sweasel.com

The Strain Gutenberg is pretty good, too. Anything published in Australia by an author who died prior to uh 1955? is considered public domain. So, lots of good stuff, actually. Robert Howard is a particular favourite of mine.

http://gutenberg.net.au/

“Prester John” by John Buchan an adventure story
“The Story of a Common Soldier of the Civil War” by Leander Stillwell
Allan Quatermain by H Rider Haggard an African adventure
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (haven’t read it yet)
Noank’s Log A privateer of the revolution by W.O. Stoddard
King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
Greenmantle by John Burchan
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (a detective story)
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant biography
The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (I think it’s from Gutenburg, might be a free Amazon kindle book) Very interesting

The is “some” SciFi out of copy right, on Gutenberg. The really old classics. Burroughs, Wells, Lovecraft. Some from 1930-1950ish.

Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad.

I also discovered Buchan’s prose to be refreshingly politically incorrect. Did not like numerous 39 Steps renditions as movies. Read the book, especiallythepage with the phrase “prognathous Westphalian”.

Haaa!! Eric Frank Russell The Wasp.

There is also free software “Calibre” that reads both epub and Kindle formats, and will convert epub to AWZ3 (kindle) format so if you find something on Gutenberg only in epub, you can convert it (or read it in Calibre).

http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows

The Purple Cloud, by M. P. Shiel.

And now for something Serious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5gm9hoTw6Y

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is a fun story to read.

I have an app called Aldiko for Android that I’m really liking as a book reader.

John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Baen has a lot of free Sci Fi.

Uncle B gave me via huge Baen collection on CD years ago, unkawill.

I love Gutenberg. Free books!

I’ll second Grant’s Memoirs. Read it twice, gives a fascinating picture of a very decent man.

How about Jules Verne? 20,000 Leagues, or Mysterious Island?

You can get everything Mark Twain wrote! Roughing It or The Innocents Abroad are two great reads.

How about Conan Doyle? The Hound of the Baskervilles, or The Sign of Four?

But wait – there’s more!

Herman Melville. Edgar Allen Poe. Swift (mustn’t forget Swift). Dante. Machiavelli. Chesterton. Carroll……

(lapses into incoherent babbling)

All of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works are out of copyright and his non-Sherlock books tend to be very superior. Check out The White Company some time.

Everything available by Twain is always my first suggestion, even though those are well worth the trouble to round up in dead tree versions. There was also a version of “Innocents Abroad” published bound with the diary of a fellow traveller on ‘The Quaker City’ a few years back, but that’s not public domain.

One excellent book, in two volumes, is Around the World on a Bicycle, by Thomas Stevens. This is is an Amazon freebie for Kindle.

In volume I Stevens chronicles his travels in the 1880’s, cycling west to east across the US, Europe, and on to Teheran, riding a bicycle with a very large diameter front wheel and a tiny one in the rear. Vol. II takes him through the far east, including China and Japan.

This was a very arduous and occasionally dangerous journey, but he maintained a sharp sense of humor throughout, his trip derailed only twice over all the miles he traveled, by a bout of malaria, and a sprained ankle. Among other things, it was fascinating to learn how little some things in the middle east have changed since the 1800’s.

Skandia, I gotta agree that Calibre program is awesome. Interesting freebie plugins available also. If you have a large collection, nothing is better for archiving. I had to send that kid some cash for his efforts. He seems to update it at least twice a month.
BTW, Stoaty, that epub and the included jpg link are legit.

What links, AltB? There’s nothing of yours in the spam filter – I just checked 🙁

BTW, secret Santas, there’s a review of the Kindle Fire at the top of Gutenberg at the moment. Short version: don’t buy one. Everything about it is proprietary. By an Android instead. It’s cheaper and you get more.

I have to say, I love my Android to bits. Even though I suspect Google now knows more about me than my mom and my best friend put together.

