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/lit/ - Literature

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14274040 No.14274040 [Reply] [Original]

Would there be much interest in having a /lit/ ebook calibre server available?

I have a nice personal Calibre library, with books available in a few formats, I'm usually a bit too autistic about getting good versions of all books (often retail) and having them properly metadata tagged, with good covers and often ISBN accurate. Then I realized Calibre can host a server that makes all these books easily accessible online, so why not make a little curated library of high quality ebooks, passworded to /lit/ users? I have the time, the autism and the hardware, but mostly curious if there's enough interest here for this kind of thing (most of you seem tech savvy enough to easily download whatever ebooks you want) as well as the obvious legality behind something like this.

>> No.14274659

Seems like a good little thing to have, I would like it OP.

>> No.14274700

>>14274040
>>14274040
You seem like you’d know all about calibre. Can you tell me if it’s possible to import highlights from books on Kindle to my Calibre library? I can’t seem to get the annotations plugin to work.

>> No.14274725

>>14274040
>Do I want this
Yes, very much

>Legality?
probably about as legal as libgen is; but it would be easier to keep the feds out if we treat it like a private torrent tracker –– if there's an anon that lives in a country that doesn't care much about piracy that'd probably be the ideal situation

>> No.14274733
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14274733

>>14274700
I'm not too familiar with annotations on Kindle, anon. Not sure if you've already gone through it but here's a thread on the plugin that's 46 pages long: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241206

Some of the people are complaining about some bugs on the later pages, so there's that.

>>14274659
Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to set up. It'd be kind of a simple home setup but given the size of your average ebook and no data cap, it'd work out. Not sure what I'd do to get a permanent static IP from the ISP though, but I'll figure it out.

The interface looks like a neat little cover grid thing: https://i.imgur.com/csIFtMG.png

And when you click the book you'd have the option to download it a few different formats (I'd have AZW3, mobi and EPUB available for them all) as well as information on it, links to it on goodreads, amazon and such. Here's an example with /lit/'s favorite book.

>> No.14274838
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14274838

>>14274040
Okay this is epic

>> No.14275355
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14275355

Alright, got the basics down, here's kind of a preview of what I'm trying to do. Just a simple library containing the 20 books in the "/lit/ starter kit". Originals are the EPUBs. Not sure if I'll also try to get them on PDF format, I will if it preserves the formatting, since I know some people prefer that. If you click on the top right you can switch it from Cover View into a regular List View.

The address is not ideal, since it's just the IP the library is on (don't worry, I'm behind seven proxies)

Username is "lit", password is "littest", both lowercase. I'll leave it up for a while in case anyone wants to get these particular books and then I'll start working on a bigger library, based off of https://4chanlit.fandom.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading, things like top 100s and such.

Also if anyone has any suggestions apart from just adding more books, I'm all ears.

That's all for now really, here's the link: http://189.61.91.250:8080/

>> No.14275404

>>14275355
Thanks, downloaded a couple.

>> No.14275459

>>14275404
You're welcome. I see all of you silent downloaders there too, that's cool. I'll keep working on the library a bit and keep the server up while I'm doing so, so some new books may start popping up.

>> No.14275480
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14275480

>>14275459
I like this concept and look forward to when you add more books I haven't read.

>> No.14275483

>>14274733
I’ve already gone through that thread, but thanks.

>> No.14275486
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14275486

>>14274040
Monitoring

>> No.14275499

>>14275480
Next up I'll go through this list, some things may prove complicated like adding the "correct version" of the Bible but it should be a lot more complete.

>> No.14275503

>>14274040
haven't downloaded anything yet but thnx anon <3 bump

>> No.14275508
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14275508

>>14275499
Forgot to attach picture, this list. Should add some meat to the library.

>> No.14275912

I can't imagine anyone would have a sustained interest in it unless it were tied to a book club or something like that.

>> No.14276469

>>14275912
That's okay. I don't really mean for it to be a central /lit/ repository or anything, honesty just wanted to share my library with some fellow anons. I'm working on the top 100 right now to make sure they are all metadata'd properly, along with some extras that made it to multiple top 100s of previous years, but not 2018. It will be a while longer but in like an hour I should be able to dump the entire thing on the server, then I guess I'll just leave it up until the thread dies down.

