I'm close to finishing You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue. It's an imagined encounter between Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma. Slow narrative but I don't think it's trying to be anything other than that.
Been reading Antarctica by Claire Keegan. Will read more short stories of hers, as I'm in a short story mood.
Started Wine Folly and will try to get started on The Wine Bible.
What are you reading?
Re: What are you reading?
Media-lens - Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality
by Tim Barton
https://www.academia.edu/42375689/Media ... 3SDFOgYKTk
Why Are We Suddenly Surrounded by ‘Grift’?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/maga ... grift.html
************
https://archive.org/details/audio_books ... ry=writing
I came across a few entries specifically:
- How to Write a Play Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, Labiche, Legouvé, Pailleron, Sardou and Zola
- How to Speak and Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin
- The Technique of the Mystery Story by Carolyn Wells
- How To Write Short Stories, with examples by Ring Lardner
- LibriVox Language Learning Collection Vol. 001
***********************************************************
Some things keeping me from writing (aside from being apprehensive about my story development and how I know people will not relate to it since it isn't a bunch of BDSM romance crap, or some 130 books of apocalyptic doomsday pulp fiction) are the idea of what most of the books entail. For one it's rather preferred that some form of hardcopy become available instead of assuming people are going to use digital books (and the irony that it's assumed that paper books are somehow more environmentally friendly because e-waste is more common than a book being discarded, where they are supposedly more commonly recycled, just seems absurd,) is that only 1% (presumably not the "self-published" versions) of any books out of the 2 million books are being released each year.)
Also, Amazon is known to cancel people's access to any books (that supposedly they still "own" but aren't allowed to access,) if it assumes someone is somehow violating some specific thing on the platform, so someone might also goof up and all of their $20,000 worth of Ebooks simply vanish off the face of the earth (though they still own??? Or do they not?)
Personally, I view the discarded boxes that Amazon sends crap out in should be scrutinized heavily as well. The Barnes and Noble stores that exist outside of mall entrances are being converted into some school spirit college bookstores that sell textbooks, and most of the books people should be reading are already freely accessible to people, rather than the tripe that now gets passed off as modern literature. Look at all the most popular authors and recognize that the only reason they even sold anything is because some idiots were watching TV and saw it was mentioned.
People put too much trust in the idea that because something is published it lends itself a form of credibility, or that someone calls themself a Doctor with their non-accredited diploma, that they should trust that they aren't being scammed out of their money.
******
I was looking over this list:
The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing
https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful ... publishing
Less than 300,000 books were published in 2005, and for the last few years over 2,000,000 books are being released annually.
Though self-publishing was common even prior to 2005 (and many a famous Author would do this and find buyers for their book until they were able to be recognized by the mainstream,) digital publishing rather than printing and shipping hard copies from online specialized websites, are now dwarfing anything available or considered normal prior to that time (and anyone that used to have access to CD/DVD rom drives knows the transitions with streaming in 2008 with how sales declined dramatically, and it became somewhat difficult to even find a laptop that had such an optical drive.)
The digital era and how commerce represents publishing now make it a very different environment where no major risk exists to publishing and failing to make it marketable, other than time and a few things like getting an ISBN, if I'm not mistaken (I'm one of those writers that doesn't publish.)
Modern writing relies on visibility more than simply writing (and assuming it's going to be noticed) while acknowledging the effects of platforms like Amazon providing little cost incentive to self-publish (my argument is that 65% of any profit goes directly to Amazon, whereas a hardcover book publisher takes 60% to print and might actually make more money selling the hardcover on Amazon's platform than taking the cut in cost of digital publishing.)
A person that merely wanted to trick Amazon's algorithm into recognizing your book would need you to literally give the book away without any intent on making a profit before you could actually be noticed on the platform (unless of course, some social media phenomenon or media sponsorship, or prior recognition before the book was even published, had existed.)
Only 1% of all books published will be featured inside a "brick and mortar" bookstore.
Every year over 2 million new self-published books are being released, many of which have no representation outside of simply being accessible within the nether of the internet, and any number of which is very difficult to gauge as to whether it's worth people's time, based mostly on preconceptions and whether or not they even identify with the content (so basically the reason most books are popular is people believe they might game some insight into something they want to find out more of, or somehow identify with the predicament of a character, or to learn something from it (hence the most popular genres tend to be things people pick up like periodicals that they could easily discard in the trash when they get bored with it. . .)
