Like many of
you I initially resisted the invasion of e-books and e-readers into our safe world made of shelves crammed
with printed books. I really didn’t
accept such a dramatic change and looked
at the new strange objects with great suspicion. I couldn’t think of a book without
its reassuring smell of dusty paper or
its smooth, black- inked white pages.
Anyway, again like many of you, I had to
surrender, to accept their presence in
my life and even recognize their charms and practicality. I can now honestly
say that I love e-books, though differently than my unforgettable first love, printed books.
Though I still
treasure the hundreds of books I’ve been collecting all my life through on my
shelves, I’ve recently discovered how easy and incredible is to have your
favourite titles, all of them and even more, stored in your iPad or e-reader
and be able to keep them hidden in your own handbag . That means you can always
carry them with you and everywhere!
What I want
to share with you today is one of my latest
precious discoveries, related to my relatively new love for
e-books. It’s a real treasurare for someone like me with a high interest in
classic literature and drama. It's ForgottenBooks, an online digital library with thousands of
books that can be of great interest to avid readers, students, academics and
scholars of several different fields.
Do you love Romance? Just try to click here and browse: you’ll find more than 5,000 titles from classis English literature to rare translations of works by foreign authors . There are also thousands of books in the Fiction, Drama, Poetry and Art sections and last but not least a lovely Jane Austen collection and books on her life. How could I resist? In fact, I couldn’t. I didn’t even try, actually. And I’m now a proud member of Forgotten Books online digital library.
What are the advantages of my membership?
I can now access old and ancient books I couldn't consult or examine otherwise. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text.
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I receive a free e-book every day
which I can decide whether to download or not, according to my own interests
For example today I’ve
downloaded Socialism And Future by John Stuart Mill because I’m really
interested in anything Victorian and I’ve always been thrilled by the modernity
of Mill’s ideas since I first read his On
Liberty.
- When preparing my literature lessons and looking for information about authors, texts and contexts I can find useful materials at the cost of … a click. - I can discover books I didn’t know about, just browsing among the various sections. Then I can decide to add those unexpected findings to my wish list or TBR list. I can download those books without any further necessity to search for them online, in libraries or bookshops. You see? It is an undeniable saving of time, energy, money and space. My laptop and my iPad can contain thousands of e-books and neither my husband nor my sons will ever need to complain about their haunting presence anywhere in the house. (Though thay’ll have to go on bearing the presence of many other hundreds already collected in all these past years). Have a look at ForgottenBooks and let me know what you think. I’m for now really satisfied with my new library . I hope to meet you there!
ForgottenBooks are at the final stages of development of their mobile applications for the three leading devices: Apple iPad and iPad Mini, Android tablets and Microsoft Windows Surface.
