Greetings

KenW · 02-20-2025, 10:11 PM

Hi

I am glad to come across this forum as I am taking some steps to upgrade my mobile ebook reading situation and know I will need some help.

I am from Canada, Vancouver Island British Columbia to be more specific. My home is there but I travel quite a bit, more now that I am retired.

To this point, my reading habits have been fed by borrowing ebooks using Libby from my local public library. That has been great and I plan to continue to use it but so often the titles I want are subject to a long wait.

I want to explore collecting ebooks that I can keep for future reference and read at my leisure and pick up without a wait. I prefer ebooks that I read on the screen over audio books.

I keep a lot of stuff on a home server. It runs in Debian Linux using the Freedombox server package. I have just installed the Calibre app. I am at the very start of finding my way around in it. At this point I have no books in my library.

I don't use any ebook readers (by that I mean kindle, kobo and the like) but use a laptop or more often an android phone for my reading.

At the moment, I am reading a particular title that is due back before I will finish it and I would like to buy a copy so I have it and to support the author with a sale. I am sorting out where to buy an ebook, what format I should be looking for and then will need to figure out the process of storing it in calibre so I can call it up to read in android or on a laptop.

I also see that calibre can be used to read news. I have subscriptions to various news publications and will be checking out whether calibre is the way to read those sources.

I hope to find information in these forums and in the online manual for calibre to get me rolling. Like every new thing I set up in the online world for my use, my learning curve seems to be steeper than some others experience, so I will be asking for help along the way to be sure.

In the meantime, hello to everyone here.

Cheers
KenW

Sirtel · 02-20-2025, 11:28 PM

Hello and welcome to MobileRead!

If you don't use a Kindle device, it's best to buy an ebook in the epub format and that means not from Amazon (removing Amazon DRM is fast becoming a real nuisance, and unless you remove the DRM you'll be forced to use the Kindle app or their web reader). Depending on the book, it might be sold as epub by Kobo, Google Play or Ebooks.com. Unless the book is DRM-free, you may have to remove the DRM, but that's much easier to do with epubs than with Amazon ebooks.

Karellen · 02-21-2025, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KenW

I keep a lot of stuff on a home server.

Great, just don't create your Calibre library on your home server.
It seems a lot of people do this, and there are semi-regular reports of corrupted libraries because of this.
See... https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq...rked-drive-nas

And welcome!

02-20-2025, 10:11 PM	#1
KenW Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2025 Device: calibre	Greetings Hi I am glad to come across this forum as I am taking some steps to upgrade my mobile ebook reading situation and know I will need some help. I am from Canada, Vancouver Island British Columbia to be more specific. My home is there but I travel quite a bit, more now that I am retired. To this point, my reading habits have been fed by borrowing ebooks using Libby from my local public library. That has been great and I plan to continue to use it but so often the titles I want are subject to a long wait. I want to explore collecting ebooks that I can keep for future reference and read at my leisure and pick up without a wait. I prefer ebooks that I read on the screen over audio books. I keep a lot of stuff on a home server. It runs in Debian Linux using the Freedombox server package. I have just installed the Calibre app. I am at the very start of finding my way around in it. At this point I have no books in my library. I don't use any ebook readers (by that I mean kindle, kobo and the like) but use a laptop or more often an android phone for my reading. At the moment, I am reading a particular title that is due back before I will finish it and I would like to buy a copy so I have it and to support the author with a sale. I am sorting out where to buy an ebook, what format I should be looking for and then will need to figure out the process of storing it in calibre so I can call it up to read in android or on a laptop. I also see that calibre can be used to read news. I have subscriptions to various news publications and will be checking out whether calibre is the way to read those sources. I hope to find information in these forums and in the online manual for calibre to get me rolling. Like every new thing I set up in the online world for my use, my learning curve seems to be steeper than some others experience, so I will be asking for help along the way to be sure. In the meantime, hello to everyone here. Cheers KenW

02-20-2025, 11:28 PM	#2
Sirtel Grand Sorcerer Posts: 13,466 Karma: 239219453 Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Estonia Device: Kobo Sage & Libra 2	Hello and welcome to MobileRead! If you don't use a Kindle device, it's best to buy an ebook in the epub format and that means not from Amazon (removing Amazon DRM is fast becoming a real nuisance, and unless you remove the DRM you'll be forced to use the Kindle app or their web reader). Depending on the book, it might be sold as epub by Kobo, Google Play or Ebooks.com. Unless the book is DRM-free, you may have to remove the DRM, but that's much easier to do with epubs than with Amazon ebooks.

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