[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.