Public Domain Readers discussion

I hope no-one minds that I took it upon myself to start adding books to the group bookshelf.

https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

If you look to the left you can see that I've 'shelved' each book under various things, most importantly the year it was written (just the year is used, nothing else), and the year of death of the author. You can see the format I used for that, 'died-1943', etc. These two things are important because they help you decide if the book is actually in the public domain in your country. Of course you need to also know the laws of your country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Other useful things would be an indication of where the books can be found in other formats, so I used 'on-librivox', 'on-youtube', 'on-kindle'.

Besides that, simply genre (can be more than one) and country of author seemed a reasonable idea. The latter has its usefulness also in that if you're reading it in translation, you need then to think about whether the translation you have is already in public domain or not. Recent translations of very old books are not, or course. If you see the original was from a country that speaks your language, then you know it doesn't matter. Maybe language should be a tag too, but country probably tells us enough most of the time.

I suggest people use the same principles and format, so that later people can find things by these categories and also by age, and also with information that helps them check if the book is public domain in their country.

Maybe other people will have other useful ideas for shelves.

The main thing, of course, is just to start adding your books as you read them, then the bookshelf and the categories will gradually build to a nice size almost without our effort; i.e by group collaboration or 'crowd' contribution. Such a resource would surely attract other members to the group.

I mean, is there, anywhere on the internet even, an ordered and constantlz updated database of public domain works, where you can check them according to your local laws, find categories that suit you, and see ratings, to make sense of and lead you to lots and lots of probably so-far unknown to you free works of literature?

Thanks for getting this started, Mark. Hopefully we can keep it maintained. I'm off to shelve the book I just finished.

Just a reminder that adding public domain books to the Bookshelf as you read them at least, also 'sub-shelving' them as I explained above, will lead to the bookshelf growing and being a nice, navigable resource of public domain books and what genres they are and what formats and where they can be found.

Of course, it's true that I'm not keeping up with the challenge of reading even one a month, so I'm not a big contributor myself, but all the same.

Of course if everybody joining here took it upon themselves to think of a few public domain books they know, read or not, and added them to that shelf, with the tags/sub-shelves, then that would be even more help too. Though, again, just an idea, one that I haven't done myself. I'd like to say 'later I will', but....

I have to point out that I think it's a shame that people don't add public domain books to the bookshelf as they finish them. One other person has done it, besides me, but that's all. And then that person didn't add any tags to them, which I did later, or rate them, which also adds something. It seems to me that this would build up into an easily-navigated and useful resource beyond anything that could happen via going through all the threads here, and would lead people to books they might like, and also attract others to the group. To me it's the most useful thing here, if just gradually added to, with tags, following the logic explained above and already exemplified on the bookshelf itself, but it's the most neglected thing in the group. Everyone is free to disagree, of course, but just a thought/reminder, in case people have missed/forgotten it.

I completely understand, Mark. I wish that some of our members were a little more active. And I could be better at shelving the books I've read for the monthly group read and the reading challenges.

I feel that the monthly group read could be a useful resource as well. If all of the members participated in the group read this month, we would have potentially 17 different books about one theme.

Well, you're right. but at the same time it's understandable that people don't always have the time to keep up with the group reads. For that reason, until the group has a lot of members, the group readings will always be erratic. Plus really this to me is an additional thing. in that it's just about people adding the stuff when they've read it, whether via group reading or whatever. I'm not against it being a slow growth of the bookshelf if people aren't reading much; as I say, I understand their time is their own, and also always limited, so I'm not actually talking about the members being 'more active', because I understand their time constraints and feel they have every right to only participate on and off, or even not at all, but just that this can steadily grow by just adding a public domain book whenever you finish one, simply if you do finish one, even if that's not often. Plus, as I say, in the long run it will include all the group reading books as well as others and also be easily navigable, therefore about the most informative and useful resource that could possibly come of this group. In the end it would be a mass of books all ordered by genres, year of publication, death of author, sources to be found by, etc., etc., etc., and all with ratings, hopefully multiple ones for the same books even. You know, and fair enough if people are distracted and don't even have the time to add the book to the bookshelf, no judgement or coercion, I'm just reminding people, because the bookshelf is the easiest and best-organised way to be pointed to other works, each person getting that information from all the other members who add anything to the bookshelf, and it's all there pretty much at a glance. I myself haven't finished any public domain book in months (I was reading 'Voyage to Arcturus', but the read a bunch of other things, and now have started it from the beginning again) but I see other people have read books, but not added them to the bookshelf. I just think it's a missed opportunity to grow a very useful resource, however slowly and by small increments, and one that will also start to attract other members. And once the bookshelf grows to a reasonable size, there's a potential to start creating lists from it, which would attract even more users.

I added my first book to the group's bookshelf; The Return of Sherlock Holmes. I tried to follow Mark's guidelines. I am wondering if it's okay to add books in the future.

Sawako wrote: "I added my first book to the group's bookshelf; The Return of Sherlock Holmes. I tried to follow Mark's guidelines. I am wondering if it's okay to add books in the future."

Yeah, please, Sawako, feel free to add books to the bookshelf in the future. That's the idea, that everyone can contribute. I see you've added quite a few books, so that's good, plus you've followed the format with the tags, etc., so it's looking really good. Thanks.

Hopefully others will be encouraged to add books to the bookshelf as they finish them, and it will grow into a big, navigable resource to find public domain books.

You are welcome! I want to contribute as much as I can in this group. I will add all the public domain books that I read in the bookshelf.

Please note too, that I also added the year of first publication too, as a tag/bookshelf of simply the year.

Got it! And thank you so much for adding the year of first publication.

Added two books I've read that are public domain in both US and EU:

Twilight in Italy by D.H. Lawrence
Abraham Lincoln by Godfrey Rathbone Benson Charnwood

Added year of death tags and that those were first published in 1916.

I also added Men Like Gods by H.G. Wells which became public domain in UK and rest of EU this year(Wells died in 1946). Scheduled to become public domain in the US on January 1, 2019. (Published January 1923)

Thank you so much!

Slowly working through books that I've read that were published in 1917.

One of those is from an African-American named Oscar Micheaux (better known for his filmmaking). The book is The Homesteader. Public domain in the US & the life plus 50 countries (Micheaux died in 1951. It'll become PD in the EU & UK in 2022).

Added King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard.

One of the many inspirations for the Indiana Jones movies. One of the first Lost World novels too.