The general question is: Why to bother writing if it's fatalistic and you know people are going to sneer at you like you just got a scammy MLM insurance gig and are trying to peddle it door to door while they are having dinner and can't be bothered? Is the intent to focus on writing less about books and more about other avenues of media (such as trying to make your presence known to streaming services, since that's where most writing now gravitates towards, rather than what could arguably be considered an antiquated median from pre-cinema era?
********************************
A society ruled by, and for metrics/algorithms, should be doomed to fail.
It creates a circular feedback loop that at its heart is doomed to entropy (filter bubbles, perpetuating bias, lack of creativity) since it cannot deviate from the operant constraints that exist within it.
Perhaps any algorithm can become modified and changed accordingly, where it might seem to create a life of its own (and when AI becomes "unhinged" it really tends to go off the rails.)
What I'm more concerned with is the capitalization of AI and how it provides a "useful idiot" approach to create something purely for a profit motive, whereby a cliche and cookie-cutter copypasta can be used to generate substantively inferior product, without any rigor of gravitas within the upper echelon of creative endeavor.
Of course that doesn't suggest that anyone that is capable can't work with the lemons of whatever comes out of AI (assuming you could perceive AI as some kind of "common denominator" approach to statistical data inference, and extrapolate what a huge chuck of data interpolates as "normal.")
And perhaps what is "normal" becomes an oversaturated, hypernormalized deviation from what used to be "human," that mankind then by proxy becomes a transhumanized AI operator, living by the constraints of algorithms day-in, day out without any concept of what is normal, since they are in a bubble that panders to their every whim without challenge to their thoughts and feelings, apart from what they "accept" by being pandered to.
AI only knows how to extract, but it becomes just another vulture capitalism that preys on the weak and infirm.
by Tim Barton
https://www.academia.edu/42375689/Media ... 3SDFOgYKTk
Why Are We Suddenly Surrounded by ‘Grift’?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/maga ... grift.html
************
https://archive.org/details/audio_books ... ry=writing
I came across a few entries specifically:
- How to Write a Play Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, Labiche, Legouvé, Pailleron, Sardou and Zola
- How to Speak and Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin
- The Technique of the Mystery Story by Carolyn Wells
- How To Write Short Stories, with examples by Ring Lardner
- LibriVox Language Learning Collection Vol. 001
***********************************************************
Some things keeping me from writing (aside from being apprehensive about my story development and how I know people will not relate to it since it isn't a bunch of BDSM romance crap, or some 130 books of apocalyptic doomsday pulp fiction) are the idea of what most of the books entail. For one it's rather preferred that some form of hardcopy become available instead of assuming people are going to use digital books (and the irony that it's assumed that paper books are somehow more environmentally friendly because e-waste is more common than a book being discarded, where they are supposedly more commonly recycled, just seems absurd,) is that only 1% (presumably not the "self-published" versions) of any books out of the 2 million books are being released each year.)
Also, Amazon is known to cancel people's access to any books (that supposedly they still "own" but aren't allowed to access,) if it assumes someone is somehow violating some specific thing on the platform, so someone might also goof up and all of their $20,000 worth of Ebooks simply vanish off the face of the earth (though they still own??? Or do they not?)
Personally, I view the discarded boxes that Amazon sends crap out in should be scrutinized heavily as well. The Barnes and Noble stores that exist outside of mall entrances are being converted into some school spirit college bookstores that sell textbooks, and most of the books people should be reading are already freely accessible to people, rather than the tripe that now gets passed off as modern literature. Look at all the most popular authors and recognize that the only reason they even sold anything is because some idiots were watching TV and saw it was mentioned.
People put too much trust in the idea that because something is published it lends itself a form of credibility, or that someone calls themself a Doctor with their non-accredited diploma, that they should trust that they aren't being scammed out of their money.
******
I was looking over this list:
The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing
https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful ... publishing
Less than 300,000 books were published in 2005, and for the last few years over 2,000,000 books are being released annually.
Though self-publishing was common even prior to 2005 (and many a famous Author would do this and find buyers for their book until they were able to be recognized by the mainstream,) digital publishing rather than printing and shipping hard copies from online specialized websites, are now dwarfing anything available or considered normal prior to that time (and anyone that used to have access to CD/DVD rom drives knows the transitions with streaming in 2008 with how sales declined dramatically, and it became somewhat difficult to even find a laptop that had such an optical drive.)