Yes, to all the above, and how about some distaff nominees:
Willa Cather
Louisa May Alcott
Gene Stratton Porter
Jane Austen
Anna Sewell
Sigrid Undset (I am stricken to discover that Kristin Lavransdatter is not on the G-list)

Wease, I’ve just bought a Nexus 7 Mark 2 tablet. It’s great.

I suggest “the Diary of Samuel Pepys” – the Complete edition. Also “Three Men in a Boat” by Jerome K Jerome.

Anything by Robert Louis Stevenson is awesome although some is hard to read because he deliberately chose a very archaic style.

And Edgar Allen Poe wrote masterpiece after masterpiece, truly an incredible genius.

I agree that Calibre is a terrific program. I’ve donated to it before and will again.

I also use Moon+ Reader Pro on my Android devices. I tried the free version and it was so good that I paid for it. Always support the folks who make good product.

And Edgar Allen Poe wrote masterpiece after masterpiece, truly an incredible genius.

I finally got around the reading The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket*, & my esteem for that fucker shot through the roof: in that so many great authors, including Conrad & Melville, have borrowed (some more heavily than others) from this book. 4.5/5 would read again.

*comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827.
With an account of the recapture of the vessel by the survivers[sic]; their shipwreck and subsequent horrible sufferings from famine; their deliverance by means of the British schooner Jane Guy; the brief cruise of this latter vessel in the Antarctic Ocean; her capture, and the massacre of her crew among a group of islands in the eighty-fourth parallel of southern latitude; together with the incredible adventures and discoveries still farther South to which that distressing calamity gave rise.

Bascillica Hands?

I have a hardbound copy of “Wild Animals I Have Known” by Ernest Thompson Seton, (signed by author to my great Uncle). It was one of my first books, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys non-fiction nature stories.

Here is a link, in case it’s not one of the books you have in hand:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3031/3031-h/3031-h.htm

I’m also a huge fan of SF & Fantasy, but I have no idea what would be available for free, as I tend to collect the dead-tree versions for m’self.

I agree with SWeasel…Android tablet is the best reader…I have an Asus…I use the FB Reader App for reading…I have an iPod 5th gen coming for Christmas…needed it for testing my work on iGadgets…

Sounded a bit like Obama on that last comment…me, me, me, I, I, I 🙂

Well, crap, nobody had Peter O’Toole

@Ben

I thought about it..but didn’t want to jinx him. *G*

I recently bought a slew of O’Toole and Burton DVDs on sale and have been re-watching them. O’Toole and Hepburn were magnificent in “The Lion In Winter”.

Ann V. Coates, the Epic Editor on “Becket” tells an amusing story of a joke O’Toole played on Burton (begins at 2:30):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RZ8wfxT7UM

Pity, the footage wasn’t kept, eh?

In spite of his many acclaimed dramatic roles; “My Favorite Year” is my fav O’Toole film. O’Toole broadly playing a inebriated, over-the-hill, swashbuckling movie star (Flynn) is both funny and ironic.

One moar kinda OT…not a free or public domain book and the e version would be sort of pointless…have youse guys heard about “S”?

http://tinyurl.com/l5rzoab

The buzz on good reads has me on pins & noodles…lemme see if I can parse the url to avoid spam Siberia:

goodreads dot com/ book/ show/ 17860739-s (remove the spaces after the forward slashes)

I can’t wait for my copy to arrive next week.

I’ve had good luck finding some things to read here:

https://openlibrary.org/

You have to sign up, but I have not gotten any spam from it so far.

@ Stoaty — BTW, secret Santas, there’s a review of the Kindle Fire at the top of Gutenberg at the moment. Short version: don’t buy one. Everything about it is proprietary. By an Android instead. It’s cheaper and you get more.

Eggactly! I recently gave away a Fire and a Paperwhite. We stopped using them when we got Android tabs. I really like the Android OS, it’s so fast and easy to customize.

Even though I suspect Google now knows more about me than my mom and my best friend put together.

LOL!

Sure, Google tracks their users, but who the heck doesn’t nowadays?

Sure, Google tracks their users, but who the heck doesn’t nowadays?

