Erstellt am: 29. 10. 2010 - 11:56 Uhr
Today's Webtip: All Hallow's Read
Neil Gaiman is probably at the top of my list of people I would like to meet. Aside from having written some of my all time favorite comics, novels and movies, he just seems to live in an interesting world. A world he very actively shares with others.
Part of that sharing is his online presence. His homepage has loads of excellent content that doesn't scream "Buy Me!". His twitter account is a fabulous source of information and insight, and now he has a new online project.
The idea behind the site is to encourage giving people scary books at Halloween. Age appropriate scary books, of course.
What might sound like another call to commercialisation is actually a pretty nifty way of encouraging people to share the joy of reading. It's not something completely new, as I have run across a few people online trying to get this tradition started, but Neil has put together a special website AND used his rather impressive online connections to actually get this idea out and about.
So, being a bibliophile, gadget geek and Halloween fanatic, I feel compelled to jump on this little bandwagon.
Since I can't really afford to put together a bunch of analog bits to send out to everyone, I'm going to do it the good old fashioned digital way. I know a lot of you might believe ebooks aren't worth your time, so think of this as an experiment. Reading on a mobile device might be better than you think.
But first you need a reader.
For iDevices, my favorite has to be Stanza. It's free, gives you immediate access to lots of free libraries, and it's just generally a joy to use.
www.lexcycle.com
Are you a fandroid? My current reader of choice of the Android platform is Aldiko. It's like a mix of Apple's ereader and Stanza. The best of both worlds I guess.
www.aldiko.com
Windows Mobile? Well, I havent used thta platform for ages, but Freda looks promising: www.turnip.demon.co.uk
You can find software for a wide variety of other devices, many more than I can offer in personal device on. The best starting point is here:
wiki.mobileread.com
Now to the books.
Librivox has a fine collection of Audio books and text files by H.P. Lovecraft. librivox.org
Project Gutenberg has some horror classics. Lots of them. Most of them can be found at their own directory but one or two need to be mentioned that you can't find there.
Night of the Living Dead for example.
Or some collections of Ghost Stories and Occult Fiction
And finally, I found an interesting collection of flash fiction at smashwords that might be worth your time. Super short stories that are just right for this time of year.