The digital era and how commerce represents publishing now make it a very different environment where no major risk exists to publishing and failing to make it marketable, other than time and a few things like getting an ISBN, if I'm not mistaken (I'm one of those writers that doesn't publish.)
Modern writing relies on visibility more than simply writing (and assuming it's going to be noticed) while acknowledging the effects of platforms like Amazon providing little cost incentive to self-publish (my argument is that 65% of any profit goes directly to Amazon, whereas a hardcover book publisher takes 60% to print and might actually make more money selling the hardcover on Amazon's platform than taking the cut in cost of digital publishing.)
A person that merely wanted to trick Amazon's algorithm into recognizing your book would need you to literally give the book away without any intent on making a profit before you could actually be noticed on the platform (unless of course, some social media phenomenon or media sponsorship, or prior recognition before the book was even published, had existed.)
Only 1% of all books published will be featured inside a "brick and mortar" bookstore.
Every year over 2 million new self-published books are being released, many of which have no representation outside of simply being accessible within the nether of the internet, and any number of which is very difficult to gauge as to whether it's worth people's time, based mostly on preconceptions and whether or not they even identify with the content (so basically the reason most books are popular is people believe they might game some insight into something they want to find out more of, or somehow identify with the predicament of a character, or to learn something from it (hence the most popular genres tend to be things people pick up like periodicals that they could easily discard in the trash when they get bored with it. . .)
The general question is: Why to bother writing if it's fatalistic and you know people are going to sneer at you like you just got a scammy MLM insurance gig and are trying to peddle it door to door while they are having dinner and can't be bothered? Is the intent to focus on writing less about books and more about other avenues of media (such as trying to make your presence known to streaming services, since that's where most writing now gravitates towards, rather than what could arguably be considered an antiquated median from pre-cinema era?
********************************
A society ruled by, and for metrics/algorithms, should be doomed to fail.
It creates a circular feedback loop that at its heart is doomed to entropy (filter bubbles, perpetuating bias, lack of creativity) since it cannot deviate from the operant constraints that exist within it.
Perhaps any algorithm can become modified and changed accordingly, where it might seem to create a life of its own (and when AI becomes "unhinged" it really tends to go off the rails.)
What I'm more concerned with is the capitalization of AI and how it provides a "useful idiot" approach to create something purely for a profit motive, whereby a cliche and cookie-cutter copypasta can be used to generate substantively inferior product, without any rigor of gravitas within the upper echelon of creative endeavor.
Of course that doesn't suggest that anyone that is capable can't work with the lemons of whatever comes out of AI (assuming you could perceive AI as some kind of "common denominator" approach to statistical data inference, and extrapolate what a huge chuck of data interpolates as "normal.")
And perhaps what is "normal" becomes an oversaturated, hypernormalized deviation from what used to be "human," that mankind then by proxy becomes a transhumanized AI operator, living by the constraints of algorithms day-in, day out without any concept of what is normal, since they are in a bubble that panders to their every whim without challenge to their thoughts and feelings, apart from what they "accept" by being pandered to.
AI only knows how to extract, but it becomes just another vulture capitalism that preys on the weak and infirm.
Re: What are you reading?
Larousse Gastronomique versions on Library Genesis (and the original one is Authored by Prosper Montagné, and Charlotte Snyder Turgeon)
https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Larous ... column=def
It wasn't exactly easy to find it on Internet Archive (org)
Another website was popular for textbooks and similarly having a digital version of a large hardbound seems a bit more rational. . . Though of course, similar websites have been pulled offline just the same (probably because, when using the secondary mirror, Maleware Block does flag the website. . . Also, the website seems to pop up where you need to add the file extension.)
And yet, I most likely will never actually use the cookbooks. . . I have many, but I can see myself just doing the usual routine junk (I actually, despise restaurants for this reason, that most everything is kind of irrelevant and time-consuming.)
