simon Singh's The Code Book as an engaging read, but it's by no means a programming book.
fbomb 14y ago
Most of these books are neither free nor have anything to do with programming.
- okal 14y ago
  I didn't submit the link (I'm the developer), so it may not be obvious, but the site was never at any point meant to be purely for tech books. As for the non-free stuff, all of that was added today while I was at work. I'm already culling those submissions. Thanks.
bdreadz 14y ago
+1 for seeing the word free so far and every book I've gone to click on is not free. Very frustrating.
mikecaron 14y ago
Why the hell is "The God Delusion" in the mix? That is not a programming book, it's a social commentary about religion.
- mathattack 14y ago
  One could argue that it ties to Artificial Intelligence, and how ideas get into our heads. But yes, I had the same reaction.
okal 14y ago
Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Some things I need to clarify: 1. The site was never meant to be purely for programming books. It says "free books for the intellectually curious" for a reason :) 2. Non free books are not allowed. That's where the flagging feature comes in. All those were added today, with the best of intentions, I'm sure - and I'm truly grateful to whoever did - but they have to go. Sorry people.

249 points by ghosthamlet 14y ago

The gem inside that list: http://hackershelf.com/book/289/a-mathematical-theory-of-communication/ http://hackershelf.com/book/289/a-mathematical-theory-of-com...

anonfunction 14y ago
For me it was http://hackershelf.com/book/350/ai-algorithms-data-structures-and-idioms-in-prolog-lisp-and-java/ http://hackershelf.com/book/350/ai-algorithms-data-structure...
snake_plissken 14y ago
most important thesis ever? or he was an Alien?

hsmyers 14y ago

It is getting to the point where the only advantages to 'real' books left are: 1. they can be autographed (thank you Mr. Knuth and Mr. Brodie) and 2. they make really good insulation during winters...

wfunction 14y ago
3. You don't need electricity to read them
- officemonkey 14y ago
  My kindle goes two weeks of heavy use between charges. At some point, these things are just going to have solar cells on them.
nsmartt 14y ago
E-books are still an inferior technology to physical books in some ways. I can't, for example, draw a diagram in the margins of an E-book. I can write notes and highlight, but it basically stops there. With Amazon (not sure about other providers), there's a risk of remote wipe. E-books are often not really yours, and DRM makes that doubly true. The risk of loss with e-books is significantly higher than with physical books.
- ryankey721 14y ago
  I agree that the DRM issue definitely needs to be addressed, but I wouldn't say it's a flaw with electronic books so much as a flaw with the marketplace they are in. Especially in this case, that limitation doesn't apply. I definitely wish I could draw in my ebooks though, since some things can't be put into words.
- gizzlon 14y ago
  Also: - it's nice to stare at something other than a screen - like the touch, feel and smell (?) of physical books - books carry some history, they age and change.. (that coffee stain reminds me of my time as a student)
- EwanToo 14y ago
  I'm not sure you can quantify the risk of loss with e-books being significantly higher than with physical books. There are a lot of house fires, any one of them could destroy your book collection (even the smoke damage alone can make then unusable) - same with floods, vandalism, etc. How many people have lost their e-book collection due to remote wipe? And if you're going to talk about the person who was wiped by Amazon, it's worth checking the conclusion of that story...
  - nsmartt 14y ago
    I was thinking more along the lines of accidental data loss than everyone having to worry about remote wipes all the time. I should've made that more clear.
- Semaphor 14y ago
donniezazen 14y ago
Problem with e-books is DRM. I have to put up with Amazon or Google Play books app which might not suit my needs. I can't export it. I can't share it with friends like a physical book.
- grey-area 14y ago
  Many ebooks (prag prog for example) are available without drm.
cjh_ 14y ago
Physical books are much easier to quickly skim through, to jump to a random page (based on position rather than page number), I also find the search of most ebook readers (looking at the Kindle) to be rather bad. However these are more due to the current tech around ebooks more than a fundamental property of them.
mandelbulb 14y ago
Even though I rarely even used a classic paper book to read in the last years I still consider books to be more comfortable and less distracting. Furthermore as long as we don't resolve the issue of long term data storage books are going to continue to play an important role.
- wladimir 14y ago
  E-ink sort of addresses the 'distracting' part for me. I find it much more pleasant to read than from LCD. No direct light shining into the eyes, and the low frame rate is also an advantage here as it means no annoying animations and 'real time' distractions.
gtani 14y ago
I make my own indexes. Example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41758452@N00/sets/72157632325530580/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/41758452@N00/sets/7215763232553...
smartial_arts 14y ago
I object - they also make good monitor stands!
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
3. They have a more pleasant reading experience (arguably the most important part of a book) for many people. I just roll my eyes when I see these kinds of dismissive statements. Just being honest.
shared4you 14y ago
Richard Stallman, The Danger of Ebooks (pdf): http://stallman.org/articles/ebooks.pdf http://stallman.org/articles/ebooks.pdf
- nsmartt 14y ago
  This is much better than my half-baked response.

pramodliv1 14y ago

Thanks! I didn't see that there were more pages at first (Page 1 out of 16). It could be highlighter better.

okal 14y ago
Haven't had much time to work on it since last year. I'll look into this over the weekend. Thanks.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  Thanks for assembling this wonderful collection! One more suggestion, though: Since many of the books don't have cover images, you actually have to mouse over the ":-(" images on the "shelf" page to locate a particular title. It would be nice to also have a simple textual list of all the titles on your shelf, sorted in alphabetical order. Another useful feature might be an RSS feed that gets updated when a book is added.

