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Ebooks can be downloaded from a variety of sources around the internet. They are green in that no trees are used in their manufacture. I have been using my background as a librarian to ferret out a variety of ebooks. On this site, I will be writing mainly about green ebooks — that is, ebooks on green topics– so here is some background.

Just as there are online bookstores, there are online ebookstores. For example, here is a link to Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in four different ebook formats at such a store:

click on eBook

Kingsolver, Barbara – Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Here is the Amazon link, for comparison:

The ebook formats available from the first company are:

• The well-known PDF format, for which you need the free Adobe Acrobat reader which comes pre-installed on most computers or other software which will read PDFs.
• Mobipocket, also for use on computers, is free software which you download at mobipocket.com — for Windows, and Mac, Linux, though the last two have to be downloaded manually. Mobipocket files can be read on various small devices such as Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, etc. Usually they cannot be printed out but typically you can copy small segments. This depends on the publisher.
• The Microsoft Reader can be used on computers and portable devices. From the name, I would guess it doesn’t work on Macs.
• Palm software specifically for Palm devices.

Prices: High, Low, and Free

One thing that surprised me when I first started buying and reading ebooks is that sometimes they are more expensive that the corresponding paperback. To stay with the example above, it costs $17.88 or more as an ebook, yet at Amazon the paperback is $10.17 new and a bit less used. I don’t completely understand this but will keep an eye out for why it is that way. It may be a matter of quantities sold. It must be the publishers who decide on the prices, and in one case recently I bought a self-published Mobipocket ebook for $5.00 when the paperback at Amazon was $29.95, so there are exceptions. That was the first time I tried a Mobipocket ebook and I did like it. (Amazon offers the Kingsolver book in Kindle format, its own proprietary ebook format, for $9.99. I am watching the Kindle with interest but have not yet wanted to spend $400 to buy the Kindle reader itself.)

Why would someone spend more for the ebook than for a paperback? Several reasons. Immediacy. Saving a tree. Not having another thing to find a place for. Access if you are located in a country where getting paperbacks in English isn’t simple. (I am frequently in Mexico, and I love downloads partly for this reason.)

There are a number of free ebooks available. I was just at the Mobipocket website and they had a link to a list of free ebooks. The third title on the list was Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 The New York Tunnel Extension of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Meadows Division and Harrison Transfer Yard. Paper No. 1153. I passed on it.

But there are many free PDFs and even text files (.txt) which can be read with Notepad, Word, and other programs. You can cut and paste, take snippets, etc. The best-known collection is at http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ and it is mostly literature.

Reading on a Computer

While many PDF files can be printed out, others can’t unless the protection is removed. There is software that will do it with older PDF files but I haven’t kept up with the situation currently. So you will be reading on your computer in most cases. Some people say they hate reading on computers, but I must admit I can do it happily for long stretches. I do have a small laptop that I put most of my reading on, and I can relax on the sofa or wherever. I do stop and glance away to keep eyestrain down.