************************
James Clavell - Asian Saga series which includes the book Shogun, which is what the miniseries starring one of Toshiro Mifune's last major roles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Saga
Kazuo Ishiguro
Yukio Mishima (The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy collection is in one of the files, and Calibre can convert to pdf, though awkward https://archive.org/details/TheSeaOfFertilityTetralogy )
etc
Aaron T. Beck - Prisoners of Hate Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence
*********
Some physical books have digital variants between libgen.rs, annas-archive.org, and archive.org
John L. Casti - Paradigms Lost, Alternate Realities
Richard Panek - 4% universe
Surprised I found this copy (I think it's one of the better books with Poe's writing). . . Mine had a scantron with contact information from the original owner (presumably a young man or late-teen) circa 1960s with a woman's contact info written down. (This was that Apt https://www.apartmentfinder.com/Ohio/Co ... ts-sbkxge7 )
Poetry Omnibus - Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849) Selected Prose, Poetry, and Eureka (1950) https://annas-archive.org/md5/22c62dc79 ... 4ce0433b02
Kenneth Roberts
Michael Crichton
Horatio Hornblower omnibus
https://archive.org/details/HoratioHorn ... 5/mode/2up
*****************
I feel a bit like an idiot. . . As soon as I had converted Epub to PDF and compiled a bunch of info on Stephen King books, I noticed that most all of them (including the Dark Tower Series which were not a part of the other collection, which I obtained after having already completed download) were in this. The lack of descriptions in the files kind of makes it a hassle as well, though I'll need to look over it some more. It's supposed to have a bunch of Robert Jordon books as well.
https://archive.org/details/FantasyFict ... aggers.pdf
************************
Leo Tolstoy collection,
https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=8E ... 3CF8134559
Also, look for Victor Hugo - The Complete Novels and Bram Stoker Collection
Heinlein (most all of his work)
https://annas-archive.org/md5/89718e36f ... f0401edb59
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky
https://annas-archive.org/md5/ec7b7c16d ... c392a6ef6f
Aubrey & Maturin Complete Collection (21 Books) (The movie Master and Commander was the first book)
https://library.lol/main/7881E6320E27B1 ... 107FE29ACE
The Cookbook Lobscouse and Spotted Dog is based on those books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey%E2 ... rin_series
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5 ... ck_O_Brian
I assumed the movie was just a one-off thing, and never bothered looking into it much. A lot of literature had a lot of serialization, and return characters.
Horatio Hornblower saga is another file in one pdf (it might have originally been an epub, which is a format I think I will just keep as is; unless it's a mobi which converts best to epub and alternatively from there pdf.)
********************
Cookbooks:
(The original Italian book is supposedly a little different, though this one is still pretty good.)
The Talisman Italian Cook Book by Ada Boni
https://archive.org/details/the-talisma ... k-boni-ada
A much nicer looking one is
The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual (2010) by Frank Castronovo (though I could see the above one being more useful.)
One of the best books I've come across is
Cookbook, America's Test Kitchen New Family (2014)
Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking is good and likely influenced a lot of cooks, though I've always found Craig Claiborne's work to be far more impressive. I also find Paul Bocuse to be grossly overrated with his cookbooks. . . They actually suck and it's like searching through some half-assed recipes online ("This is how you wisk your eggs") designed for people that like to show off their cooking prowess by showcasing the books in their kitchen. . . Julia Child is still good and was very approachable at the time she popularized cooking on TV (after all, she was an icon of television,) but the bread section in Vol 2 made me find another book considering the volume of the material, it was probably necessary to find a specialized one:
Upper Crust - Homemade Bread the French Way (2021) Marie-Laure Fréchet
Other good cookbooks are:
The Connoisseur's Cookbook (1965) Robert Carrier.
German, A Complete Guide to Mastering Authentic (1965) Mimi Sheraton
Cajun = The Justin Wilson Gourmet and Gourmand Cookbook (1984)
**********
This might be an even better Italian cookbook
Lidia's Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Great Italian Cook: A Cookbook
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/252 ... an-cuisine
****************************
Free Gnostic (and other types of) books: https://gnosis.study/
In annas-archive org If you search for Jerry eBooks or Delphi and an old author, you will find a lot of public domain books, often organized in a way that would be difficult to achieve with extensive effort.
***************************************
Modern versions of historic books are nearly incomparable. . . The newer releases look like children's literature (I had a slipcover version of this book, and had to go to the original source material.) It makes me think of Folio Society books or many modern ones that barely even hint at when the book had originally been published, so as to make you forget what you are looking at (and to sell you stuff that is well beyond copyright protection.)