gtani 14y ago

Missed some haskell books, if that's your site http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1af3iw/9_best_free_haskell_books/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1af3iw/9_best_free_... http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20130316105209238/BestFreeHaskellBooks.html http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20130316105209238/BestFree... and scala staircase 1st ed http://www.artima.com/pins1ed/ http://www.artima.com/pins1ed/

okal 14y ago
Hey. I'm the developer behind the site. You could submit those if you'd like. That's where the "community" bit comes in :)
- akavel 14y ago
  Feat suggestion: would be nice if you allowed for a TOC to be attached to book description, to ease a quick glance over the contents. Occurred to me when browsing http://hackershelf.com/book/344/speeding-through-haskell/ http://hackershelf.com/book/344/speeding-through-haskell/ - as the target link has no TOC, if someone took care to provide a TOC on the Shelf, I'd know better what to expect. After more browsing, the topics list at http://hackershelf.com/topics/ http://hackershelf.com/topics/ looks like it could take some more care: probably case insenitiveness, maybe fix the strange duplication of letter topics (or does it have some hidden purpose?), maybe put a list of quicklinks to letter-sections on top. Just some feedback from a random Internet guy ;) the site does a very good first impression!
  - okal 14y ago
    Thanks :) The TOC sounds like a great idea, obvious in hindsight. The case sensitivity of the topics is just a reflection of my laziness, I should have taken care of that a long time ago. Hope you keep finding the site useful.
- pc86 14y ago
  The curation here is pretty poor. Most of the books are not free and many have nothing to do with programming (or even technology in general!)[0] [0] http://hackershelf.com/book/386/the-god-delusion/ http://hackershelf.com/book/386/the-god-delusion/

blaireaug 14y ago

Cool! I like this a lot.

eaurouge 14y ago

I counted close to ten free books by Allen B. Downey [http://allendowney.com http://allendowney.com].

sshrin 14y ago
He publishes all of his books at: http://greenteapress.com/ http://greenteapress.com/

McUsr 14y ago

Thanks for sharing this, Now this was a great link! I want to recommend Eric S. Raymonds books for those that haven't read them.

nabaraj 14y ago

DOM Enlightenment sounds like a treasure. Cheers

ajessu 14y ago

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but there is another great resource for this (in spanish, though) with a very high amount of ebooks: Open libra: http://www.etnassoft.com/biblioteca/?search_term=&books_category=libros_programacion&books_criteria=post_date_DESC&lang=english&since=all http://www.etnassoft.com/biblioteca/?search_term=&books_... (I took the liberty to pre-filter the link with "programming books in english", since there are a lot of them in spanish on this site)

ichinaski 14y ago

This one is brilliant: Mathematics for Computer Science. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr10/cos433/mathcs.pdf http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr10/cos433/mat...

kossmoboleat 14y ago

A lot of these aren't actually free. It doesn't say that on the website either, but it would be nice if you could filter by free books.

falsedan 14y ago
Submission guidelines say, 'only link to free (as in beer) books'. No one is reading the submission guidelines...
- roryokane 14y ago
  Right. Nothing on the main page or Submit page mentions free books; the guidelines are hidden in the “about” link in the footer (http://hackershelf.com/about.html http://hackershelf.com/about.html). Because of that, I’ve seen a certain poor misguided user submit 30 non-free books, complete with cover art, that are going to have to be deleted eventually. All we can do for now is flag non-free books until the site owner deletes them or creates a separate section of the site for them.
grumps 14y ago
It's a bit of a bait and switch.
- okal 14y ago
  It's not. It's pretty explicitly stated in the guidelines what sorts of books are allowed. I have a day job, I don't sit and watch submissions all day. I manually review them every evening to cull non-free books. All commercial titles you'll find on the site were added today. I personally don't see any ambiguity in the word "free". If you find anything displeasing, you can make my work easier by flagging it. Thanks.
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    Consider adding a "New" section, or sorting the New books to the end of the list, so Knights of New can flag bad submissions, while casual browsers can avoid the bad experience. At the submissions levels you (usually) get, you could even review all submissions before they are published.

cathustler 14y ago

Yo, developer guy, it would be nice if there was some curation involved; some, if not most, of these books are not free. Perhaps allow the community to also remove books that don't fit the guidelines or report them for just not being free? Otherwise, this is going in my bat-belt. Totally awesome idea.

Splendor 14y ago
There's already a "Flag book for abuse" link for each item.

puzanop 14y ago

Spam please delete this link, misleading the books are not free

fuzzix 14y ago
Annoying, as the entries are user submitted. The site should be more upfront about its intent. There are still many free (beer) texts on there.
LordMoriarty 14y ago
It was better this morning. It seems people are adding non-free e-books since the submission.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

+1 for Simon Singh's The Code Book as an engaging read, but it's by no means a programming book.

fbomb 14y ago

Most of these books are neither free nor have anything to do with programming.

okal 14y ago
I didn't submit the link (I'm the developer), so it may not be obvious, but the site was never at any point meant to be purely for tech books. As for the non-free stuff, all of that was added today while I was at work. I'm already culling those submissions. Thanks.

bdreadz 14y ago

+1 for seeing the word free so far and every book I've gone to click on is not free. Very frustrating.

mikecaron 14y ago

Why the hell is "The God Delusion" in the mix? That is not a programming book, it's a social commentary about religion.

mathattack 14y ago
One could argue that it ties to Artificial Intelligence, and how ideas get into our heads. But yes, I had the same reaction.

okal 14y ago

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Some things I need to clarify: 1. The site was never meant to be purely for programming books. It says "free books for the intellectually curious" for a reason :) 2. Non free books are not allowed. That's where the flagging feature comes in. All those were added today, with the best of intentions, I'm sure - and I'm truly grateful to whoever did - but they have to go. Sorry people.