A LIST OF ALL THE eREADERS OUT THERE THAT I CAN FIND

As there are already dozens of different eReaders being made by loads of companies, I thought perhaps a list of all of them (or at least, all that I can find) might be helpful to you.  At the very least, it will give you a good broad selection to choose from, and surely a number of them can be purchased either online or in shops wherever you happen to live in the world.

I shall list them in no particular order, give a link to the manufacturer and model (if there is an apart link to the model) of each eReader, so that you can easily surf around and get the more specific information you will need in order to make your choice.   Thus this will be a post of links, and no comments about the qualities - or otherwise - of the various eReader.

In due time I shall be contemplating all of these eReaders in some detail, and reporting on what I find, what others have thought of them and any other information that I think might be of interest to you.

Almost all of these manufacturers also supply a wide range of accessories for their eReaders, covers, reading lights, reading stands and so on, and a number of them have even gone so far as to produce their eReaders in a wide range of happy, if slightly alarmingly bright colours.  This last I suspect is aimed chiefly at the South East Asian market, as I discovered whilst living in Beijing, people there love to have their electronic things in all manner of bright colours... I was astounded to see bright pink laptops, purple DVD players and so on... the brighter the better seemed to be the rule.   Quite fun really some of them.

If you come across any models that I have missed, please do let me know, and I shall amend this list of links accordingly.

Remember when looking at the specifications of any model that interests you to pay especial attention to which formats it can read, to avoid tying yourself in to a particular internet eBook supplier.  The ePUB format is currently the one to go for, as almost every eBook shop or free eBook site supports this format, and even if you have to download your books as HTML or TXT or PDF, you can always convert them to ePUB with Calibre.   But even the wondrous Calibre cant convert to the Amazon format, for example.

So, here we go!  Simply click on any link you are interested in and you will be taken to the relevant site.

italica GmbH ereader

Condor Technology Associates  eGriver Touch

Onyx   Onyx Boox 

Sony   Reader Daily Edition PRS-900   Reader Touch Edition PRS-600  Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300   

Barnes & Noble  nook

Iriver   Story

Hanvon    N518  N526  N520

PocketBook  PocketBook 301

Bookeen    Cybook Opus  Cybook Ge

Endless ideas  BeBook

Interead  COOL-ER

Samsung  Papyrus

Amazon  Kindle DX  Kindle  Kindle 2

Foxit Software  eSlick

iRex Technologies  Digital Reader 1000

Jinke   Hanlin V3  Hanlin V5 

So there you have it, the fruits of rather a lot of surfing on my part, but I hope it will be of help to you as you attempt to find your way around the rapidly growing jungle that is the eReader world.   For my part I am still perfectly happy with my Sony PRS-505, it does everything I want it to, apart from making me a decent cup of coffee.

All I look for in an eReader is the ability to use ePUB documents and to have the basic function set needed to enable me to read my books comfortably and simply.  But there are many people who for a variety of good reasons, need all manner of other functions in their eReaders, and these requirements are rapidly being addressed by almost all the makers of eReaders.

SMASHWORDS - A SITE FOR AUTHORS AND READERS

Smashwords is a site where authors can post their writings and readers can download these books either free or for a very small cost.

There are a lot of these sites these days, and the numbers are growing too as both writers and readers see the advantages for them both in this idea.  I am sure I shall be drawing your attention to many of these sites as we go along........

This particular site seems to be both a friendly one, and obviously a successful one too, judging by the very large number of books in almost every genre - both fiction and non-fiction - that is on offer there.

This site is different to most other similar sites in that a number of publishers also place books from their lists on this site, which is an interesting development to my mind    An initiative that I for one would be very happy to see more of the big publishers following. 

The Founder of the site, Mark Coker, has an introduction on the "about us (link) " page, in which he explains very clearly the underlying philosophy of his site, and the advantages that both types of user stand to gain by using his site.   It makes interesting reading.

I shall download a few of the  books in various genres, and once I have had time to read them, I shall probably review them here, as I mentioned, the range of book types is astonishing, a very impressive collection indeed.

Prices vary from free to a few US Dollars, and they can be downloaded in all the various formats that are out there just now, so pretty well whatever eReader you have, you can safely download books from this intriguing site.

As with a lot of these sites though, you have to be careful as a number of the books on offer  at no cost are in fact only excerpts of the book in question, perhaps the first 50 pages of a 100 page book - the intention being that if you enjoy those 50 pages, you will want to return and purchase the entire book, to find out what happens to the characters.   As long as one is aware of this, a perfectly reasonable way of doing business I feel, but you need to be aware of this.

As I mentioned above, this site has a very catholic range of literary styles and writers, so it is definitely not one of the sites that are chiefly show cases for authors who have been unable to find normal publishers for their work - such sites are all too often narcissistic self-worship sites. 

