A Retard's Guide to E-Books - A Reference for Retards Who Wish to Read More using Electronic Formats

[Dread First]

Oxford defines "e-book" as below:

a book that is displayed on a computer screen or on an electronic device that is held in the hand, instead of being printed on paper

I have, for a long time, held a strong bias against e-books despite being an enthusiast of digital comics. For better or worse, that position has shifted in favour of e-books. This is not the time, nor the place, to wax poetic about why that was the case or what sparked my change of heart. Instead, this is more for having the information accessible to the Farms' user base and see what happens next. Let's begin.

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Part A - Formats and E-Book Readers

There's an unfathomably large quantity of formats for a variety of use cases. For brevity's sake, I'll only be focusing on the three below formats; please discuss any formats I don't cover in detail if you so desire.

• PDF - An ubiquitous, though encumbered format pioneered by Adobe. Even a 12-year-old from 10 to 15 years ago was smart enough to look up "$name_of_book PDF" on Google for rudimentary book piracy once upon a time. Most platforms and operating systems have their means of reading these files.
• EPUB - The "de-facto" e-book standard, to my knowledge. EPUB files may, or may not, be encumbered with DRM depending on the method by which you obtain them. Same story as above - highly accessible format on most platforms and operating systems.
• MOBI - A previously free format that Amazon eventually co-opted for their Kindle series of readers (though I believe Amazon is phasing this out). Though Amazon has added many bells and whistles (along with their encumbrances), it seems largely accessible. I tend to abstain from this format, but that's out of an overabundance of caution; please chime in if I am mistaken.

As for reader recommendations, this is a highly personal subject, but this is what I tend to gravitate toward:

Windows PCs (7 or later): Sumatra PDF (Website; GitHub)

Pros: Lightweight, bevy of formats supported (including comic formats), free/libre software, huge user base.
Cons: Windows-exclusive, advanced settings are handled via editing a text file

OSX (10.14 or later): Calibre (Website; GitHub)

Pros: Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android), bevy of formats supported, free/libre software.
Cons: Does not handle anything encumbered by DRM

Linux (any): Inconclusive (Too many fucking choices like Calibre, Okular, Evince, to name a few; pick one based on GTK or Qt, I guess)

iOS (12.x or later): Yomu (Website; App Store)
Pros: Usable free tier without advertisements, pleasing aesthetic, many options to tweak like fonts and margins
Cons: Free tier limited to a maximum of 10 books in your library (regardless of format), proprietary

Android (4.x or later): Librera (Website; GitHub; Play Store; F-Droid)

I don't use Android, so I cannot call this a "recommendation" per se. Regardless, this is the app I've seen many of my IRL friends who use Android gravitate toward. Please chime in with your own recommendations if you disagree. I also do not use dedicated e-book reader devices like Kindles, Nooks, or anything of the sort; I cannot speak authoritatively on the subject as such.

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Part B - How to Get E-Books (Without Relying on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, or Other Such Services)

The Free Software Foundation has compiled an extensive, if flawed, compendium of places where you can obtain DRM-free e-books. I will point out what I tend to orbit; please read the list and come to your own conclusions if you so wish (just remember to grit your teeth and be tolerant of the FSF's autistic dogmas and politics).

• Library of Congress (Having fun isn't hard when you've got the Library of Congress's digital archives at your disposal)
• Project Gutenberg (astonishingly vast archive entirely within the public domain, tons of formats available including plain text)
• LibriVox (audiobooks that link to texts in the public domain)

Of course, there's more to being a poorfag than merely relying on the public domain, self-publishers, Archive.org, and your local library.

Este contenido es privado.

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Part C - Committing to Reading

A huge part of my bias against e-books was the lack of tactile feedback relative to print media. It's far too easy for me to get distracted on a computer or a phone when I'm attempting to read something entirely within my web browser. Segregating my reading into separate programs does help tremendously in that respect. Here's what I tend to do to focus on reading digital texts:

• Disable continuous scrolling
• Enable two-page view (if on a computer)
• Keep text justified, but disable automatic hyphenation.
• If at all possible, read along with an audiobook (default to a playlist of soft music if unavailable)

This is obviously an incomplete list, and I'm sure there are methods people have that I'm unaware of. Please share whatever you got. With all that out of the way, let me say unto thee what Rev. Fr. Uncle Ruckus (no relation) said unto Tom DuBois:

 

[Maskull]

Z-library is back on clearnet.

