Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Recommended Posts

12 hours ago, TheBitch said:

What sites are people using to download books these days?

www.myanonamouse.net

 

You have to apply for membership, but the process isn't that difficult and once you've joined the resources are extensive.

 

thepiratebay.org is a general torrent site that has some as well.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

"If This Is A Man"

"The Truce"

 

by Primo Levi

 

The Iliad and Odyssey of a survivor of Auschwitz.

 

Brilliant books.

 

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 02/08/2019 at 16:33, TheBitch said:

What sites are people using to download books these days?

 

As has been pointed out, MyAnonamouse is the best one I’ve found. Let me know if you need an invite, so long as you keep your download/upload ratio ok it’s a pretty good place.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Raymond Chandler: The High Window, The Lady in the Lake, and The little Sister: all three for £4 on Amazon Kindle store.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Novels-Penguin-Modern-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI9R7U/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2TK4UUQUYHZSO&keywords=raymond+chandler&qid=1565681127&s=digital-text&sprefix=ray%2Cdigital-text%2C165&sr=1-1

 

I'd forgotten just how good Chandler is. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, mars said:

Raymond Chandler: The High Window, The Lady in the Lake, and The little Sister: all three for £4 on Amazon Kindle store.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Novels-Penguin-Modern-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI9R7U/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2TK4UUQUYHZSO&keywords=raymond+chandler&qid=1565681127&s=digital-text&sprefix=ray%2Cdigital-text%2C165&sr=1-1

 

I'd forgotten just how good Chandler is. 

 

His work deserves way more attention than it seems to get. The man was a genius, as well as clearly being a PG Wodehouse fan. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ive gone back to Wolf of Wall St. I got half way through it on holiday a few years back but stopped reading it. I now know why. 

 

Jordan Belforts style of writing is fucking irritating. I'm trying to have an hours reading before I sleep because my insomnia is ridiculous and this book is just winding me up. Brilliant film but what an absolute prick. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Ive gone back to Wolf of Wall St. I got half way through it on holiday a few years back but stopped reading it. I now know why. 

 

Jordan Belforts style of writing is fucking irritating. I'm trying to have an hours reading before I sleep because my insomnia is ridiculous and this book is just winding me up. Brilliant film but what an absolute prick. 

Read 'Good Cop, Bad War' by Neil Woods, great bedtime read.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Karl_b said:

Hang on, are people now avoiding paying for books?

I bought books, new and second hand for years and borrowed from the library since I was about 5 - I got strife for using my dads adult card when I was about 10. I have swapped books with friends and have probably 1500 books at home, text books, reference books and light reading including a set of all the Giles annuals until after his death.

I now use a Kobo, having started with a cheapo ebook reader and then wearing out a Sony. I don't use Amazon or any of the other ebook retailers as much as a matter of principle as anything. Without specialised software I can only use their proprietary format on one  reader. I can't resell the book nor lend it to friends. There are no printing costs, distribution costs or retailers profit margins. The ebook  needs no reformatting or treatment from the version sent to be printed. The publishers still charge the same or a little less than the print version, including a miniscule payment to the author. Fuck 'em.

I still buy paper versions of books and ebooks directly from some authors but as long as publishers want to continue to rip off the reading public, I will continue  sourcing ebooks elsewhere.

 

  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of people stream or download movies and TV shows illegally, watch sport illegally, download and stream music illegally not to mention computer games and software. Why are you so surprised people do the same with books? (they do it with comics too btw). 

 

I’ve got hardback or paperback copies of all the Elvis Cole books for example. It’d probably cost me about £100 to buy them for my kindle so I download them from a torrent site. I don’t feel bad about this. I already spent a fortune buying the physical copies. 

 

I own about 1200 hardback or paperback books and about 1500 on my kindle. Most of the kindle ones are repeats of the physical copies I’ve bought down the years. 

 

The pricing of ebooks is scandalous imo. If you buy the physical copy you should get a download for free like you do with a lot of vinyl when you get a download code for the album. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

A lot of people stream or download movies and TV shows illegally, watch sport illegally, download and stream music illegally not to mention computer games and software. Why are you so surprised people do the same with books? (they do it with comics too btw). 

