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Public Domain Book Recommendations (lemmy.ml)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by JayDee@lemmy.ml to c/books@lemmy.world

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I'm currently trying to get better at reading and am doing that by accumulating a library of public domain books, since they're free and easily available.

If you have a specific work you love that was published pre-1928, or is currently not under copyright, feel free to comment it down below.
if you have any authors you think are worth reading, also post them below.

I'm currently reading Jack London's "War of the Classes", and I have "Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde downloaded for later.

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[–] brenticus@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think all my suggestions are elsewhere in the thread, but I do want to point you to a couple sources for public domain books that are more readable than a lot of other sites.

https://standardebooks.org/ - Mostly cleans up and formats Project Gutenberg sources to make them more readable. Fixes typos, fixed formatting, properly uses ebook features. Very handy.

https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/index.html - Similarly cleans up and formats public domain sources to make them more readable, but has a lot of more obscure stuff. Especially good for weird bits of philosophy, theology, and esoteric stuff, but also just another good source to check if standard doesn't have what you're looking for.

I think someone else mentioned Anna's Archive, but that one's more than just public domain books. I've only used it a couple of times when I wanted to buy an ebook but the author/publisher set it to a price I wasn't okay with.

[–] bramkaandorp@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

Standard Ebooks is a wonderful resource, although they do sometimes go for more modern words or spelling. It's to help modern readers better understand old texts, but it means you won't get some of the cool and quaint wording and formatting.