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!
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!
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.
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! :)
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.
Not exactly piracy, but if the book in question is public domain, my favorite site is Standard eBooks! Very high quality books, with proper formatting and translations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The cool thing about that is that you can use it on iOS simply by visiting the Audiobookshelf instance directly on the web. So technically, it’s available on every platform that has some kind of browser.
But getting in is not very easy and many torrents are behind a VIP-wall (you can buy VIP for seeding-bonus points). The tracker is focused on audiobooks, but there are also many e-books available.
Dafuq? They run interviews twice a week, and the questions are dead easy.
many torrents are behind a VIP-wall
Which you just have to wait a few weeks to get past the account age restriction and hand over a few bonus points, which are trivial to get. Just bookmark anything you can’t get and have a little patience.
Piling on to this, part of what makes MAM great is that you get bonus points for seeding even if no one is downloading. Just keep your torrents running indefinitely and it won’t be long before you have free VIP forever, a 10:1 ration and still end up with more points than you could possibly give away
Piling in to say been a member for 10+ years, it’s my go-to for any books (text and audio), and with the system they have, my ratio is somewhere in the 300+ range. All by keeping around 100 book torrents alive on an old raspberry pi and using the bonus points.
Yeah I second this, it was so fucking easy to get in you just have to look up when the window is each week, jump on their irc, read a minimal amount of rules and then answer some questions on them to prove you read them. It took me about half an hour.
The VIP paywall thing is bullshit too. They do have a points system which was a little confusing at first but if you take the time to read all the introductory posts explaining them then it is an easy system to follow and you can easily amass many freeleech wedges which completely negates the so called VIP wall.
Can’t recommend them enough and so much fucking selection compared to free trackers.
As long as you keep seeding torrents indefinitely, you’re contributing by keeping those torrents alive. That’s a huge benefit to the community, and it’s why you can get upload credit even if you aren’t uploading.
And the fact that ebooks take almost no space means you can indefinitely seed thousands of books even if it’s from a small hard drive.
So don’t feel useless. In fact, I want to thank you for helping out.
You can find many e-books on general trackers like 1337x.
You should check out anna’s archive. It’s a website which provides access to books from several sources like z-lib and libgen (download, not torrents).
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
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!
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.
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! :)
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
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.
I use library genisis. Great for scientific papers and adequate for fiction.
Anna’s archive is a catalogue which goes through multiple databases including libgen, therefore it’s preferable
First time i’ve heard of it. I’ve just checked it out looks like it’ll be my new goto-site, thanks :)
Not exactly piracy, but if the book in question is public domain, my favorite site is Standard eBooks! Very high quality books, with proper formatting and translations.
Nice link. Would probably be one of my first places I look for any classic literature. Though it seems fairly limited from just the few searches I did
Yep, that’s the biggest downside. I look here first, and if nothing, go elsewhere. What it does have is excellent though.
Great resource. Thanks for sharing!
Lib gen https://libgen.li/
removed by mod
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.
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shout-out to https://www.audiobookshelf.org/ Once you’ve sourced from MAM
It’s just too bad that the iOS TestFlight is full… maybe someday!
The cool thing about that is that you can use it on iOS simply by visiting the Audiobookshelf instance directly on the web. So technically, it’s available on every platform that has some kind of browser.
Good to know!
a list i found on tumblr
https://www.tumblr.com/naked-trails/735488706556854272?source=share
I’ve been enjoying e-books off of Archive.org (not web.archive.org)
There are some websites like z-lib that still work. Also, I usually just hunt for books on search engines, sometimes I also find copies on VK.
Myanonamouse is a place of friendliness, warmth, and sharing.
This, this, this!!! I love MAM for ebooks and audiobooks.
Edit: disregard this comment
But getting in is not very easy and many torrents are behind a VIP-wall (you can buy VIP for seeding-bonus points). The tracker is focused on audiobooks, but there are also many e-books available.
Dafuq? They run interviews twice a week, and the questions are dead easy.
Which you just have to wait a few weeks to get past the account age restriction and hand over a few bonus points, which are trivial to get. Just bookmark anything you can’t get and have a little patience.
I’ll Third this as well. You’re first week of seeding will net you 10s of thousands of “points” and “wedges” you can trade for VIP status, etc.
Just download a ton of freeleech books, seed em for 72 Hours minimum, done. Longer you seed, the better for everyone.
Also, you’ll find anything and everything you are looking for. In every format…
Piling on to this, part of what makes MAM great is that you get bonus points for seeding even if no one is downloading. Just keep your torrents running indefinitely and it won’t be long before you have free VIP forever, a 10:1 ration and still end up with more points than you could possibly give away
Piling in to say been a member for 10+ years, it’s my go-to for any books (text and audio), and with the system they have, my ratio is somewhere in the 300+ range. All by keeping around 100 book torrents alive on an old raspberry pi and using the bonus points.
only 100?
Yeah I second this, it was so fucking easy to get in you just have to look up when the window is each week, jump on their irc, read a minimal amount of rules and then answer some questions on them to prove you read them. It took me about half an hour.
The VIP paywall thing is bullshit too. They do have a points system which was a little confusing at first but if you take the time to read all the introductory posts explaining them then it is an easy system to follow and you can easily amass many freeleech wedges which completely negates the so called VIP wall.
Can’t recommend them enough and so much fucking selection compared to free trackers.
The worst part about mam is that I feel useless because I consume way more than I contribute.
As long as you keep seeding torrents indefinitely, you’re contributing by keeping those torrents alive. That’s a huge benefit to the community, and it’s why you can get upload credit even if you aren’t uploading.
And the fact that ebooks take almost no space means you can indefinitely seed thousands of books even if it’s from a small hard drive.
So don’t feel useless. In fact, I want to thank you for helping out.
Yeah I know, but I wanna see that uploaded counter go up and it never does. Also I mostly torrent audiobooks and I don’t have much hd space
Yeah honestly ebooks and audiobooks are a solved problem thanks to MAM.
You can find many e-books on general trackers like 1337x. You should check out anna’s archive. It’s a website which provides access to books from several sources like z-lib and libgen (download, not torrents).
oceanofpdf also has a lot of direct downloads for ebooks and they’re very good
I’ve found all books I’ve ever looked for on libgen.is