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Project Gutenberg Publishes 10,000th Free eBook

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the worthwhile-endeavours dept.

AndrewRUK writes "Earlier today, Project Gutenberg's founder, Micheal Hart, announced that the project has passed the milestone of 10,000 free eBooks available, with the publication of the Magna Carta.Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971, with the aim of "[making] information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search." In the 32 years since the project started, over 10,000 books, ranging from the Bible to school textbooks, and from the complete works of Shakespeare to the USA's declaration of independence, have been made freely available to the public by Project Gutenberg."

6 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. e-reader hardware? by smack_attack · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are there any decent e-readers for this? I have looked around and all of them want to use some crazy proprietary format or just plain suck. I think those things could take off if there was a good one, I'm game.

    --

    Hammer of Truth
    1. Re:e-reader hardware? by zenofjazz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I prefer the palm pilot, myself... smaller than a paperback, long battery life, and very readable backlightable screen... And there are freeware apps that will allow you to take Gutenberg eTexts and convert them for your Palm.
      How much text can you stuff in 8Mb?
      2 full copies of the bible..
      or
      all of shakespeare
      or
      LOTS and lots of good fiction.
      -Jazz

      --
      -- All That's Evil in the Geek Space ... Allthatsevil.wordpress.com
    2. Re:e-reader hardware? by WillAdams · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Dedicated hardware (ebookman, Franklin reader) hasn't caught on that well.

      I've read a fair number of texts on my Newton, but found a Palm Pilot too small.

      I've read a lot more, and enjoy it more on my pen computers---started with an NCR-3125, moved up to a Fujitsu Point, just got a Stylistic.

      Apparently the Zinio Reader for Tablet PC is well done, haven't tried it yet.

      William

      --
      Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
  2. Re:For all the noise... by Xtifr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone here regularly read from Project G?

    I wouldn't say "regularly", but I would say "once in a while". Is that good enough?

    What did you read?

    Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lewis Caroll, early P. G. Wodehouse, early Edgar Rice Burroughs.

  3. Re:For all the noise... by dvdeug · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For being a fairly large database of reading material, is it only capable of archiving things so old that they have expired copyrights [...] you can hardly expect it to become a cultural phenomenon,

    At least some of us read some of that older material. Shakespeare and Poe and Twain didn't suddenly become pointless after you left school.

    Personally I've found myself reading a number of pulp mysterys - The Orange-Yellow Diamond by J.S. Fletcher (some sterotypes, but not racist), Joe Muller: Detective by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner, and of course the early Agatha Christies. Despite being "a million years" old, they're still quite good novels.

  4. Re:For all the noise... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Anyone here regularly read from Project G? What did you read?"

    Jules Verne, Mark Twain, HG Wells, Herotodus, Lincoln, Gibbon, Napolean, Stoker, Wilde, Poe, Lovecraft, London, Dickens, Plutach, ...