12 more free B&N classics posted - 8/6

[BookishMom]

Hi everyone,

The new B&N free classics for this week have been posted at: http://www.bn.com/freelibrary

Enjoy!

[ATDrake]

Thanks for the reminder!

This week's theme is banned books: Lewis Sinclair's Babbitt, Candide, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Walt Whitman, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Madame Bovary, Moll Flanders, Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom's Cabin, D. H. Lawrence (2 books).

Last week's books will still be available free for a limited time (until a little after midnight PDT before the pricing switches over, in my experience), even though they're no longer listed on the main promo page.

The theme was Romance, and there were 4 by Jane Austen, 2 of the Brontë sisters, Anna Karenina, Edith Wharton, E. M. Forster, Willa Cather, Elizabeth Gaskell, Dangerous Liaisons.

Pick up 11 of the 12 here (Pride & Prejudice comes free with your account signup), but be sure to refresh the individual book page to make sure it still says $0.00 before "purchasing".

[sweevo]

It's a shame these are only available for a week. The Nook and Kindle are so closely matched right now... yes, I know all these books can be found elsewhere for free, but... I'm not even sure what's different about those versions, but something about getting the B&N versions appeals to me.

I wonder if in the future they're all going to be free on a permanent basis.

[ATDrake]

I certainly hope they'll be permafreebies.

B&N would be smart to lure people in to using their Reader/NookStudy app (supposed to be a bunch free included in their College Kick-Start Kit) and possibly get an actual nook by promising umpteen free classics, Kobo-style. Cost them practically nothing, as it's all public domain in the US, and they probably pay a relative pittance to the people who did the essays and stuff.

I think it'll appeal a lot to people who don't know enough about ebooks to go to Project Gutenberg, much less Feedbooks/Manybooks/here, and balk at paying the $XX that some of the public domain re-packagers charge, or just don't want the hassle of tracking down well-formatted free versions in the first place.

As for what's different about the B&N Classics, they're nice versions with bonus material: introductions, foot/endnotes, and essays generally written by scholarly people. Well worth the download.

[bgalbrecht]

I was mildly disappointed because Babbitt, Leaves of Grass, The Scarlet Letter and Uncle Tom's Cabin were free over the 4th of July weekend.

You might want to skip most of the introduction to Babbitt, as it contains a full synopsis of the novel.

[koland]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I certainly hope they'll be permafreebies.

Definitely are not this. Some of the early ones have already gone back up in price.

B&N would be smart to lure people in to using their Reader/NookStudy app (supposed to be a bunch free included in their College Kick-Start Kit) and possibly get an actual nook by promising umpteen free classics, Kobo-style.

My Kobo came with 100 classics. Don't know what they looked like, as trying to sync it with the Border software (which only had 5 classics) kept locking up my computer. After four days, one of the resets on the Kobo (required to get the blasted thing to restart) resulted in apparently wiping them out, after which it would sync (although it didn't even want the five freebies at that point and they didn't transfer onto it); once past that point, I gave up and started using Calibre instead.

Cost them practically nothing, as it's all public domain in the US, and they probably pay a relative pittance to the people who did the essays and stuff.

I think it'll appeal a lot to people who don't know enough about ebooks to go to Project Gutenberg, much less Feedbooks/Manybooks/here, and balk at paying the $XX that some of the public domain re-packagers charge, or just don't want the hassle of tracking down well-formatted free versions in the first place.

As for what's different about the B&N Classics, they're nice versions with bonus material: introductions, foot/endnotes, and essays generally written by scholarly people. Well worth the download.

They are nice versions (just as Penguin classics in paper often are). Not really comparable to the million or so free texts that all the stores claim (which are often full of bad OCR's and for older texts, often language that is no longer in common use). Apparently with translated works, they do often use older translations (a more modern one means it is still under copyright).

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I was mildly disappointed because Babbitt, Leaves of Grass, The Scarlet Letter and Uncle Tom's Cabin were free over the 4th of July weekend.

At least it gives people who missed them then a chance at getting titles they might have wanted? Besides, I think there's a very limited list of eligible books they could make fit the theme, and some of them seem kind of a stretch.

I'm trying to envision what they could be doing for further theme weeks, but beyond Mystery/Horror, Adventure/Exploration, and maybe Philosophy/History and Classics in Translation, there's not much more out there which I think could be filled by 12 non-repeating titles.

On the other hand, there's only 4-5 weeks left in the promo at this point? So that could cover things nicely.

You might want to skip most of the introduction to Babbitt, as it contains a full synopsis of the novel.

Most of the intros discuss the books in rather spoilery detail, I'm afraid. If you don't already know the plot/twists beforehand (and don't want to), probably the best bet is to read the "World of" before starting, and the "Introduction" after finishing, ironically.

Originally Posted by koland

Definitely are not this. Some of the early ones have already gone back up in price.

Well, the context for that remark was "in the future". And I do hope that after the summer promo is over, B&N either makes a selection/the lot of them permanently free, or more likely, keeps bringing back the promo in different forms.

"Free spooky classic tales for Hallowe'en", "Free classic love stories for Valentine's Day", and so forth.

