Thursday, August 31, 2006

Free books

Google is now making available a large number of books for download. In some cases you get a chapter preview, in other cases, like Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, you get the whole enchilada. I would think this is a win for authors and publishers. Yes, people will download books, like the Trollope, when you could pay for it at the store. On the other hand, who is going to read a 500 page novel in PDF? Not this guy. This strikes me as a means to get a quick taste of a book to help decide whether or not to buy. It should also help reduce those massive expenses for books that face college and grad students.

You can find all sorts of things, like this really old (1827) candy cookbook, a history of embalming, and the essential book on US-Ukranian military relations.

No comments: