Can anyone give me an opinion on the 3000 plus classics on sale there for $20??

Yes, yes, I know they can all be had at PG for free ... got it, don't need to hear that again. My concern is as to whether or not it is well formatted and has had any spell check or other corrections made to it by the seller.

If so, it could be well worth my money. If not .... then probably not so much. Although, even just saving the time on a bulk download could be worth $20 come to think of it.

Any thoughts??

Where's this "there"?

if you are looking for classics, i would recomment you start *here*, actually, in the ebooks section ; members of MR have uploaded thousands (over 5000, at last count) of PD books which have been lovingly formatted by them first, and they are all free.

they are infinitely superior to the brut texts you find at PG for presentation (no lack of respect though, mind you ; i love PG for source material). they generally have linked Table of contents at the very least and many have illustrations and other such enhancements. if you decide that it's worth your time to try formatting your own texts one day, in fact, i would encourage you to post them here as well.

Here's the link.

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=21627#review

I was thinking more in terms of the time it would save me (as opposed to downloading the classics one at a time from here). I'm all about time management here ... what with 22 little mouths to feed everyday.

well, true, but will you really read all 3.000 of them ? it might not be such a huge investment of time to download them individually as you want to read them.

i'm not trying to convince you though ; if you want to buy the cd, go crazy ! just suggesting other options, in case you didn't realize there were any.

Oh, no ... all options duly noted. I was just curious if the collection was worth $20. If it's not well formatted ... something like that ... then I would debate it. But, I'm thinking not only of the time that would save me (even at 10 seconds per download ... and you know it takes longer than that .... we're talking about maybe 10 hours or so of time. That translates into roughly $2500 of income for me). But also of something I could easily put on an SD card for a friend as a gift.

Ech .... I think I may have talked myself into it.

But if you only read a few of them, then it's not saving you much time. You still would have to look through 3000 titles to see if there's something you want. I would recommend feedbooks.com download guide. They have good books and you can download them on the fly over wireless in very little time. You can multitask and make yourself a cup of tea while you wait, unless you've forgone beverages due to the income lost while consuming them.

But if you only read a few of them, then it's not saving you much time. You still would have to look through 3000 titles to see if there's something you want. I would recommend feedbooks.com download guide. They have good books and you can download them on the fly over wireless in very little time. You can multitask and make yourself a cup of tea while you wait, unless you've forgone beverages due to the income lost while consuming them.

No, I still eat, drink and occasionally take a shower, just like everyone else. Although, I seldom drink tea .... a can of soda is ever so much faster. Also, it's really sort of easy to see the list of authors covered in those 3,000 books, so I have a good idea what I'm getting.

Now, if you had only considered that my original post was asking whether anyone had actually purchased this set and knew about its quality, you could have been helpful in your reply ... instead of a teensy bit snotty.

:rolleyes:

I would worry about the collection a bit as one of the reviews mentioned that all of each writer's output is in a single file. Thus all of Dickens is in one 10 MB file.

I have gotten good results from the Silk Pagoda (BlackMask) CD for the Sony Reader. It is in PDF formatted for the Sony/Gen3/Kindle screen. http://www.silkpagoda.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=649&osCsid=07c5c159374f1e228ee21388b9291455

I'm with Zelda on this one, the best formatted works are here at MobileRead.

I would worry about the collection a bit as one of the reviews mentioned that all of each writer's output is in a single file. Thus all of Dickens is in one 10 MB file.

I have gotten good results from the Silk Pagoda (BlackMask) CD for the Sony Reader. It is in PDF formatted for the Sony/Gen3/Kindle screen. http://www.silkpagoda.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=649&osCsid=07c5c159374f1e228ee21388b9291455

I'm with Zelda on this one, the best formatted works are here at MobileRead.

Thank you. That was actually a helpful reply. I'll look into that. :2thumbsup

I would worry about the collection a bit as one of the reviews mentioned that all of each writer's output is in a single file. Thus all of Dickens is in one 10 MB file.

I have gotten good results from the Silk Pagoda (BlackMask) CD for the Sony Reader. It is in PDF formatted for the Sony/Gen3/Kindle screen. http://www.silkpagoda.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=649&osCsid=07c5c159374f1e228ee21388b9291455

I'm with Zelda on this one, the best formatted works are here at MobileRead. Instead of getting the PDF disk, go for the one with books in Sony .lrf format -- http://www.silkpagoda.com/catalog/product_info.php?&products_id=650&osCsid=07c5c159374f1e228ee21388b9291455 Same $9.99 price. And you can sample one or two of the books for the quality of their formatting by downloading from Munseys (http://www.blackmask.com).

Instead of getting the PDF disk, go for the one with books in Sony .lrf format -- http://www.silkpagoda.com/catalog/product_info.php?&products_id=650&osCsid=07c5c159374f1e228ee21388b9291455 Same $9.99 price. And you can sample one or two of the books for the quality of their formatting by downloading from Munseys (http://www.blackmask.com).