Take
History of Conquest of Peru (1522-1548) William Prescott (1847) with both Vol 1-2 at 600 pages each, and you get a version with 500 pages with some filled up completely with generic art, and zero annotations. It takes it from a serious scholarly attempt at research and renders it into a comic book (so the nearly 2/3rds of regular font could perhaps comprise of much of the pages, with parts edited to hint at any important annotations.) It might make it more relevant to modern readers, though it is not the same book.
https://archive.org/details/@scanner-ia ... y=conquest
Public domain books (I managed to find some extremely rare books that aren't found anywhere.)
https://www.hathitrust.org/
**********************
This is kind of an insane deal
(or click here: https://annas-archive.org/md5/5843173a6 ... 1cf57a1637
or a smaller file https://annas-archive.org/md5/d9d97a441 ... 52de81adb3 )
Harvard Classics, with different versions, starting off with Charles Eliot (President of Harvard) which comprises of 51 volumes which has evolved into the extended Parts edition, which has well over 100.
According to this version it's 180 books for $5.
https://www.amazon.com/Harvard-Classics ... B077SCLQJF
You could spend hours (as I've done) compiling a library, and this not only streamlines a big part of it but requires very little effort in putting it together. You could literally add this one file to a kindle and never get around to reading half of it (mostly because people will only value things that don't challenge their thought process. I've seen authors churn out 17 books of kiddy literature in 3 years, which exceeds the number of books that Frank and James Herbert spent in their lifetime of writing sci fi. . . Judging from the reviews you would somehow mistakenly assume the writing was better, but I assure you, it is not. . .)
146 books for $7
https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/the ... edition-2/
The best, newest updated (basically the index was organized) version of the 51 volumes which should be all it contains, and should be no more or less:
for $2
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Harvard ... B076PKKZ22
I tink the 180 books listing is misleading, and often they categorize it differently. I've seen Harvard published books of nothing but random essays that are probably ignored today, but here it shows just 12 volumes of literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics
It evolves from there with various compilations of various 100 books of literature sets for $1-2. . . I probably should have checked into these things sooner, though realize that it's a bit like the Loeb series of ancient Greek literature, which becomes irrelevant, and you can now find sets of some of these texts with 3 different translations (and I have a hardcopy of Boccaccio's Decameron with a translation that wasn't included in an Epub file with 3 other translators.) It is probably best used as a guideline for what to add into a library, and it's good to just innovate with file names to add in overlooked details, such as time period and influence. These Kindle files too often leave out details that just become manipulative, to get you to click the buy button.
A good list to look over are the Great Books of the Western World as Free eBooks (though the links are now dead; you can still find the individual authors complete works in Delphi on the links I posted before.
https://prodigalnomore.wordpress.com/gr ... ee-ebooks/
****************
Another series is
The Cambridge History of China (17 volumes published with another on the way)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambr ... y_of_China
***********
Engineering magazine
https://www.edn.com/
************************
Early Western Travels - Vol 1-30 (1748-1846)
I had been acquiring the complete set by jumping around through different websites, and it turns out it was listed in this link the whole time. (Though Annas Archive has better pdf files.)
https://archive.org/details/earlywester ... 8/mode/2up
Missing is Volume 25 which would have had some extensive lithographs of drawings by Charles (Karl) Bodmer who went on an expedition comprising 3 volumes, and the one I did come across is an auctioned book at $800. I suspect people would take the book apart and keep the images and frame them (something I've noticed happens with books that are perceived to not have as much value.)
I don't believe this account was included:
Jean-Bernard Bossu's Travels in the interior of North America, 1751-1762
https://annas-archive.org/md5/0d7bb61c1 ... 9da6c037ff
Alternatives to volume 25
American Indians - the art and travels of Charles Bird King, George Catlin and Karl Bodmer
https://annas-archive.org/md5/714ef82db ... a37a746b65
************************
The Travels of Reverend Olafur Egilsson: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland in 1627
https://annas-archive.org/md5/3101898a3 ... cb025c1bc4
Something to also look into:
Bodmer Papyri collection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bodmer_Papyri
https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Larous ... column=def
It wasn't exactly easy to find it on Internet Archive (org)
Another website was popular for textbooks and similarly having a digital version of a large hardbound seems a bit more rational. . . Though of course, similar websites have been pulled offline just the same (probably because, when using the secondary mirror, Maleware Block does flag the website. . . Also, the website seems to pop up where you need to add the file extension.)
And yet, I most likely will never actually use the cookbooks. . . I have many, but I can see myself just doing the usual routine junk (I actually, despise restaurants for this reason, that most everything is kind of irrelevant and time-consuming.)