 

I’ve got hardback or paperback copies of all the Elvis Cole books for example. It’d probably cost me about £100 to buy them for my kindle so I download them from a torrent site. I don’t feel bad about this. I already spent a fortune buying the physical copies. 

 

I own about 1200 hardback or paperback books and about 1500 on my kindle. Most of the kindle ones are repeats of the physical copies I’ve bought down the years. 

 

The pricing of ebooks is scandalous imo. If you buy the physical copy you should get a download for free like you do with a lot of vinyl when you get a download code for the album. 

The vinyl analogy is a good one, that would seem completely fair to me to have an electronic copy of something you bought physically, agreed. You also, don't seem to be the problem here mate, what about the people that haven't paid for so many books but have illegally obtained electronic versions, what are they giving back to the author? It's the same as people that don't want to pay for music and it boils my piss.

 

I guess I am surprised people are stealing books, somehow I thought it might be the last bastion of people paying for entertainment that they want. I guess because I don't download or stream anything I don't pay for (I have in the past but morally, I'm no longer comfortable with it and haven't for a long time), I struggle with the concept. The internet and ubiquity of free electronic information/entertainment has completely devalued the effort that goes in to writing a book, movie, TV show or music. If you enjoy something that someone has created then surely they deserve paying for it?

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Karl_b said:

The vinyl analogy is a good one, that would seem completely fair to me to have an electronic copy of something you bought physically, agreed. You also, don't seem to be the problem here mate, what about the people that haven't paid for so many books but have illegally obtained electronic versions, what are they giving back to the author? It's the same as people that don't want to pay for music and it boils my piss.

 

I guess I am surprised people are stealing books, somehow I thought it might be the last bastion of people paying for entertainment that they want. I guess because I don't download or stream anything I don't pay for (I have in the past but morally, I'm no longer comfortable with it and haven't for a long time), I struggle with the concept. The internet and ubiquity of free electronic information/entertainment has completely devalued the effort that goes in to writing a book, movie, TV show or music. If you enjoy something that someone has created then surely they deserve paying for it?

I think the problem stems from the slowness of the publishers to fully adopt a customer-centric, digital model and also the bending of the original copyright laws by big conglomerates. Valve had it spot on when they said that piracy is a service issue. When you make media artificially scarce, expensive or your product actually worse than the pirated version (for example, by shoving piracy warnings and loads of unskippable ads onto a DVD), then people are naturally going to gravitate towards the free version. A whole generation of people got used to getting what they wanted for free, and now it's up to media companies to make a compelling offer to get them back into the fold.

 

Valve solved this with Steam by introducing fair regional pricing and a much simpler way to download, install and patch PC games. As a result, they made the paid for product more valuable than the sketchy pirated version and, particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe, converted a lot of pirates in the process. Netflix has done the same to some extent with their service, but that's in danger now with the fracturing of the market and companies like Disney deciding to keep their stuff to themselves, requiring consumers to get an extra subscription to get what they previously had. Similarly, the 'competition' for Premier League and European football just means you need to have an extra BT (and probably Amazon) sub on top of your Sky sub, which is already very expensive. If you could pay a quid or two to watch your own club's game, I'm sure a lot of people would, and streaming would slowly fade away.

 

Getting back to books, as you said simply giving a download code if you buy physically, reducing the price of the digital only version, or even doing an 'all you can read' sub at a decent monthly price would help immensely and persuade people not to download for free.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Read the very last The Walking Dead graphic novel and loved it. 193 issues is an incredible run and it was infinitely better than the (formerly decent) TV show. 

 

Also read the first Myron Bolitar book by Harlan Coben on SA’s recommendation. It was alright but felt a bit cheesy and a bit predictable. However, as it’s the first in a series and they’re nearly always quite weak and also because I’ve never been let down by SA before (in fact he has impeccable taste in books), I’ll read

on at some point. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...