 

[Equal Rights for Androids]

Reading on an ebook is proven worse via study, as the brain relies on several things such as memorizing the position of words in a paragraph on a page. The composition of the page is important for that; ebooks destroy that composition. Great for too-expensive college books, though. Fuck college books. Colleges shouldn't be allowed to force students to buy a book that the teacher has written. What a fucking scam.

FreeBookSpot | Download e-books for free

www.freebookspot.club

Library Genesis

Library Genesis is a scientific community targeting collection of books on natural science disciplines and engineering.

libgen.rs

megathread/reading_material_and_elearning - Piracy

r/Piracy: ⚓ Ahoy, Me Hearties! Is this the pirate life you imagined? In exchange for treasures, riches, & eternal renown, I guarantee you a grand …

www.reddit.com

 

[Dread First]

Reading on an ebook is proven worse via study, as the brain relies on several things such as memorizing the position of words in a paragraph on a page. The composition of the page is important for that; ebooks destroy that composition.

I don't disagree with you, but I've come to favour e-books by sheer virtue of being a poorfag. I damn sure ain't paying Penguin Random House or Harper Collins or Simon & Schuster $20-$30 for a book that's either adapted from or is a re-release of something in the public domain. It ain't all cheery, though.

One of the biggest reasons why I held such a disdain for e-books is the utter lack of tactile feedback, and the destruction of composition is something I've personally noticed a lot more on e-book reader apps than on desktop PCs. Thankfully, Sumatra PDF preserves the formatting on some measure and my comprehension seemingly hasn't diminished by virtue of using an audiobook to read along (if available).

 

[Directing]

Calibre (Website; GitHub)

Cons: Does not handle anything encumbered by DRM

not out of the box, but there are separate plugins like DeDRM that make removing it relatively easy.

 

[Flatline]

Consider download eText fonts for the best e-reader fonts out there.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

Virgin eBook Reader vs. Gigachad Physical Book Reader

 

[Namesarehardtocomeupwith]

Anyone know how to increase keyboard scroll speed in sumatra for a smoother reading experience? The choppiness is atrocious especially when reading longer files.

 

[My Name is Ed]

Libgen is pretty much my go-to for sourcing e-books, it's a bit clunky and the search function needs some tard-wrangling if you're looking for anything obscure, but it's not failed me yet.

Also off-topic, but I hate audiobooks with a seething passion and anyone that recommends them as a substitute for reading is irredeemably retarded.

 

[NyQuilninja]

Moon reader pro is my go to for Android

 

[Jason Wynn]

I think the whole ebook vs physical book peacocking is autistic and faggy on so many levels.

I see benefits to both. Ebooks are nice for the convenience of having a variety to read while traveling while taking up far less space, and physical books are nice for not placing much of a strain on your eyes and for the tactile sense of having something tangible

 

[std::string]

One of the biggest reasons why I held such a disdain for e-books is the utter lack of tactile feedback, and the destruction of composition is something I've personally noticed a lot more on e-book reader apps than on desktop PCs. Thankfully, Sumatra PDF preserves the formatting on some measure and my comprehension seemingly hasn't diminished by virtue of using an audiobook to read along (if available).

Sometimes you're just at the mercy of idiots ripping it and not really paying attention, even using Sumatra or Okular on a desktop PC. You'll see weird-ass page breaks pretty often.

 

[NyQuilninja]

I know ebooks aren't as great as the real thing and this is true. However, we live in a day and age where censorship is becoming more and more prevalent and it is fucking hard to find books that are rare out of print. They don't cost more than a fucking mortgage does

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

...Even a 12-year-old from 10 to 15 years ago was smart enough to look up "$name_of_book PDF" on Google for rudimentary book piracy once upon a time...

Is...Is this still not how it is done?

 

[Dread First]

Anyone know how to increase keyboard scroll speed in sumatra for a smoother reading experience? The choppiness is atrocious especially when reading longer files.

