My new favorite website these days would have to be Project Gutenberg. The mission statement of this wonderful organization is “to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks .” With over 28,000 books in their database, I now have completely free access to many books I never would have found or read otherwise. They have "everything," from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks to A.A. Milne's Red House Mystery to Swiss Family Robinson to portions of Scripture to works by G.K. Chesterton.
Although I certainly don’t prefer to “read” books online, there are many times when Project Gutenberg comes in handy. For example, I was thrilled to see the What Katy Did series, because after reading the first excellent book, I was never able to find the sequels. Additionally, I can easily search the text of a book. I own all of Jane Austen’s books, but it sure is easier to search for a specific quote using Project Gutenberg than to peruse every page of Austen’s writings! Finally—and this is the most exciting application of all—Project Gutenberg provides hundreds of audio books, both human and computer read for free! I have had such fun downloading these to my MP3 player and listening to them while I scrub bathrooms or clean my room. It seems as though I have less and less time to read these days, and Project Gutenberg makes it just a little bit easier for me to multitask. ;-)
So I’d like to know:
- Have you heard of Project Gutenberg before?
- If you’ve used it already, what ways do you make it work for you?
- If you haven’t used Project Gutenberg, what do you think of it?
Enjoy this gem of a website and happy reading!
(Stay tuned for Lauren’s post on Friday from the grand old state of…Utah!)
Thank you for this post! I will gladly answer your questions :)
ReplyDeleteI have heard of Project Gutenberg. I forget how I came across it (and maybe Molly did first), but it was probably in searching the Internet for more Henty books!
I have used it for texts of old French literature, English literature (Jane Austen, etc.!), poetry, and G.K. Chesterton! Also for translated Greek classics, and my favorite: theology! Thomas A Kempis' "Imitation of Christ," and "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ" (I think that would be by John Owen) are two of my favourites from the website!
~ Courtney
I've not heard of this site before.
ReplyDeleteI do not see myself using the ebook format. However, I could see myself using the audio book format! I really do not care much for doing a lot of reading on the computer...If I'm going to make time to read it's going to be with an actual book and a comfy seat : ). Since they offer free audio books, I'd be likely to try that out (I've never done that since I learned to read on my own).
Since I haven't used it...I can't really say what I think of it at this point other than: It looks like a great idea to me!
Courtney--your book choices sound just like you! ;-) I've listened to a few theological selections; I'll have to try out the one's you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteVictoria--I know what you mean about using a "real" book; they are definitely to be preferred, unless they are cost prohibitive, in which case Gutenberg is a wonderful alternative.
Every time I try to download an audio book It try's to play it/not download it
ReplyDeleteHow can I download these?
Your student
Abby
Abby--it's wonderful to hear from you! I look forward very much to seeing you when I get back. That is a really good question--Mikaela and I had to figure it out by trial and error, and it took us a little while! You right click on the format you want and click "save target as." Then it will bring up a window, and you can save it to your computer!
ReplyDeleteHave fun!
thanks Lauren ........
ReplyDeletewe were able to download some audio onto my digital picture frame...Josh, my brother helped me.
Abby