FREE downloads of the classics!

[laura1234]

Thanks everyone for your comments on the site. I've spent many many hours of my free time over the last few years on it, and I encourage the comments--both positive and negative.

In response to some of Worldwalker's comments, I nowhere state that I alone have digitally converted all the ebooks. Reformatted the texts to multiple formats and added linked TOCs: yes. Made covers for them: yes. Selected them, read them, and posted reviews of them (with the help of my mom and guest bloggers, thanks Maggie!): yes, yes, yes. I and many of our visitors see the site not just as an ebook resource but possibly even more as way to discover and browse for new reading material.

On both the "About" page and "Why Donate?" page, I fully acknowledge that we get most (not all) of our free ebook texts from Gutenberg. On the "Why Donate?" page I also have a link to donate to Gutenberg. I do not simply rip off the ebooks from Gutenberg to pass off as my own while requesting donations. If something on the site gave you that impression, please let me know what. I don't want anyone taking away this idea from the site. On the "Why Donate?" page, I say we are requesting donations *for server costs only*. And as Maggie stated, I also understood from the Gutenberg legal terms that all references to Gutenberg must be removed from their texts when changing them in any way.

Regarding the sexism comment--the site started as a way to find historical works by women authors that are virtually unknown today and get people reading them. I suppose it's a matter of personal opinion, but I personally don't find publishing only female authors offensive. We have given thoughts to publishing some works by men on the site, and my mom even bought a domain name to start a site publishing ebooks by men only, but as we keep finding so many unknown and marvelous books by women, we simply haven't had time to give it more thought.

For the contemporary ebooks we publish, we welcome submissions by both men and women provided that the content appeals to our primarily female readership.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I can't see how a website which does not list certain authors because of their sex does anything to remedy the discrimination suffered by people who are long dead.

It helps remedy the discrimination suffered by women now, today--who are encouraged/required by publishers to put their initials on books because *women are not authors*, or are not "respectable" authors, because the public doesn't think women have written/can write books of comparable quality to men.

It says, "here are thousands of books written by people who've been traditionally excluded from much of publishing." It tells young women that they might become respected authors. It encourages them to fight for the right to use--and be respected for using--their full names.

It can't do that if the female authors are buried under an avalanche of male authors, as is common in most book listings, because of the oppression that's been going on for thousands of years.

If it's a good book, I don't care if it was written by a man or a woman or a particularly talented kangaroo.

I do. I care if it was written by a racist or homophobe, if the author is a child abuser or a murderer, if the proceeds of the book are going to fund religious oppression.

There are plenty of good books available; I don't need to waste my time on the ones that are supporting practices I find vile. And while I don't disdain male authors as a category, I do sometimes want to know--what have various oppressed groups of people written? When they do get published, what do they write about? What common themes do they have, that literary studies have overlooked because of the overwhelming tendency to focus on books of the dominant majority groups?

I want book selections of only women authors. Of only authors of color. Of only queer authors. Of only non-Christian authors. Of only disabled authors. If I read anything but English, I'd want non-English author collections.

Insisting that it's discriminatory to make those collections says that we have a level playing field, that everyone is treated equally, and so the collections are special treatments, rather than an attempt to uncover what's been hidden and suppressed.

I feel that singling out books by women sends the message "women need special treatment because they can't compete on their own"

Women ARE NOT ALLOWED to compete equally on their own. They are told from infancy that they're not as smart or capable as men, in a thousand ways; overcoming that constant message needs reminders that they *can* succeed, that other women have done so before them.

(can't I just send them a check for the royalties they'd get, and then go read a good book with a clear conscience?),

Only if you believe the stories and perspectives of women, people of color, queer people etc. are identical to the ones of straight white men. Otherwise, you're missing out. A lot.

Present discrimination does not reverse past discrimination; it validates it.

Discrimination against female authors is not a thing of the past. Reminding readers, and potential authors, that we have a rich collection of female-written literature is not feeding discrimination. And that reminder can't be made by trying to focus on a tiny percentage in a huge mixed collection.

Either it's right to decide which books should be in a library because of the sex of the authors, or it isn't. It can't be wrong only some of the time.

Yes, it can--because *the sexes are not treated equally.* Because the concept "in an ideal, totally-equal society, it would be discrimination," is irrelevant; we don't have, and have never seen in human history, such a society.

It is wrong to shove someone off the sidewalk--unless they're about to be hit by a bicycle. Whether an action is fair or not depends on circumstances, not categories. "Discrimination" is creating an imbalance, not working to fix one, and highlighting and working against imbalances in publishing is not discriminatory.

This is not fighting ancient discrimination; it's fighting ongoing, current discrimination, in part by pointing out how it's been successfully fought in the past.