During the pandemic, the two Forbes Library book groups that I coordinate (Great Books, and Nature and Environment) are reading books in the public domain so that we can get them online without waiting lists. I wanted to compile some directions to send to group members but haven’t found a good one-stop resource, so I’m attempting one here. Please add a comment if you have better resources or if any of this is incorrect.
I will send out links to the main download location for the book, which is in pattern gutenberg.org/ebooks/[book number]. Here we use Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh, http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2084. Note that if you do an Internet search for a title, the result you’ll often get will be the link directly to the HTML version (“Read this book online”): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2084/2084-h/2084-h.htm. That’s great for reading in a web browser, but if you have an e-reader or tablet you can download a file that you can read more easily.
Click the link to download the EPUB file for Android (Google Play Books) or Mac (iBooks or Apple Books). Use the Kindle link for Kindle. You can choose the Box, Google Drive, or OneDrive icons to download directly into those cloud services rather than onto your hard drive.
- On an Android phone or tablet, or on a Chromebook, use the Google Play Books app. The simplest way is to visit https://play.google.com/books on a computer first and click Upload Files. You can upload from the local computer or from Google Drive. After you select the file (epub in this case, but you can also upload PDFs), it will take a minute to process. Once complete, the book is in your Play Books library under Uploads and can be accessed from any device which has the Play Books app installed.
- On a Mac or iPad, use the iBooks or Apple Books app. Click File/Add to Library and browse to the file you downloaded (epub in this case, but you can also upload PDFs). [I don’t have an iPad to test on; you should be able to import there as well or visit the mobile version of Project Gutenberg, https://m.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2084.mobile]
- For Kindle, plug the device into your computer and drag-and-drop the downloaded .mobi file into the Documents file on your Kindle. Or you can send it to your Kindle via email.