I looked at this. The DVD lists Agatha Christie as one of the authors. I think here stuff is still in copyright, isn't it?

BOb

There are two pre-1923 Agatha Christies, which are PD in the USA ( but not elsewhere).

Instead of getting the PDF disk, go for the one with books in Sony .lrf format -- http://www.silkpagoda.com/catalog/product_info.php?&products_id=650&osCsid=07c5c159374f1e228ee21388b9291455 Same $9.99 price. And you can sample one or two of the books for the quality of their formatting by downloading from Munseys (http://www.blackmask.com).

Can you read that format on a Kindle??

There are two pre-1923 Agatha Christies, which are PD in the USA ( but not elsewhere).

Yeah, and I found those as a free download .... somewhere. I can't remember now.

Can you read that format on a Kindle??

NO if you have a Kindle you should get the Kindle/Mobipocket formated DVD.

BOb

Yeah, and I found those as a free download .... somewhere. I can't remember now.
Perhaps you got them here as both are posted here.

Perhaps you got them here as both are posted here.

That's very likely. In fact, extremely likely. :)

There as a new version of The Secret Adversary posted not long ago in LRF, PRC, IMP, and PDB.

There as a new version of The Secret Adversary posted not long ago in LRF, PRC, IMP, and PDB.

Cool. Will look into that. :)

The new version has em dashes, italics, and the nice quotes/apostrophes. It's not from the Project Gutenberg source as the PG source doesn't have italics.

The new version has em dashes, italics, and the nice quotes/apostrophes. It's not from the Project Gutenberg source as the PG source doesn't have italics.

I'm not certain I'd know what an em dash was if it jumped in my lap and called me mama.

:blink:

I'm not certain I'd know what an em dash was if it jumped in my lap and called me mama.

It's the one that's larger than an en dash ;)

It's the one that's larger than an en dash ;)
heh... :rolleyes:

a hyphen is a very short dash -. An endash is the width of the letter n. An emdash is the width of the letter m.

a hyphen is a very short dash -. An endash is the width of the letter n. An emdash is the width of the letter m.

More importantly they mean different things. A hyphen is used to break a word at the end of a line or to combine two words. It can also be used as a minus sign in numbers. An endash is normally used to specify a range of values in numbers. An emdash is usually used to set apart a thought or line of reasoning in a book where it will be used in pairs. It may also be used to represent a trailing off of a sentence or when a sentence is interrupted by another person. It is the different uses that make in important to use the correct symbol for the correct meaning. Often Gutenberg eBooks get this wrong as pure ASCII doesn't have an emdash.

Dale

BTW - Patricia, I know you know this but perhaps the original question was more about why than just what the character looked like.

DD

More importantly they mean different things. A hyphen is used to break a word at the end of a line or to combine two words. It can also be used as a minus sign in numbers. An endash is normally used to specify a range of values in numbers. An emdash is usually used to set apart a thought or line of reasoning in a book where it will be used in pairs. It may also be used to represent a trailing off of a sentence or when a sentence is interrupted by another person. It is the different uses that make in important to use the correct symbol for the correct meaning. Often Gutenberg eBooks get this wrong as pure ASCII doesn't have an emdash.

Dale

BTW - Patricia, I know you know this but perhaps the original question was more about why than just what the character looked like.

DD

If you are talking about my comment .... a little of both. I've never heard of the character before coming here. I might have used it in writing ... but never thought of it as any thing more than a dash.

So now I know ..... :cool:

If you are talking about my comment .... a little of both. I've never heard of the character before coming here. I might have used it in writing ... but never thought of it as any thing more than a dash.

So now I know ..... :cool:

Didn't we have a discussion here once about the correct uses of "..." in sentences? Could have been somewhere else.

I believe the consensus was that "..." should always begin immediately after the last character of the preceding word, consist of three "."'s and have a space before the next word.

Example: The big headed robot squinted and picked... the blue one next to the fish.

Yes: the three dots are called an ellipsis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

Yes: the three dots are called an ellipsis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

Well, darn. I thought they were called "dotdotdot". :smack:

Thanks, Patricia, I was searching for that word... but all I could come up with was "...".

"dotdotdot". :smack:


I think that is an "S" in morse code.

BOb

Well, darn. I thought they were called "dotdotdot". :smack:

And they don't substitute for punctuation so you should add it if needed. Therefore it might be dotdotdotdot.

Dale

In morse code, is "O": dash dash dash, endash endash endash, or emdash emdash emdash?

In morse code, is "O": dash dash dash, endash endash endash, or emdash emdash emdash?

...

(at least five characters...) :rolleyes:

In their text files, Project Gutenberg uses -- as an em dash. The Book Cleaner files http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11649 for Book Designer do make sure em dashes do not get converted to a dash and that -- gets converted to a proper em dash.

Whoever, if you do start with a PG text file, load it into Word and convert it to RTF as Book Designer can mess up paragraphs in text files on load. RTF and HTML load fine.


- dash
– en dash
— em dash