The Fun! Factory: Literature

Using your palmtop as a Game Boy replacement is all very well, but the latest buzz is all about the electronic book, or e-book for short. Well, actually, your palmtop does a pretty good job at that too. For useful programs to enhance your reading experience, see the downloads page. Otherwise, read on for a list of online sources of literature.

Project Gutenberg

In a nutshell, the aim of Project Gutenberg is to make as much literature as possible freely available online. Texts are supplied in standard ASCII format, which basically equates to plain text, readable on just about any computer by just about any text editor or viewer. For a more complete history and background to the project, browse to the official What is Project Gutenberg? page.

There are two main starting points which you will want to check out for the latest news, updates and other useful information, as well, of course, as links to Project Gutenberg's text archives:

The On-Line Books Page

Alternatively, you can always visit the On-Line Books Page, which offers extensive listings of texts not always found in the Project Gutenberg archives, as well as a search engine. The slight downside is that the texts are not always in plain text format; occasionally, for example, you may come across a text written in HTML format (usually where there are illustrations included).

MemoWare

There is also a good site called MemoWare, which offers a large selection of titles. Unfortunately, these texts are in a proprietary DOC format, designed for the PalmPilot; this is no problem, however, as there are utilities (see the downloads page) which you can use to either directly view or convert them.

[ Return to the top of the page ]