E-Books, best places to get them?

I want to get back into reading, so I’m thinking of getting a Paperwhite. But I have no idea if it’s possible to transfer files to it from a computer, and I have no experience with pirating books.

Do I go to the same places I torrent movies and games or are there special places dedicated to E-Books?

EDIT: So many awesome answers on here! You guys have been very helpful. Thanks a lot!

Nouveau_Burnswick,

Just because no-one has mentioned it yet.

Your local library. You probably don’t even have to go in, once you’re account is set up you can check out books online.

TheaoneAndOnly27,

My biggest issue with ebooks in the library, and what led me into more ebook Piracy. Having to wait to check out a digital book. I know the library has to pay like yearly licensing subscriptions to a lot of these books, and it's just so annoying to me that it doesn't cover everybody having access to it. I sit on the library board and one thing we're talking about doing is a graphic novel service for a lot of the youth. And low key, I'm stoked for the graphic novel service too. But that one's unlimited access.

Nouveau_Burnswick,

Fair enough, maybe it’s just the size of my library/library conglomerate, but I’ve never waited for an ebook.

TheaoneAndOnly27,

That's fair. I live in a very rural town

trolololol,

Going into a library is like choosing a movie from Netflix. If you don’t know what you want it’s fine. But if you’re after a specific book, big chances it’s not there.

Example: I’ve read over 100 star Trek books, none of the libraries around me have any in the series, and I’m on a 3M people city.

Nouveau_Burnswick,

That seems very odd to me. I’ve never been to a city library that can’t get something they don’t have. Obviously I’m biased by my own experiences.

I’m in Montréal (2-4M depending on how the library system is set up) and star wars has 1,099 hits. Video games, mangas, movies, tv shows, books illustrations, audiobooks, lego building guide ebooks, comics, etc. There might be some inflation in the figure for how some titles handle multi-lingual copies.

Karen Traviss is my favorite star wars author, followed by Timothy Zhan.

AzureCerulean,
@AzureCerulean@lemmy.ml avatar
anothercatgirl,

I’ve been enjoying e-books off of Archive.org (not web.archive.org)

HarbingerOfTomb,

There are e-libraries if you go with a non Amazon device. They’re great

wesley,

Are there any good non-amazon ebook readers?

selflock,

Look at the Kobo e-readers

bobdigga,
Beaupedia,

Give Kobo a look, Amazon isn’t the only name in the game. Kobo lets you connect directly to your library and check out books on the device, I absolutely love mine after having a couple Kindles.

wildcardology,

My go-to ebook source is mobilism, if they don’t have them on hand you can request them in exchange for points? Can’t remember exactly.

solidsnake2085,

I use EbookHunter. You have to turn on a VPN after 3 downloads or they make you sign up for it. I’ve downloaded many books from there for my Kindle.

RepulsiveDog4415,

Do I go to the same places I torrent movies and games or are there special places dedicated to E-Books?

I use library genisis. Great for scientific papers and adequate for fiction.

nudnyekscentryk,
@nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info avatar

Anna’s archive is a catalogue which goes through multiple databases including libgen, therefore it’s preferable

RepulsiveDog4415,

First time i’ve heard of it. I’ve just checked it out looks like it’ll be my new goto-site, thanks :)

AnyProgressIsGood,

Libby? Library but digital

netchami,

You know that this is a piracy community, right?

Patches,

I’m just here for the free stuff.

Libby, Hoopla, Overdrive are all free and helps support the authors to make more books. Win win.

If you don’t like the borrowing format then just clone the epub after borrowing it. It isn’t difficult to do, and author still makes money.

Lipriv30,

How do you clone an EPUB? Especially on MacBooks?

janguv,

You would just find the directory location of the DRM locked ebook, put it in Calibre with the DeDRM addon installed and enabled, and hey presto, you have an unlocked clone. (This works on MacOS)

Compactor9679,

Hahahhhahaa MacBooks… Hahahhaahha

Turbofish,

IRC is where it’s at. In the many years I’ve been using it to download books there’s only been a handful of books I’ve been unable to find.

reddit.com/…/guide_the_idiot_proof_guide_to_downl…

blackbirdbiryani,

Just want to add that if you find a rare ebook not on libgen, do you civic duty and take the time to upload it, it only takes a few minutes and it’s rewarding being able to save some time for others.