************************
James Clavell - Asian Saga series which includes the book Shogun, which is what the miniseries starring one of Toshiro Mifune's last major roles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Saga
Kazuo Ishiguro
Yukio Mishima (The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy collection is in one of the files, and Calibre can convert to pdf, though awkward https://archive.org/details/TheSeaOfFertilityTetralogy )
etc
Aaron T. Beck - Prisoners of Hate Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence
*********
Some physical books have digital variants between libgen.rs, annas-archive.org, and archive.org
John L. Casti - Paradigms Lost, Alternate Realities
Richard Panek - 4% universe
Surprised I found this copy (I think it's one of the better books with Poe's writing). . . Mine had a scantron with contact information from the original owner (presumably a young man or late-teen) circa 1960s with a woman's contact info written down. (This was that Apt https://www.apartmentfinder.com/Ohio/Co ... ts-sbkxge7 )
Poetry Omnibus - Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849) Selected Prose, Poetry, and Eureka (1950) https://annas-archive.org/md5/22c62dc79 ... 4ce0433b02
Kenneth Roberts
Michael Crichton
Horatio Hornblower omnibus
https://archive.org/details/HoratioHorn ... 5/mode/2up
*****************
I feel a bit like an idiot. . . As soon as I had converted Epub to PDF and compiled a bunch of info on Stephen King books, I noticed that most all of them (including the Dark Tower Series which were not a part of the other collection, which I obtained after having already completed download) were in this. The lack of descriptions in the files kind of makes it a hassle as well, though I'll need to look over it some more. It's supposed to have a bunch of Robert Jordon books as well.
https://archive.org/details/FantasyFict ... aggers.pdf
************************
Leo Tolstoy collection,
https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=8E ... 3CF8134559
Also, look for Victor Hugo - The Complete Novels and Bram Stoker Collection
Heinlein (most all of his work)
https://annas-archive.org/md5/89718e36f ... f0401edb59
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky
https://annas-archive.org/md5/ec7b7c16d ... c392a6ef6f
Aubrey & Maturin Complete Collection (21 Books) (The movie Master and Commander was the first book)
https://library.lol/main/7881E6320E27B1 ... 107FE29ACE
The Cookbook Lobscouse and Spotted Dog is based on those books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey%E2 ... rin_series
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5 ... ck_O_Brian
I assumed the movie was just a one-off thing, and never bothered looking into it much. A lot of literature had a lot of serialization, and return characters.
Horatio Hornblower saga is another file in one pdf (it might have originally been an epub, which is a format I think I will just keep as is; unless it's a mobi which converts best to epub and alternatively from there pdf.)
********************
Cookbooks:
(The original Italian book is supposedly a little different, though this one is still pretty good.)
The Talisman Italian Cook Book by Ada Boni
https://archive.org/details/the-talisma ... k-boni-ada
A much nicer looking one is
The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual (2010) by Frank Castronovo (though I could see the above one being more useful.)
One of the best books I've come across is
Cookbook, America's Test Kitchen New Family (2014)
Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking is good and likely influenced a lot of cooks, though I've always found Craig Claiborne's work to be far more impressive. I also find Paul Bocuse to be grossly overrated with his cookbooks. . . They actually suck and it's like searching through some half-assed recipes online ("This is how you wisk your eggs") designed for people that like to show off their cooking prowess by showcasing the books in their kitchen. . . Julia Child is still good and was very approachable at the time she popularized cooking on TV (after all, she was an icon of television,) but the bread section in Vol 2 made me find another book considering the volume of the material, it was probably necessary to find a specialized one:
Upper Crust - Homemade Bread the French Way (2021) Marie-Laure Fréchet
Other good cookbooks are:
The Connoisseur's Cookbook (1965) Robert Carrier.
German, A Complete Guide to Mastering Authentic (1965) Mimi Sheraton
Cajun = The Justin Wilson Gourmet and Gourmand Cookbook (1984)
**********
This might be an even better Italian cookbook
Lidia's Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Great Italian Cook: A Cookbook
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/252 ... an-cuisine
****************************
Free Gnostic (and other types of) books: https://gnosis.study/
In annas-archive org If you search for Jerry eBooks or Delphi and an old author, you will find a lot of public domain books, often organized in a way that would be difficult to achieve with extensive effort.
