I stopped using Amazon a while back, but it was where I got all my books for a long time. I do thriftbooks mostly now, and try to buy directly from publishers when it’s a newer book, but I’m always interested in finding new spots to cop some sweet books.
I mostly just pirate from library genesis and sideload onto my Kindle. Had I known how easy it was to get books as a poor, I'd have opted for a Kobo instead since it's easier to move the .epubs over. You need to use Amazon's janky uploader thing to sideload and it's kind of butts.
I use Calibre to load pirated books onto my Kindle, but I’ve been debating a Kobo for a while now.
Honestly, I couldn't figure out how to do it with Calibre. I still use that for keeping my stuff organized tho. Calibre is legit, especially if you get into data hording territory.
Calibre is god tier software for sharing online try out Bookwyrm
What’s a kobo? I haven’t heard of that ereader. Do they have an e-ink version? I still prefer paper to digital, but e-ink is pretty nice, it’s the only way I’ve been able to do digital books in the past.
I buy mostly revolutionary stuff, so i like to support the authors as much as i can, though, so I’d still probably buy the ebooks since I have the privilege of having a bit of money each month to spend of frivolities.
Kobo is basically a direct competitor to Kindle. Like each form factor that Kindle has, Kobo has a pretty close version of their own. Their OS is open source iirc. And I think they only do e-ink.
That sounds pretty awesome. I might have to snag one, honestly. I could use a way to be able to read stuff at work without being quite so blatant as having a physical copy of something like Blackshirts and Reds on my desk 😂 thanks for the info!
What kinda stuff you like to read? I used to be a big sci-fi head, still am a bit of one but I’ve got limited reading time these days so I mostly read political works and non-fiction.
Being able to read in public without feeling like I have a target on me because of the book cover has been nice. I was reading Reform or Revolution and church and someone asked what I was reading and I just said "you know, economic theory stuff" lol.
Also being able to carry 400+ books with you in such a small format is nice.
For what I read, I spent like 14 months reading all the most obvious leftist stuff. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, and Parenti. I then spent some time reading up on autism after my diagnosis. I also have a weird fondness for trashy splatter punk horror stuff. Idk why but I chew through that stuff. Currently I think I'm starting a deep dive into nihilism, absurdism, existentialism, and stoicism to finally figure out what to call what I believe in. I started with Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray but idk about it yet. I am taking it with a grain of salt since he punches down on literally everyone in it. It's weird reading someone tear apart the mythology behind Christianity, then call Lenin's form of Communism basically a rebranding of the apocalypse myth from the Bible. Down the road I want to read more stuff in the same vein as Trans Liberation by Leslie Feinberg and also read through some black liberation stuff. Some day I do need to get back to Killing Hope though, but that thing is depressing af.
FYI Kobo is the North American brand name for Rakuten made eReaders. In Europe they're sold as Tolino, with a slightly different OS/GUI as well.
I just looked into it again and drag and dropping just the file didn't work but I used Calibre's "send to device" feature and it actually worked. Do you know if doing it this way just adds it to the kindle or to my kindle library for like my phone?
Send to device should be sending it to the memory of your Kindle. I have a Kobo and that's how it is for me at least and I don't think it'd be that different for Kindles from what I understand.
I think it works the same. I can probably test it by seeing if it shows up on my phone when pushing to my reader.
You can send attachments from your email account to your Kindle email address. You have to add your personal email address to your Kindle safe list, which can take a few tries.
Well that worked. I tried that in the past too and it wouldn't work for me for some reason.
It can take a few goes to set up for some reason.
On Android, if you download a PDF and 'share' it with your Kindle app, it will open a 'Send to Kindle' page.
Click 'PDF Options' then 'Make layout adjustable'.
Toggle 'Add to your library' 'On'.
Then 'send'.
Voila, PDF -> ePub/mobi.
It's not perfect but its better than squinting at tiny PDF text on a smart phone screen.
Apparently you can do this from the web, too: https://ebookfriendly.com/new-features-added-to-send-to-kindle-2023/
Hold up, you can send and convert at the same time? Can you do this from a desktop or is this one of the few things that Android and Kindle can agree on?
Yes, I did it by accident last week lol.
I think that link above has some instructions for doing it on desktop through your browser.
I didn't see anything about converting from desktop directly but it's fine. I have all 3 of the other options working now. I did convert a .pdf to a .epub and send it but it messed up the formatting a ton, like put lines of bullets points below their respective bullets and such. I'd like to figure that out since I sometimes find books only as pdfs and they don't work very well on my 6" screen lol.
I get ebooks from Anna’s archive. I got a bunch of books from LeftWingBooks a few months ago (thanks to a discount from revleft). I’ve also bought some from verso.
Ooh I haven’t bought fin LeftWingBooks before, I’ll have to check out their catalogue, thanks! I also hadn’t heard of Anna’s archive, looks legit.
Great call on Anna’s archive, I just snagged quite a few ebooks I’ve been meaning to pick up physical copies of but haven’t bought yet.
Local library, archive.org, independent book stores, and bookshop.org
Audiobooks from library, libro.fm, deDRMed from my old audible library, and piracy
ProleWiki has a lot of books in its library. You can check MIA or Marx2Mao for older theory and Iskra Books for more recent ones.