I couldn't bother with fiddling with scroll speeds, so I just disabled scrolling entirely and started pressing Page-Up and Page-Down on my keyboard. I know that's not the answer you were looking for but maybe that's something you can try fiddling with?

Libgen is pretty much my go-to for sourcing e-books, it's a bit clunky and the search function needs some tard-wrangling if you're looking for anything obscure, but it's not failed me yet.

Also off-topic, but I hate audiobooks with a seething passion and anyone that recommends them as a substitute for reading is irredeemably retarded.

Cheers for the recommendation fren. As for audiobooks, I don't hate them, but I disdain how Audible has effectively monopolised the entire space. Worse still is how criminally underdeveloped audiobook piracy is (to my knowledge). LibriVox is a public good, as is Project Gutenberg. Yet LibriVox recordings are so highly variable in quality; The Moby Dick reading by Stewart Wills is fucking fantastic; imperfect yet brimming with enthusiasm. I can't help but swoon when Stewart imitates Bildad or Peleg with his best imitation of a 19th Century Quaker speaking King James English.

Contrast that with the first volume of The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, and the quality (or lack thereof) is fucking unbearable. It's a collaborative effort lacking any form of quality control: some narrators are fairly decent, others are fucking terrible, the scheme of section divisions is highly inconsistent with some sections being punctuated by the end of a story while others are punctuated by the end of the night, and others still just drop off in the middle of a fucking block of long, uninterrupted text! This is only a problem if you're a faggot like me who reads along with the audiobook, but I find that it helps keep my attention longer (or at least it makes me feel that way).

Sometimes you're just at the mercy of idiots ripping it and not really paying attention, even using Sumatra or Okular on a desktop PC. You'll see weird-ass page breaks pretty often.

So basically no different from the variable quality in pirated manga scans from old ass websites like MangaFox and KissManga. Got it.

Is...Is this still not how it is done?

I still try to do it that way, but it's so variable nowadays with how much Google's quality has dropped off a cliff over the years.

 

[std::string]

Is...Is this still not how it is done?

Nah. You used to be able to google intitle:"index of" and the name of whatever you wanted. It sometimes still works but I think most people got smarter about security.

 

[Dread First]

Nah. You used to be able to google intitle:"index of" and the name of whatever you wanted. It sometimes still works but I think most people got smarter about security.

Back in my day, web browsers still had ftp:// functionality!

 

[Flatline]

Back in my day, web browsers still had ftp:// functionality!

ftp servers are still floating around out there.

 

[actually a cat]

i get my books from libgen, and all of them in epub format. the internet has ruined my attention span so i can't read them on a phone or a computer, and so i got a cheap kobo to read them on. if you turn off the wifi and backlight, the battery on a kobo nia lasts for months and months at a time.
i kind of love that little bastard.

 

[Dread First]

i get my books from libgen, and all of them in epub format. the internet has ruined my attention span so i can't read them on a phone or a computer, and so i got a cheap kobo to read them on. if you turn off the wifi and backlight, the battery on a kobo nia lasts for months and months at a time.
i kind of love that little bastard.

I have a hand-me-down iPad from 2013 that I read shit on every so often before bed. It's nice, but I detest the outdated software and I refuse to pay a premium for any new Apple product. What's even more infuriating is that almost all the fucking e-reader apps on iOS gate off certain basic features like importing EPUBs locally saved on your phone via subscription. The only exceptions are e-readers which have "pro" versions that do the same thing but with a 1-time fee.

My hatred for freemium/subscription/vendor lock-in stuff also becomes more visceral with time, which it would seem that all the major e-book offerings like Apple iBooks, Nook, Kindle, and so on are guilty of perpetuating. The more I come to rely on my phone or even my old ass iPad for content consumption, the more urgent the need for me to find a suitable PC alternative becomes.

Android tablets would be nice if Google didn't give up on providing a coherent tablet UI for AOSP after the 3.x series failed miserably. That TouchWiz on Samsung tablets and FireOS on the Fire HD tablets are better optimised is a fucking travesty because I hate Samsung and Amazon tooling so fucking much.