***************************************
Modern versions of historic books are nearly incomparable. . . The newer releases look like children's literature (I had a slipcover version of this book, and had to go to the original source material.) It makes me think of Folio Society books or many modern ones that barely even hint at when the book had originally been published, so as to make you forget what you are looking at (and to sell you stuff that is well beyond copyright protection.)
Take
History of Conquest of Peru (1522-1548) William Prescott (1847) with both Vol 1-2 at 600 pages each, and you get a version with 500 pages with some filled up completely with generic art, and zero annotations. It takes it from a serious scholarly attempt at research and renders it into a comic book (so the nearly 2/3rds of regular font could perhaps comprise of much of the pages, with parts edited to hint at any important annotations.) It might make it more relevant to modern readers, though it is not the same book.
https://archive.org/details/@scanner-ia ... y=conquest
Public domain books (I managed to find some extremely rare books that aren't found anywhere.)
https://www.hathitrust.org/
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This is kind of an insane deal
(or click here: https://annas-archive.org/md5/5843173a6 ... 1cf57a1637
or a smaller file https://annas-archive.org/md5/d9d97a441 ... 52de81adb3 )
Harvard Classics, with different versions, starting off with Charles Eliot (President of Harvard) which comprises of 51 volumes which has evolved into the extended Parts edition, which has well over 100.
According to this version it's 180 books for $5.
https://www.amazon.com/Harvard-Classics ... B077SCLQJF
You could spend hours (as I've done) compiling a library, and this not only streamlines a big part of it but requires very little effort in putting it together. You could literally add this one file to a kindle and never get around to reading half of it (mostly because people will only value things that don't challenge their thought process. I've seen authors churn out 17 books of kiddy literature in 3 years, which exceeds the number of books that Frank and James Herbert spent in their lifetime of writing sci fi. . . Judging from the reviews you would somehow mistakenly assume the writing was better, but I assure you, it is not. . .)
146 books for $7
https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/the ... edition-2/
The best, newest updated (basically the index was organized) version of the 51 volumes which should be all it contains, and should be no more or less:
for $2
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Harvard ... B076PKKZ22
I tink the 180 books listing is misleading, and often they categorize it differently. I've seen Harvard published books of nothing but random essays that are probably ignored today, but here it shows just 12 volumes of literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics
It evolves from there with various compilations of various 100 books of literature sets for $1-2. . . I probably should have checked into these things sooner, though realize that it's a bit like the Loeb series of ancient Greek literature, which becomes irrelevant, and you can now find sets of some of these texts with 3 different translations (and I have a hardcopy of Boccaccio's Decameron with a translation that wasn't included in an Epub file with 3 other translators.) It is probably best used as a guideline for what to add into a library, and it's good to just innovate with file names to add in overlooked details, such as time period and influence. These Kindle files too often leave out details that just become manipulative, to get you to click the buy button.
A good list to look over are the Great Books of the Western World as Free eBooks (though the links are now dead; you can still find the individual authors complete works in Delphi on the links I posted before.
https://prodigalnomore.wordpress.com/gr ... ee-ebooks/
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Another series is
The Cambridge History of China (17 volumes published with another on the way)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambr ... y_of_China
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Engineering magazine
https://www.edn.com/
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Early Western Travels - Vol 1-30 (1748-1846)
I had been acquiring the complete set by jumping around through different websites, and it turns out it was listed in this link the whole time. (Though Annas Archive has better pdf files.)
https://archive.org/details/earlywester ... 8/mode/2up
Missing is Volume 25 which would have had some extensive lithographs of drawings by Charles (Karl) Bodmer who went on an expedition comprising 3 volumes, and the one I did come across is an auctioned book at $800. I suspect people would take the book apart and keep the images and frame them (something I've noticed happens with books that are perceived to not have as much value.)
I don't believe this account was included:
Jean-Bernard Bossu's Travels in the interior of North America, 1751-1762
https://annas-archive.org/md5/0d7bb61c1 ... 9da6c037ff
Alternatives to volume 25
American Indians - the art and travels of Charles Bird King, George Catlin and Karl Bodmer
https://annas-archive.org/md5/714ef82db ... a37a746b65
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The Travels of Reverend Olafur Egilsson: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland in 1627
https://annas-archive.org/md5/3101898a3 ... cb025c1bc4
Something to also look into:
Bodmer Papyri collection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bodmer_Papyri