Monday, December 06, 2010

A note about Google's e-bookstore

Google's e-bookstore is now online, and it provides readable online copies as well as links to independent bookstores. This is good news for many of the in-copyright books that it provides.

Note, however, that pre-1923 texts, which are generally out of copyright, are still available at http://books.google.com and Project Gutenberg. You do not have to purchase the repackaged ones through the e-bookstore. For example, Edith Wharton's early short stories can be found at Project Gutenberg for free, whereas a repackaged and printed version of the same Project Gutenberg texts through Google's e-books store costs $15.63. If you don't have a printer or want a book form of a free text, you may want to consider the printed version.

You can find links to all Wharton's stories legally available online here for free, by the way:
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/wharton/shortstories.htm

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