A fellow I’d known for a decade or so, & who was a regular consumer of moving pictures of ladies in compromising positions, had received the wrong moving picture from a company he had been using (off & on) for quite some time; so he called the company & spelled out the precise problem. The lady who answered the phone was awestruck: “Oh!” she says, “You’re RICHARD!”
He instantly hung up & never ordered from them again.

I do still use my old Kindle. In bright light, it can’t be beat. And if my bag gets jacked, I haven’t lost all my passwords.

The two best things about my old Kindle, ease of reading and the awesome battery life. Oh yeah, and the free 3G 🙂

Also, too many distractions while reading on my Android tablet.

Peter O’Toole, what a fine, amazing actor. So many classic and incredibly powerful roles. One of my favorite parts he was in was in a 70’s movie called The Stuntman.

“My Favorite Year” is pretty funny.

I love FB Reader for Android. I figure it must stand for F’n Brilliant. The black on cream is the perfect low-constrast reading environment for my poor nearsighted eyes.

Some other Project Gutenberg recs, Stoaty:
-Anything by Andre Norton 🙂
-Seven Keys to Baldpate. I discovered this book by accident recently, and it is SO much fun.
-I actually really enjoy Horatio Alger’s ridiculous books…

Joan Fontaine isn’t answering her phone either.

Congrats Dissent555!

I do believe I’m gonna need a new pick.

Bazinga!!

Oh, and RIP Ms. Fontaine.

I’m going to nominate John McCaine for the dead pool.
This guy is fucked.

Dead Man Walking.

We should have a pool for “first Oceania prediction to come true”.

Advantages: we’ll all be long dead before there’s a pay out.

Disadvantages: I’ll still never get a lovely weasel drawring. 🙁

Gutenberg has several Arthur Bailey titles if you do any reading to kids. “Grumpy Weasel” is a favorite. He’s an ass which makes it fun. Actually some good nature facts in some of Baileys stories.
There are also some Rackham illustrated selections for the art-farts.

Delightful Dick Day, dissent555!!

Oh, thanks, BJM. Now another book I gotta hunt down…

Mrs P! I’ve been a great fan of Andre Norton for years. Hers are the sort of book a friend of mine used to call “potato chips for the brain.”

Likewise, I discovered the Horatio Alger books through Gutenberg years ago. They aren’t really “rags to riches” — more like “rags to lower-middle-class respectability.”

Ah. At last. Something I know about. Books!

M.R. James was a very effective teller of creepy stories. His style might seem a little stodgy today, but his stories still work. Remember that classic B&W spook show, Curse of the Demon? It’s based directly on a James story called “Casting the Runes.”

And Ernest Thompson Seton, like Albert Payson Terhune (Lad: A Dog), is not a name you hear much these days. But I read Wild Animals I Have Known when I was about 11, and reread it recently. Very effective; the story of Raggylug the wild rabbit will remind you a bit of Watership Down, and the tale of the “yaller dog,” Wully, is haunting, and not in a romantic way, either. Good stuff.

oceania must be sadder than a prince of nigeria.
nobody takes his posts seriously.

Then why comment upon it? 🙂

You and I both know that McCaine and the American ambassador with the Jewish Cookie name are bus starting a civil war in the Ukraine.

Exhibit A:

http://12160.info/photo/pamphlets-in-ukraine-handed-out-during-protests-and-pamphlets?context=user

Georgia didn’t really pan out to well for you, and then there was Syria. You Yankees blinked.
Now you start a revolution on Russias front door step?

McCaine is a dead man … and there goes everyone dumping the US dollar.
And by the time Uncle Sam has drained Sweasels bank accounts, she won’t even get a nickel for this website …

Wait, this website is worth money??? Why didn’t somebody tell me?

Just don’t tell the Tax man!

This is not Sneg Moroz! Eta ne tak!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S4yjlk-OA44

You guys! A 77-year old guy who was tortured for years during a war might die! (hint: it’s because of the EU or something, I read it on http://www.timecube.com )

[…] in Jock of the Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick as recommended by S. Weasel a long time […]

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