I love this resource called Project Gutenberg. Long/short it is a huge collection of free ebooks, public domain/out of copyright material as well as some copyright granted material, that have been hand typed in plain text, not scanned. Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, (who started with The United States Declaration of Independence as book #1) it may be the oldest digital library. The free ebooks are available in plain text, but other formats are usually included; HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI -an ereader for the crackberry, and Plucker -for the Palm OS. Did I mention it is free??
So what? I hear you say. I guess if you never feel the need to read the text of anything printed before 1923 then you are all set. Nothing by say, these guys. People get very heated discussing copyright, right to information, freedom of information... that is not the aim here... just want to point out this fantastic resource. (Project Gutenberg's definition of free here.)
I freekin love this site though. You want to read Jekyll&Hyde? Bam. How does Moby Dick start again? Bingo. What was the text around the word simplify in Walden? Pow. Sherlock Holmes, Tom Sawyer, Tarzan. Not enough time in the day.
You could look at/research the "simplify" question on GoogleBooks too. There are websites, blogs and yup lawsuits devoted to the discussion of GoogleBooks vs. Internet Archive vs. Gutenberg, again not discussing that here. If you want to delve into those issues I suggest the rarin' librarian. Hey, got through that whole thing without saying kindle...
