Culturethèque
Read ebooks online. Read them here, and there, and also here and there.
I like the feel of paper. I'm no glue-sniffer but I'll always appreciate the smell of a new binding. Not that I'm against musty books. I love musty books. But I remember the days, not so long ago, when at quarter to three in the morning, I would get home, realise I had an essay to hand in within the next half day and knuckle down to some last minute reading, analysing and extensive quoting. That's when I really love ebooks.
Culturethèque is not the only repository of French books online, these are my top four websites (other than Culturethèque).
Project Gutenberg, in French : Do I need to explain Gutenberg? It is a revolutionary project that has been around for a while, and seems to have most books ever published that are out of copyright. This link is to the French language books, but Gutenberg is poly-multi-super-mega-lingual.
Gallica : This is the website for the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It has ebooks but they are in an odd format which means sometimes they are subject to copyright and, like in google books, you can only view some pages. However, the enormous advantage is that these are scans of books, the closest the digital age can get to being musty. Mmmm. Gallica also has vinyl recordings and newspapers, and is a very French jewel.
Internet Archive: This is the American and Canadian collection. The texts are often in HTML, which means they are malleable but look a little messy. Archive.org is among the most complete archives on the internet, even in French, and also has large sections devoted to free audiobooks.
Livres Pour Tous: I admit, the layout is not great, but it has lots of literature, comic strips and good categories. It groups links from quirky places on the internet (Canadian legal documents for example). Just keep clicking on the download icons next to the text and you're there.
That's more than enough from me, but please note that this is just a cursory look at these four fantastic websites. I'm looking at ebooks here, but they have moving images, recordings and music. Go browse!
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