Week 9 : Thing 22 : Books, but not as we know them

My main exposure to e-books has been through my brother (ever an embracer of new technologies and gadgets) who likes to read e-books from his palm pilot (or whatever device he's no doubt upgraded to) while lying in bed. He says that the LCD screen gives him enough light so he doesn't have to turn on the bedside light and disturb his sleeping wife. Very considerate, but I fear for his eyesight!

I've spoken to other people, with less hardy eyeballs, who say that they always try to avoid reading anything lengthier than a few paragraphs directly from the screen. If they have an article or similar to read they print if off, and if they want to read a book they buy (or borrow) the hard-copy.

I would say I fall more in the latter camp by preference, but sometimes do read articles and stories from the screen when I can't justify wasting the paper.

I had a look at "Project Gutenburg" http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page, the main site to access free e-books (they have 25,000+ titles) to see if it held anything of interest to me.

First I searched for one of my favourite author's "Lois McMaster Bujold", of whom there was unsurprisingly no free writing available. (That's not to say that there aren't plenty of paid versions or illegally shared versions existing out there.)

Then I tried "Shakespeare" on the grounds that he was unlikely to still be under copyright.
Yup, oodles of Shakespeare in several languages and a variety of formats available to download it in. I decided to look at a PDF version of "Hamlet" (in English) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/2ws2610.pdf
After wading through about 9 pages about Gutenberg and their various disclaimers, I got to the text itself which was pretty clear (but it would have been better if the speaker's names were bolded to break it up and make it more obvious who was speaking when).

I wouldn't say that I am a convert to e-books, but it's good that the options are out there and that some of the older materials in particular are being presevered electronically.