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Project Gutenberg:  Free Books for You
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If you've never heard of Project Gutenberg, and don't realise that there are thousands of free, high-quality books available for download, this feature can provide you with access to an entire library to enrich your life.

Quoting from Wikipedia:
"Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library.
Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books.
The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer.
As of December 2009, Project Gutenberg claimed over 32,000 items in its collection.
Project Gutenberg is affiliated with many projects that are independent organizations which share the same ideals, and have been given permission to use the Project Gutenberg trademark.
Wherever possible, the releases are available in plain text, but other formats are included, such as HTML and PDF.

Project Gutenberg's main site can be found by CLICKING HERE, or you can visit their Australian site by CLICKING HERE. PLEASE NOTE: although both these sites are valid for Project Gutenberg they contain different catalogues of books.

The books are necessarily older than those you might expect to pick up on the shelves of a bookshop today, for they are books that have outlived their copyright. They range through the arts and sciences, history, fiction, philosophy, and practically any area you can think of. This morning I personally downloaded beautifully illustrated copy of Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and the Sagas by H.A.Guerber, and The Kalevala, Finland's epic poem.

Project Gutenberg publishes an on-line list of the 100 most popular downloads. The full list for August 4, 2010 can be found here: TOP 100. For your convenience I've listed the top 20 titles and authors below.

Top 20 titles Top 20 authors
  • History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria
  • The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
  • How to Analyze People on Sight
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
  • Ulysses by James Joyce
  • The Art of War by Sunzi 6th cent. B.C.
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  • A Tale of Two Cities
  • Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome
  • Dracula
  • Grimm's Fairy Tales
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • War and Peace
  • Doctrina Christiana
  • The Bible, King James Version
  • Moby Dick
  • Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  
  • Maspero, G.
  • Sayce, A. H.
  • McClure, M. L.
  • Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
  • Dickens, Charles
  • Twain, Mark
  • Austen, Jane
  • Shakespeare, William
  • Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
  • Wells, H. G.
  • Carroll, Lewis
  • Vatsyayana
  • Wilde, Oscar
  • Verne, Jules
  • Indrajit, Bhagavanlal
  • Bhide, Shivaram Parashuram
  • Poe, Edgar Allan
  • Stevenson, Robert Louis
  • Burroughs, Edgar Rice
  • Dumas père, Alexandre

Project Gutenberg is a wonderful resource. Do yourself a favour and visit it to see what treasures you can find there.

 

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