After four days, one of the resets on the Kobo (required to get the blasted thing to restart) resulted in apparently wiping them out, after which it would sync (although it didn't even want the five freebies at that point and they didn't transfer onto it); once past that point, I gave up and started using Calibre instead.

The Kobo people really should have allowed you to easily and intuitively re-download them somehow (maybe a link in the user account to a special page). Stuff happens to e-readers, and I bet a fair number of other users have run into something similar and also lost their preloaded "100 free classics".

However, from the pictures online, it looks like they're the same as the ones listed in the official Free Books section at the Kobo site, at least the versions which come with cover art. I've seen the exact same flowery abstract cover for Pride & Prejudice on a promo shot showing the Kobo in use as appears in the listing in their store.

Also, I'm beginning to think drag and drop management of files should always be an option. As a Mac user, I'd hate to have to go to a likely temperamental/incompatible software app just so I could put things on and off my hardware.

Apparently with translated works, they do often use older translations (a more modern one means it is still under copyright).

There's a note to that effect on the copyright page of most of the translated classics so far. "Anonymous translation contemporary to the source text". Only one I haven't seen it on thus far is Beowulf, and the intro for that states that the new translation is based on an older "classic" one.

I don't blame them for cheaping out on the translations for their bargain budget reprint line. Good ones are expensive and can be hard to find, assuming they exist for some of the more obscure works.

And they do take the time to footnote even the "anonymous translation contemporary to the source text" for better understanding by the modern reader, which helps quite a bit.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Most of the intros discuss the books in rather spoilery detail, I'm afraid. If you don't already know the plot/twists beforehand (and don't want to), probably the best bet is to read the "World of" before starting, and the "Introduction" after finishing, ironically.

Yup. I basically don't read any of the intro or analysis unless I've already read the book. I don't want any of it coloring my reading. With good books, I sometimes look up stuff after, and these books might be useful for that type of context.

I do appreciate B&N offering their classic series for download. I have seen their Dracula and it is vastly superior to any of the Project Gutenberg based alternatives (italics! glory be to the typography gods!)

But... B&N commit the same sin that Apple's iTunes Store does: the requirement for me to supply my credit card number to "purchase" a free item. Sorry B&N and Apple, you get my credit card number when the price is more than 0 cents and I expect that you will not keep it on file somewhere without me assenting to do so.

Yes I am being picayune but hey, I reserve the right to be so. So there!

[geertm]

Originally Posted by shall1028

I do appreciate B&N offering their classic series for download. I have seen their Dracula and it is vastly superior to any of the Project Gutenberg based alternatives (italics! glory be to the typography gods!)

But... B&N commit the same sin that Apple's iTunes Store does: the requirement for me to supply my credit card number to "purchase" a free item. Sorry B&N and Apple, you get my credit card number when the price is more than 0 cents and I expect that you will not keep it on file somewhere without me assenting to do so.

Yes I am being picayune but hey, I reserve the right to be so. So there!

B&N needs the credit card because B&N's social DRM uses the credit card number and name to encrypt the books.
This means your book is not tied to your reader hardware (Kindle) and not tied to any software ID (Adobe ePub), but can be read on any reader support the B&N DRM without any authorization needed.

[Pagali]

Originally Posted by geertm

This means your book is not tied to your reader hardware (Kindle) and not tied to any software ID (Adobe ePub), but can be read on any reader support the B&N DRM without any authorization needed.

But which readers DO support B&N DRM, besides their own that is?

[aagstn]

Originally Posted by Pagali

But which readers DO support B&N DRM, besides their own that is?

None, but you at least have the option of using any device that has the B&N Reader app if you don't want to remove the DRM with no device limit.

Once again thanks to the original poster for the reminder. Now I just need time to read all of these.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by aagstn

None, but you at least have the option of using any device that has the B&N Reader app if you don't want to remove the DRM with no device limit.

Someone mentioned on another thread that the JetBook readers could handle B&N-DRM ePubs and PDBs.

And if you've a Mac or can spoof one in your browser's user-agent string, B&N are currently sending all their My Library downloads from the website as PDB files again in order to alleviate a particular crashing problem on that platform.

So people using eReader compatible devices will be able to use them too, at least until B&N change things again.

I, too, find their social DRM less intrusive and more flexible than ADE's 6-device limit, or the ever-changing Kindle PID scheme whose Mac-compatible tools will cease to work for me if I upgrade to the 2.5 firmware.

[FizzyWater]

I don't think these B&N classics have DRM (at least, not on the ePub versions)...

[ATDrake]

No, they do. Except on the three "starter" Classics that are included with every account signup (Dracula, Pride & Prejudice, Little Women). For some reason, those always re-download as DRM-free, no matter what format.

But dragging the freshly downloaded promo Classics' epub files from both my NookStudy and B&N Windows app on Wine userdata folders to EPUBReader on Firefox gives me the "can't open, DRMed" error message, and the corresponding PDB versions I get straight from the website always pop up the Name/CC dialogue in the B&N Mac app.

Apparently B&N made some changes to their apps and it seems that after you've entered a Name/CC combo once, it stores the hash for decrypting anything it matches that comes along instead of asking again.

Some people on the B&N forums have claimed to have successfully used this to "lend" books to their friends and families by entering the relevant info onto a device in person and later sending a copy of any future desired files on, though of course I can neither confirm/deny.