What's your favourite free book?

[mukoan]

There's a tonne of free reading material out there these days. A lot of it is pretty decent... some of it not so much. But I'm looking for the REAL good stuff. Quality stuff that you would have been happy to pay money for.

So what are some of the free ebooks you've found that you really enjoyed? When I mean free... I mean permanently free (within reason... no one can predict when things may suddenly change). I guess the best criteria would be

(1) free at this very moment and
(2) probably will be free this time next year.

Just going off the top of my head, I think "Blindsight" by Peter Watts is right up there in terms of quality and engagement.

http://www.feedbooks.com/book/976

[HarryT]

Personally speaking, anything by Charles Dickens.

[ficbot]

I have 58 books in my bookmarks which I have tagged 'free.' My favourites:

- The Sherlock Holmes stories
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Overclocked by Cory Doctorow
- Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
- City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton
- Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
- The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis

[Latinandgreek]

The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (if you like history), Candide (Voltaire), The Decameron (Boccaccio - trust me on this one, you will laugh out loud!)
Ficbot has already mentioned many other favourites of mine, so I won't repeat them! If I think of any more I will post them.

[curtw]

I always seem to be in conflict with HarryT, but personally speaking, anything by Jonathan Swift.

[jabberwock_11]

I love ebook devices because they have introduced me to so many new authors and books, many of them I stumbled onto because they gave away a book or two. My favorites (that are still free) are:

-Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi (available at http://manybooks.net/titles/scalzijo...the_stars.html )
-Origin by J.A. Konrath (available on his site http://www.jakonrath.com/freebies.htm )
-The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (available just about anywhere)

[Jack Tingle]

Probably Michael Z. Williamson's "Freehold" (Baen Free Library). I've reread it a couple of times, and seem to redownload it each time, since my favorite ereader changes over time.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

[jenieliser]

Cranford and Sherlock Holmes. I still haven't finished Sherlock Holmes-taking it case by case (the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), but really enjoying it!

[dreams]

I'm a big indie author reader and love to support their writing (see my sig).

I did venture out on some of the suggestions here and one of the first books that I read outside of my usual choices was, "Rats, Bats and Vats" by Dave Freer and Eric Flint. I was surprised how much I liked it and went on to read the second book, "The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly".http://www.baen.com/library/

And, well, due to the Sherlock Holmes books, I have the ePub edition of HarryT's Raffles omnibus uploaded by mtravellerh on my list.
from Wiipedia via mtravellerh

A.J. Raffles is a character created in the 1890s by E. W. Hornung, a brother-in-law to Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Raffles is, in many ways, a deliberate inversion of Holmes — he is a "gentleman thief," living in "The Albany", a very upscale address in London, playing cricket for the "Gentlemen of England" and supporting himself by carrying out ingenious burglaries. He is called the "Amateur Cracksman," and often, at first, differentiates between himself and the "professors" — professional criminals from the lower classes.

As Holmes has Dr. Watson to chronicle his adventures, Raffles has Harry "Bunny" Manders — a former schoolmate saved from disgrace and suicide by Raffles, who persuaded him to accompany him on a burglary. While Raffles often takes advantage of Manders' relative innocence, and sometimes treats him with a certain amount of contempt, he knows that Manders' bravery and loyalty are utterly to be relied on. In several stories, Manders saves the day for the two of them after Raffles gets into situations he cannot get out of on his own.

[LDBoblo]

I'm a pretty big Jane Austen fan, and of course her stuff is pretty freely had.
Count of Monte Cristo was pretty good...
Paradise Lost
I liked the Pickwick Papers by Dickens
PG Wodehouse does some pleasant stories, even if I don't find them extremely funny.
Mark Twain's got some good stuff too.

But those are all classics that everyone's read pretty much...I don't know much about current indie authors, and while I do hope to find a few hidden gems among today's freebies...I just don't feel like investing the time in trial and error to find something good. Most of the recommendations people on the internet give me have a decidedly sci-fi tilt that I generally avoid, and most of the recommendations former colleagues and classmates give me are decidedly bleak or pessimistic, and I'm not particularly fond of that kind of writing mode (which sadly is dominant in the 20th century).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

But those are all classics that everyone's read pretty much...

I wonder how true that actually is? Do you think that many people still read the classics for pleasure? I get the impression that relatively few people do. I love all the books you mention, but I really wonder if that many people have read all 6 of Austen's novels, for example?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I wonder how true that actually is? Do you think that many people still read the classics for pleasure? I get the impression that relatively few people do. I love all the books you mention, but I really wonder if that many people have read all 6 of Austen's novels, for example?

I suspect a great percentage of people who have purchased ebook reader devices on the pretense of saving money long-term have probably gone through the basic famous classics (Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, Dracula, etc.) before stumbling upon this site to ask for free reading recommendations.

In society as a whole, I doubt most people have even read the most famous of these, save for the abridged editions often prescribed in high school (Tom Sawyer, Great Expectations, etc.). It was probably unwise to suggest "everyone" in my post, but it was hyperbole to suggest the OP (and anyone else who posts such requests) had already passively encountered those books on their way here.