Interesting resource – ManyBooks.net
November 26th, 2009 | Published in Books, Project Gutenberg Project, Reading, eBooks
A friend recommended a Project Gutenberg book last night*, but instead of linking to the Project Gutenberg site, he pointed me to ManyBooks.net. The site, which is apparently the work of one person, is a bit of an Amazon-like site for free ebooks, most (all?) of which appear to be originally sourced from Project Gutenberg. I can’t attest to the quality of formatting and whatnot for the ManyBooks.net books, but the site is interesting in that it has more information about the texts, and it also allows readers to post ratings and reviews (which is the really useful bit).
For example, the Project Gutenberg page for The House on the Borderland is a pretty dry and library-catalogue-like affair, and it doesn’t really contain all the information you want about a book, such as the original publication date and length.
On the other hand, the ManyBooks.net page for The House on the Borderland includes a brief synopsis of the story, the original date of publication (1907), its length (50,975 words, 140 pages**) and a handful of user reviews and ratings (average rating: 5 stars).
So if you’re looking for a Project Gutenberg book to read but are having a hard time digging around the Project Gutenberg site, check out ManyBooks.net. The site isn’t perfect by any means, but I find more approachable, more useful, and easier to browse than the Project Gutenberg site itself.
* The friend: David Humphrey, whose blog is very much worth reading. The book: Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher, originally published in 1898 and now on my very 21st century Kindle.
** “Pages” don’t really exist in ebooks, so I’m assuming this is an estimation of the number of pages the book would be if printed.
