Squeeeeee! Books! Books! Books!

[liz_marcs]

Found via Metafilter:

The University of Adelaide in Australia has a boatload of classic books online that are downloadable (for those of us who like to read paper), formatted (for easy on-screen reading), and easily available.

*does butt dance in my chair*

Have I mentioned that they've got my man Nathaniel Hawthorne and his major works there?

No?

Why yes! Yes they do! YAY!

Have I mentioned that Young Goodman Brown served as something of an inspiration for Water Hold Me Down (Part 11 can be found here)?

No?

Ummm, I promise it won't be quite as dark as Young Goodman Brown...well, not the ending anyway...

*pleasedontkillme*

I love it when books pass into the public domain. Of course, I already own a lot of Hawthorne's books, but now I can do text searches online and visit whenever I want.

Yes, yes, I know about Project Gutenberg and the Online Books Page, but I rather like what our Australian cousins have done with their online books project.

Comments

[airawyn.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I didn't know E. Nesbit's books were online!

*needs a bookworm icon*

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Sqqquuuuuueeeeee!

KITTY!

*ahem* Sorry. Carry on.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Fun Me Trivia: I was named after Nathaniel Hawthorne.

And I freakin' love Young Goodman Brown (and cringe at the scores of high school students who bitch about The Scarlet Letter as if it was the Worst Book Ever - hey, it's cool if you didn't like it, but there's a reason it's taught in school and it's not to torture you).

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I'm a total Hawthorne *freak.*

I've always argued that high school students should be turned on to Hawthorne's short stories first. Some of them are pretty creeptastic (Minister's Black Veil, Young Goodman Brown) and some of them are pretty science fiction-y (Dr. Heidegger's Experiment).

Too bad you're so far away. I lived for awhile next door to Salem, so I was pretty close to the House of Seven Gables, Hawthorne's Statue, the Counting House, and the burial site of his ancester, the "witch judge" Judge Hathorne. (Nathaniel added the 'w' to his last name to disassociate himself from his famous ancestor).

Sorry. I'm geeking. I'll stop geeking now.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Heh. My mother was in MA in early October to watch the leaves change (she's a native Iowan and the never-changing foliage of Arizona depresses her) and she made a point of visiting the House of Seven Gables... and then she came home and ordered the Vincent Price movie because Universal built an exact replica of the house for it (I'm talking the 1940s version, not the truncated, more horror-tastic vignette in Twice-told Tales, also with Price).

And people wonder why I grew up to be such a well-read geek.

[iyalode.livejournal.com]

As an Aussie I'm rather ashamed to say I didn't even know about this. But they've got some beauties here ::squee:: Thank you.

The public broadcaster ABC is airing a show this Sunday covering the results of a poll for Australia's favourite book. I rather like that idea. Not the best. Not the most influential, but favourite. I'm looking forward to the results.

[goosegirl9.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh. Searchable books! Thank you!