 This month, 10 of the Best goes into hibernation ' autumn is well under way here in Johannesburg, so we're cocooning, with a good book and a cup of tea.
Open books are about more than just finding some free literature and escaping library fees. They represent the enormous potential of the internet and open licensing to make knowledge, great words and beautiful stories available to everyone.
Most books that are available for download are in the public domain, because, well, not everyone has figured out the way to copy-righteousness and it's probably going to take a while for them to come round. Those that are online are displayed in different ways. Some are scanned, others have been retyped.
Reading is a pleasure that should be enjoyed wherever you are, but reading while driving is just plain dangerous. So we've decided to include some audio-book sites here too, for people who like their books on the move.
So grab a cup of tea, find a comfortable couch with a spot of sun and enjoyâ?¦
O'Reilly Open Books
A small independent publisher and media company, O'Reilly has partnered with Creative Commons and the Internet Archive to release (and re-release) books by individual authors, books from the public domain and community authors. Most of the books are quite tech-specific, certainly for those of you who are technically-minded.
Eldritch Press
A small, but oh-so-well curated collection of some great American, world and children's books. They've been grouped together with real wit, and the site itself it pleasingly low-tech, which many book people find comforting. All books are, naturally, Public Domain, as is the site itself.
Gutenberg
The oldest, largest, digital library online, Project Gutenberg started in 1971 as a collection of public domain books. At the time of writing, there are about 20 000 free e-books currently in the collection and about 50 news ones are added every week. Project Gutenberg features literature in over 42 languages (including indigenous languages like Nahuatl, Mayan languages and Welsh) and audio books that are read by both computers and human voices. They're also working on a project to collect sheet music and recorded music from the public domain.
Loudlit
This is a relatively small, but very high-quality collection of public domain literature, paired with an audio version, for those who just can't face ploughing through the original. Many of the audio recordings, which are done by LoudLit volunteers, are licensed under CC licences. Poetry, children's stories and classic novels are all there.
Public Literature
This is a very eclectic page, with a wide range of content, all in the public domain. Lots of Shakespeare, religious texts, encyclopaedia entries, classic literature, history and some textbooks are available, and the site's authors have created an interesting timeline for all the writings on the site. Most of the content and site itself are licensed with both GNU and GFDL licences, and much of it is linked to Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg.
Page by Page Books
A good collection of public domain literature, with works by authors like Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charles Dickens. There are also some rather random speeches and addresses by American presidents. While the books are public domain, the site retains the copyright to the HTML and editorial changes, and their policy prohibits any commercial use, republishing or copying to any other website.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
Based in Australia, this is a hefty collection of classic American and English literature, as well as some philosophy, musings and some other, odder pieces that have been released in the public domain. It's all here, from Aristotle to Heinrich Zschokke, and most of the work is licensed under GNU GPL licences.
Librivox
Everybody's favourite audio book site, mainly because anyone can read, record and submit a whole book, or just a few chapters to this growing archive. Librivox offers audio books from the public domain that run the gamut from Einstein to Emily Dickinson, via the Wind in the Willows (for the classicists among us). Audio books in French, Finnish, Spanish, German, Dutch and Italian are also available. If your language isn't there, why not record it yourself?
ReadEasily
This great site is a collection of literature which has been formatted in HTML code (non-proprietary) so that it can be modified for partially sighted, senior or dyslexic readers. The size of the text can be changed, as can the background colours, to make the text easier to read. The texts can also easily be modified by text-to-speech software, to create audio books for users who would rather listen to the books.
Creative Commons Wiki
What sets this collection apart from most of the others, is that the publications here are, for the most part, licensed with CC, rather than being public domain books. Many of them are also available for purchase and/or print on demand. Most of the books are concerned with free culture, free software and open societies and even the fiction has a cyberpunk/sci-fi edge to it.
Photograph: Boekenweek 2007 by akbar1947, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
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