2nd and Charles if you have one near you. Also Book Exchange. But those are very location specific.
I love second and Charles. Lots of decent books for a good price, plus I get to gawk at their overpriced retro games and occasionally walk away with a genuinely good deal, like when I got halo 2 for $5 to replace my long since lost steelbook from my childhood. Mines pretty far though, so I rarely go.
I used to exclusively go to local bookstores but now bookstores around me are nonexistent or total shit. So I actually started using Amazon for buying books, unfortunately.
I try to use archive as much as possible to download PDFs but I need physical copies.
Yeah I feel you on physical copies. I like to scribble notes in the margins so pdfs are especially frustrating to read, makes it harder to annotate.
I feel you. Annotating in PDFs is just not the same. I don't do it generally but I will when I'm really trying to study and learn something, PDFs are not good for that.
I just prefer books generally. There is a certain attunement to reading that happens when holding and looking at a physical book. I can focus better and I can actually read faster with more comprehension and better retainment of information. While reading PDFs my mind wanders more and I want to quickly switch apps to see what's new on Hexbear, or what someone just texted me, and so on. If I were reading a physical book, my phone would be silenced and facedown so it's less of a distraction and I better grasp and interiorize what I read. And I just like to collect books, I have a small-to-medium sized personal library and I have a bunch of out of print, difficult to find books which were never digitized. I like to maintain a physical collection of these types of things, like films, as much as possible because one day they may not be possible to find. There is so much wisdom and experience and knowledge in our books and I think we will lose access to many of them sometime soon just because they aren't profitable to publish and distribute.
local bookstores almost exclusively, and libgen if it cant be found there.
Mix of libgen and local bookstores, including my town’s anarchist bookstore!
I’m juggling “If We Burn” by Jason Bevins, “Postcapitalist Desire” by Mark Fisher, and “Double Shift” by Jason Read. I’m not familiar with Jason Read but the description of the book had me intrigued
I usually buy from bookstores when I go to the mall, but shit's expensive and I haven't gone in a while, so I'm mostly just sailing the high seas for now.
Right now I'm reading Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, still on the very beginning of the book, and I also started rereading Marx: An Introduction by Jorge Grespan, it's very short and only available in portuguese I think, but helped me grasp some concepts I struggled a bit before.
I love your username. I have the antlers and star as my only tattoo haha.
Carmilla is that vamp novel that predates Dracula, right? Hope it’s a good read, I’ve wanted to read it for a while but always forget it exists until something reminds me.
That's awesome, I wanted to get a tattoo of the antlers too, but haven't been able to yet, hopefully sometime in the future I get it.
Carmilla is that vamp novel that predates Dracula, right? Hope it’s a good read, I’ve wanted to read it for a while but always forget it exists until something reminds me.
Yes that's the one. I'm only a few chapters in and besides one racist passage it's been pretty good so far. It's much more sapphic than I expected lol. Also the book is very short, I'm just slow to read at the moment.
Is the title a play on Doors of Perception? I really like that cover.
The protagonist hops through a multiverse when falling asleep so seems like Doors of Perception might've been the inspiration for the idea. It's a very fun light sci-fi read.
I use local libraries and bookstores mostly. When I'm reading comics/manga/big publisher fantasy I tend to pirate until I know that I like the series to justify the purchase. For theory I use a mix of the usual Marxists.org alongside my uni library, libgen, and Iskra's pdf versions of their books. I also read a lot of visual novels, usually pirated until I know I like them.
I'm currently rereading two things: The Hobbit as a bit of a comfort read, and Sekien no Inganock since I never got around to finishing it and I found its steampunk mutants setting cool. Unfortunately I forgot that its first chapter's villain is a transphobic stereotype, so I haven't continued it for the past few days. Although I'll probably push through anyways cuz the vibes are so good.
For theory I'm taking a bit of a break now that my exam season is done before I restart reading theory again.
I check with my state library before going to libgen. I got bevins if we burn from the library recently
I used to go to a couple local shops when I lived in the city, but we don't have great book options where I live right now.
I tend to prefer reading in English rather than my local language, so I mostly get books digitally and read them on my tablet. I only very rarely read fiction, but I am reading through Dark Forest again right now as a rare treat. Just before Dark Forest I read Three Body Problem, obviously, and Finkelstein's "Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom".
Yeah most of our remaining book stores also aren’t great. There’s one used book store in my town and it’s run by hardcore Christian old ladies, so they keep anything cool to read out of there haha.
Three Body is a great series, I picked up the trilogy in Mandarin when I was in China, but my mandarin isn’t good enough to read it yet, so it’s mostly a stretch goal for me. I read it in English originally. I’ve listened to so much of Finkelstein, but yet to read any of his books. I might see if my Libby has any available, I bet they’re great if his speeches and interviews are anything to go by.
Yeah I would try to read it in Mandarin but I am pretty sure the technical language is beyond me, at least as of right now. Would love to work into it eventually though.
re: Finkelstein, I think his writing is arguably better than his speeches, you can tell he has devoted his life to that subject. They can be lengthy but honestly they never feel like it.