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

But the libgen upload interface is cumbersome, requires way too many details and has regularly denied my uploads whenever I tried.

victron,
@victron@programming.dev avatar

Awesome advice, this becomes more important by the day

Tattorack,
@Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll keep that in mind.

Chakravanti,

That do audio books too?

t0fr,
@t0fr@lemmy.ca avatar
trolololol,

Underrated answer

I recently found out about this and at random searched for a Brazilian author, obviously expecting in Portuguese. I was not disappointed.

Most answers and places are heavily biased to English books, it seems to not be the case here.

Though I’ll add a couple of my favorites for works that are free of copyright already

Wiki source. For example, Chekhov page has kinks to both English and original Russian texts …wikisource.org/…/Author:Anton_Pavlovich_Chekhov

And probably the biggest, project Gutemberg. Searching Cervantes gives you only one book, Don Quijote, though in many editions, and both English and Spanish which is a bit limited.

www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=cervantes&…

Leax,

Never heard of it, that looks really cool!

FMEEE,

I love it especially for multiple languages (I Read English and German books)

Imhotep,

I use zlibrary’s tor mirror, i know it’s never down

BackpackCat,

The best way to get back into reading is to go to your local libray, get a card, set up an the library app for ebooks, have the librarian recommend you something based on what you like, and start reading it. I got back into reading a year ago, have read about a dozen books, and haven’t spent any money so far just by heading to the library. I personally like to have a book with me but if you keep your e-reader around and just read it during the times you’d usually check social media or your phone you’ll get back into it in no time. I wish you luck!

Tattorack, (edited )
@Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not sure if Danish libraries do E-Books. I could check after work, though. But the fun part is I already have a library card; the health insurance card all Danish citizens get counts kinda like an everything card, including lending books. ^^

Anyway, I got some authors on my radar already. Like for instance I have only read a fraction of what Terry Prachet wrote, and I never finished the Hitchhiker’s trilogy.

BackpackCat,

That’s awesome what a great idea! Nice Pratchet’s books and the Hitchhikers series are great! Hope you find some stuff you enjoy. Getting back into reading has been one of the best things I’ve done in years and has helped my life in a lot of ways. I found what helped me get back into the habit was just keeping something to read with me when I had time to kill like waiting for food or an appointment, reading on my work breaks to give my eyes a rest from screens, and reading around an hour before bed to help my sleep quality. You’ll be surprised how fast you’ll go through a book I usually would end up reading about 30 mins to 90 mins today. Also if you don’t like something by like 100 pages in just drop it. Trying to force myself to read things to the end I wasn’t enjoying killed my desire to read. By dropping books I actually ended up reading more than before. I hope you enjoy some wonderful stories! :)

drkt,

A lot of Danish libraries have ebooks, but its a proprietary system and requires a compatible ereader. That basically means it only works for kindles.

I haven’t used it at all, I don’t bother

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Librarians are not always (but in fact, are very rarely) Lit enthusiasts who’ll know the best choices whenever you ask them. Most of them are just doing their jobs.

LongRedCoat,

Maybe look into an Onyx Boox instead of a Kindle. It will let you download books straight from the web (like standardebooks.org and Project Gutenberg) without having to side load. Also, you can add the Libby and Overdrive apps to it since it accesses the Google Play store. Also, it accepts all files formats so you don't have to convert anything.

Kage520,

As someone buying a color screen boox soon, I think it’s worth a mention that the battery is MUCH worse on boox because it has to run android. Like, the boox may last a day or two vs the Kindle Paperwhite lasting a couple weeks.

It’s not a huge issue if you are home a lot and can charge, but I love the Paperwhite because it feels like it ALWAYS is charged. It just doesn’t have the color screen so I guess I will have both now, one for comics and one for books.

dashydash,

I have the note air 2 plus, the battery is only bad if you have WiFi on, with WiFi off it can last weeks. It’s a really nice device otherwise.

trolololol,

That’s weird, I’d expect my battery life to be at least 30h for reading books.

Though if I use an app like the guardian it goes down faster because of the scroll. So maybe change to another app for reading. I like moon reader.

LongRedCoat,

I think I got lucky and got one of the models with improved battery (Onyx Boox Page). I've been reading the Trigun manga on it for over a week now and it's only just getting to the point where I need to charge it finally.

But good point. Some of the older models might have worse battery life to consider. I only have a black and white model too. Color might use more battery.

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