Forgotten Books is an on-line library of books that you can read on-line for free. They are hosted by Google. The titles are listed alphabetically. The collection has 1736 books on-line. However, almost half are unreadable due to some hosting error. But in any case this is an interesting example of what books on-line look like.
I took a look at the site and I think “Forgotten Books” is a bit of a misnomer. A lot of classic and popular books are included. I have to say though that after just a few minutes of reading on the screen, my eyes felt very strained. I also noticed that at least a few of the book notes and author bios come from Wikipedia (and are cited as such), as well as embedded Google Ads (one suggested that I might enjoy similar books at Walmart, another was about joining asbestos litigation so it seems a bit hit or miss), and it may be a testimony to how web content and information may be linking up in the future. The beginning of each book also includes Forgotten Books ads.
Well it appears that the books are provided with an “as is” kind of presentation. So the quality definitely leaves something to be desired.
On the other hand this can be used as an example of why we still need physical book libraries. Printed material has a very high quality standard. Where as on-line material has a more uneven quality to it…somethings are excellent and somethings are close to unreadable.
But you get what you pay for….
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