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View Full Version : This week's free MS Reader ebooks


Jereboam
09-13-2003, 12:39 AM
Get 'em while they're hot... :D

Enjoy, J

Fatal Tide
by Iris Johansen
from Bantam Books

A high-stakes treasure hunt… A twisted trail of murder… A secret one woman may die to discover… #1 New York Times best-selling author Iris Johansen last electrified readers with Dead Aim and No One to Trust. Now she offers a new pulse-pounding thriller that takes suspense writing to an all-new level: deep below the surface, where a ruthless killer strikes without warning, without mercy... and with the deadliest intent. Melis Nemid is treading in dangerous waters—and she’s about to be dragged under. As a marine researcher, Melis knows all too well the dangers that can lurk under even the calmest surfaces. But not even she can guess how deep the darkness runs. Only one oceanographer ever came close to discovering the deadly mystery that lies beneath the sea—and he seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Now Melis is the last one who knows the truth. And someone is determined that the truth will die with her. For what Melis knows about the deep-sea mystery is only part of a nightmarish past torn by violence. She thought she had put that past behind her when she arrived at her Caribbean island home to research dolphin behavior.

Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
from Rosetta Books

Unstuck in time, the hero of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five—an unforgettable Everyman named Billy Pilgrim—is never sure what part of his life he is going to have to act in next. Vonnegut's wildly imaginative, witty and affecting novel tells Billy Pilgrim's story in just that fashion. It spins back and forth through time, layering in the elements of Billy's life, which begins, chronologically, in 1922 in the upstate New York town of Ilium, and ends over 50 years later, when he is a successful middle-class optometrist with a wife and two grown children. Like Vonnegut himself, Billy was a World War II draftee and a prisoner of war in Dresden when the Allies firebombed the city early in 1945. Its indelible ironic tone, its trippy plotting and its bold, even hilarious use of science fiction make it an utterly unique reading experience. Slaughterhouse-Five remains perhaps the signature work in Vonnegut's large and varied catalogue of writings. In reviewing the novel for Life magazine, the critic Wilfrid Sheed called it splendid art ... a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears.

One Nation Under Goods
by James J. Farrell
from Smithsonian Books

Loved and hated, visited and avoided, seemingly everywhere yet endlessly the same, malls occupy a special place in American life. What, then, is this invention that evokes such strong and contradictory emotions in Americans? In many ways malls represent the apotheosis of American consumerism, and this synthetic and wide-ranging investigation is an eye-popping tour of American culture’s values and beliefs. Like your favorite mall, One Nation under Goods is a browser’s paradise; and in order to understand America’s culture of consumption you need to make a trip to the mall with Farrell. This lively, fast-paced history of the hidden secrets of the shopping mall explains how retail designers make shopping and goods “irresistible.” Architects, chain stores, and mall owners relax and beguile us into shopping through water fountains, ficus trees, mirrors, and covert security cameras. From food courts and fountains to Santa and security, Farrell explains how malls control their patrons and convince us that shopping is always an enjoyable activity. And most importantly, One Nation under Goods shows why the mall’s ultimate promise of happiness through consumption is largely an illusion. It’s all here—for one low price, of course.

upplepop
09-13-2003, 02:25 AM
Thought you guys might want the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/reader/promotions/free_shop.asp

PetiteFlower
09-13-2003, 06:24 AM
So where do I get that Convert Lit program?

Pat Logsdon
09-13-2003, 09:22 AM
So where do I get that Convert Lit program?
Do a Google search for "Convert Lit" and you'll find it. Direct links to it have been removed in the past, so I can't provide one for you. :mrgreen:

PetiteFlower
09-13-2003, 08:34 PM
Oh ok I didn't realize it wasn't allowed.

I think I'm a pretty smart cookie but I still couldn't get the stupid #$%@ing book to open on my ppc.

dh
09-13-2003, 09:07 PM
I think I'm a pretty smart cookie but I still couldn't get the stupid #$%@ing book to open on my ppc.
That's the big problem. If a computer savy person has difficulty, the mass market has zero chance.
I don't even have the MS Reader upgrade on my PPC now. I just convert the free and bought books to Mobipocket as soon as I download them.
If you use the free Mobipocket publisher you can also convert .lit books into unprotected MS Reader files if you prefer.

Jereboam
09-13-2003, 10:22 PM
Likewise, I now convert protected MS Reader ebooks into both an unprotected .lit file AND into HTML, for archive purposes, and into Mobipocket format for actual reading.

This way I can be halfway sure that I will be able to read my books in years to come. I have already lost a bunch of ebooks I bought before because of a lost Hotmail account. Never again.

J

PetiteFlower
09-14-2003, 09:09 PM
Alright, now I REALLY feel dumb. Anyone who can point me towards some instructions on how to use c-lit will get an electronic hug. I'm so incredibly frustrated! What I really want to do it convert it to palm reader format, since I already have that reader on my ppc.

dh
09-14-2003, 11:06 PM
Alright, now I REALLY feel dumb. Anyone who can point me towards some instructions on how to use c-lit will get an electronic hug. I'm so incredibly frustrated! What I really want to do it convert it to palm reader format, since I already have that reader on my ppc.

Here's what I do:

Move or copy the .lit book into the same directory that clit14 resides in.

I then make a new folder in that same directory where I am going to put the HTML files.

Go to the command prompt and get into that same directory. In my case the prompt is now c:\clit14

Type "clit book.lit folder" (don't type the quotes) book.lit = filename of your book, folder = name of your new folder. Remember the DOS rules about filename lengths and no spaces in filenames, you might have to do a bit of renaming.

You should now have the html files in the folder you made.

I now use Mobipocket Publisher at this point to make a .prc file. You probably have a similer thing for Palm Reader. If not, you can get Mobipocket publisher for free which is easy to use - has a proper Windows interface. You can also use it to make an unprotected MS Reader book. I must admit, I only tried to do this once and got an error.

I prefer the Mobipocket reader as well. There is a free one but I invested in the Pro version.

Hope that helps. Some of the other people can explain it better than me.

Good luck.

PetiteFlower
09-14-2003, 11:35 PM
Thanks....now can you remind me how to change directories in DOS? It's been WAY too long....

dh
09-14-2003, 11:41 PM
I had to remember this as well

When you open the Command Prompt window it will probably have the C;\ blinking at you.

If Convert Lit is in a directory called clit14 and is only one level down you can use the CD (change directory) command.

Just type "cd clit14" and you should be there. For some reason, my directory is buried in another of the same name, so I have to do "cd clit14" twice to get there.

Remeber for it to work, the book file has to be in the same directory as your clit14 file.

PetiteFlower
09-15-2003, 04:46 AM
Well, I promised, so :hug:

That was a big help. Now I have a bunch of HTML files, the book got split up into a different file for each chapter. But I still don't know how to combine the separate files back into one ebook and convert it into .pdb form. This is a lot harder then I thought! Not as irritating as using MSReader though....

Steven Cedrone
09-15-2003, 04:56 AM
O.K., please take this discussion off-line...

Let's get back on topic...

Steven Cedrone
Community Moderator

wbuch
09-19-2003, 03:00 AM
Does anyone by any chance know which 3 free ms reader ebooks were available the week of Aug 1-7? That's the only week I missed downloading the free ebooks, and was just curious what I missed. Thanks.

bleeman
09-19-2003, 04:33 AM
Based on the time/date stamps in my library the titles for Friday August 1st were:

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

The Disowned Self by Nathaniel Branden

The Killing Hour by Lisa Gardner