I had fun sauntering around the various categories, reading the synopsis's of the various books that caught my eye, this place is definitely one that I shall be haunting in the future, in fact, once I have posted this, I intend to return to it and register myself there and sign on for their Newsletter....

A bookshop/publisher I can happily recommend to anyone who enjoys books, whatever age or tastes.

Click this link to visit them:  Smashwords

NOSTRADAMUS - A TRULY CURIOUS FREE eBOOK SITE

As I wander around the internet looking for interesting pieces of information to post on this Blog, I occasionally stumble over something that is completely different and interesting - one of the great joys of the internet for me.

As I find the more arcane sites that relate to eBooks I shall report on them to you, as I feel that the outer edges of the internet's literary world are perhaps more rewarding to explore than the more every day sites such as Amazon et.al.   There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of sites and blogs that deal with the bread and butter parts of the eReader/eBook world, but very few that offer anything about sites such as Nostradamus.

It is simply a case of entering a search word in Google, and going at once to offering number 10 000, and  not simply restrict one's self to the first 50 or so hits.  wonderful things lurk down there in the depths of the lists.... Including this blog just now, as it is brand new, but given time................

Certainly sites such as this, dedicated to one central idea are very well worth having a look at, even if the idea isn't one that interest you - it is always intriguing to get a glimpse into the mind of a person with an obsession.

This time I have found a site that is really strange.  It consists of a number of books about Nostradamus in a whole range of languages - English, Dutch, Hindi, Traditional Chinese and so on.

I don't know if you are familiar with Nostradamus?   He was a 16th Century Apothecary who made a number of prophecies  which were published in a book shortly before his death and are generally held to be coming true.   To find out all about him you can check Wikipedia with this link.

They can all be downloaded and are free.  They come in HTML, PDF and DOC format, so you will need to use good old Calibre to be able to read them on your eReader.

The guy who runs this site has had a strange and difficult life as well, which makes the whole thing even more interesting.   He discusses his earlier life in rather mystical tones on his site, and why he is so interested in the works of Nostradamus.

Eric, the owner of this site comes across as a sympathetic man, who has had to struggle with a number of demons for most of his life, at times being literally overwhelmed by them.  As far as I can see from what he writes about himself on his site he has more or less managed to rise above his demons now, and is functioning well in a peaceful part of the Belgian Ardennes, a part of the world I know well, a truly beautiful area of soft mountains and huge Pine forests.

A site worth a visit in my view, it is small, so it doesn't take long to explore it.  It is more like a stall in a market rather than a book shop.

Follow this link to visit his site: Nostradamus.

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If you visit this site, I would be very interested to hear what you thought of it .   Also I would be interested to know if you guys find links to the stranger parts of the internet of value and interest.

CALIBRE - CONVERT FILE FORMATS FOR YOUR eREADER

CALIBER, A FREE FILE FORMAT CONVERTER

Caliber is a very impressive free-to-download program designed to convert almost all eBook formats to almost any other format, which means that regardless of where you find your eBooks, you can convert the files to make them acceptable to your eReader - with, as always, the exception of the Kindle from Amazon.  This program can convert Kindle format books to any other, but currently it cant convert other formats to the Kindle one, though knowing how developers think, it will surely come.

For example, most eBooks on the Gutenberg site are either in .TXT format, or HTML, neither of which is much use on an eBook, but by means of this extremely user friendly bit of software, one can convert them in a matter of seconds to whichever format you need....ePUB or whatever.

Rather than make this post a long description of the impressive capabilities of Calibre, I would suggest you follow this link and read the handbook online.  It is very clearly written by Govid Koyal, who created this small masterpiece, with a number of practical demonstrations showing you how to use his program. Not only is his hand book an example of how a hand book should be written, but he has also created videos to show you how to use the program.  An impressive man, Govid.

The only thing I will point out here is that this little marvel of a program is capable of running on all three major platforms, Windows, MAC or Linux.  Govid has truly covered all the bases here!

Another small point I should make is that I have noticed that it takes a rather long time to start up.  I have used it on three different computers, and it has been the same on all three of them.   You need to be patient, click on the icon in the normal way, and then sit back, it will start in its own good time. I have no idea why it is like this, perhaps Govid could enlighten us?

Having read the handbook, I would suggest you follow this link and download the program and set to, hunting for all those free .TXT and HTML or any other format files out there, and merrily convert them to the format your eReader requires... and thus increase your eLibrary hand over fist at a rate of knots!

The eReading public should be extremely grateful to Govid for his work in creating this program, and further, for being so public spirited as to make it free for all of us to use.   He is truly a Gentleman!

He is thoughtful enough to have a link on his site, by means of which one can donate money to help him continue to develop this software, and who knows what other pieces of software he has in his head, waiting to pop out?

Have fun using it, I do, and each time I use it, I send him positive thought waves, thanking him for his work, which, I for one appreciate enormously.