The Electronic Library

I don't seem to have the patience anymore to sit and read books. Rather I enjoy most of my literature via audiobooks. I either listen to the iPod or clip on a fanny pack with a cassette tape player or CD player and listen away while I clean, walk, work in the garden or driving in the car.

There are now online electronic libraries available on every eStreet corner. As books age past their copyrights (I believe it's 80 years) they become public domain and are appearing on online "eLibraries" as free eBooks and free audio books.

Project Gutenberg claims to be the first producer of free electronic books (ebooks) and boasts of having over 20,000 titles in their eLibrary. They also have audiobooks available for download. The proofreading of the written text and reading of the spoken text are all done by volunteers. The quality of the volunteer readers of audiobooks has a lot to be desired but hey, it's free!

DailyLit is another site of free eBooks with a twist. Instead of downloading the entire book, you can sign up and schedule the frequency of chapters emailed directly to you. They may be a bit more or less than a chapter but they are broken into pieces that will take you approximately 5 minutes to read. They also have a forum where you can chat with other readers about books. I've signed up for a book on the poetic writings of Emily Dickinson and what a great way to start my day by reading my daily poem from Ms. Dickinson.

There are also a plethora of sites that provide free eBooks for download which include both classic "free domain" titles and authors who wish to be exposed to the public via eBook. I'm not sure what the reasoning is for publishing via eBook rather than print other than it may be a way for the "rejected by publisher" author to get public exposure. All you have to do is go to your favorite search engine and type in "free ebooks" and start "eReading"! Or in my case, "eListening".