>> No.14276485

I've tried to use Calibre but I can't even highlight text, what's the point? Is there anything like Apple's iBooks available for Windows?

>> No.14277099

Alright, the rest of the books should now be on the server, 123 in total. Instructions for accessing on >>14275355. I'm not an expert on the translations so if anyone has suggestions on better translations or simply adding alternatives for some of the books there, or even just suggestions of any random single books you'd like to see added at all, just let me know. I'm going to stop working on this for right now but I'll read everything people say and fix it, as well as leave the server running until I can't.

Hope this ends up being of some use to someone.

>> No.14277119
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14277119

>>14276485
itoddlers btfo

>> No.14277335

>>14274040
thanks anon

>> No.14277395

>>14275355
Very dope, but how long will you host this for? Are you going to have mirrors? Redirects? I think the idea is great but how reliable is this?

>> No.14277411

>>14277099
How will people add more books to your server?

>> No.14277437

>>14277395
Today I'm mostly just testing it. I'm travelling so this is being run from a laptop and I just wanted to learn how it all works. I'll keep it going for a while so people can download the books here but it's just a proof of concept. Later in the month when I'm back home I'll probably overhaul the library and have it on a PC that's always on.

>>14277411
The plan was for people to suggest stuff and then either just myself or a few people with an admin account add their books. It's just a side project I wanted to get working this morning.

Also sorry if not all files have their .mobi versions available yet, some of it is still converting. "Infinite" Jest really is living up to it's name.

>> No.14277471

>>14277437
Looks nice anon hope you don't abandon it, it gets added to the sticky, and you leave a contact form somewhere to let people suggest books.

Btw you might want to host this on a Russian VPN paid with monero from a tails distro because it'll most likely get reported

>> No.14277476

>>14277471
>VPN
meant VPS

>> No.14277478

>>14275355
Thanks

>> No.14277492

>>14274040
Well you're the uploader so if they come for anyone it will be you. Are you using a VPN or some other security measure?

>> No.14277499

>>14277492
Also I just looked at the books and these are all available as torrents on kat/tpb. It would probably be better if you collected and organised all of the /lit/ books into one torrent and let some of us seed seeing as ebook files are so small

>> No.14277518

>>14277492
>>14277499

Most of them are pretty popular books so I'm sure you wouldn't have much trouble finding them on other sites like libgen or over IRC. The idea is to have a neater interface and with slightly better quality, since downloading 5000 mobis can be a bit of a crapshoot sometimes and it certainly doesn't come properly tagged/with good covers on all books.

And the thing with using a torrent is that it'd be hard to change things. Like if someone tells me they want to add/remove/edit anything, we'd all have to host an entirely new torrent. I don't mind being the host for this stuff. And yeah I have a few security measures, if you check "my" IP's location you'll see.

It isn't that much work anyways. Get a good, well formatted version of a book and you are essentially done forever, unless it has multiple translations. It wouldn't take long to build a strong collection.

>> No.14277527

>>14275355
You are a god's send, i needed something to read.

>> No.14277537

Does anyone here know who the people on #bookz are btw? People like hamsterbacke, bsk, pondering52, Horla, lawdyserver, booklyra, etc. Why do they provide all these ebooks for nothing? Are they honeypots or how does it work?

>> No.14277568

Apparently someone tried this before https://i.warosu.org/lit/thread/2725231

>> No.14277591

>>14277568
He had a neat option where people could upload books too through FTP, maybe I can learn something.

>> No.14278354

>>14277537
Some of them are librarians and university professors. You can actually talk to some of the people behind them in the chat channel. They do it for the same reason anyone would upload a movie or something like that.

>> No.14278488

>>14274040
most redpilled history of mathematics books?

>> No.14278618

>>14278354
But the biggest ones probably have to dedicate terrabytes of storage (some have audiobooks too), open themselves to legal actionn, and support lots of network traffic 24/7

>> No.14279639

>>14277471
>>14277437
get a domain for it as well –– some cheapo one like houellebecq.xyz or something

>> No.14280117

op why not use calibre-web?

>> No.14280175

>>14279639
>>14280117

Good idea, both of you. I'll have it be fancier next time around. I'll shut the server down for now, this seems to work pretty well. Hope you all managed to get what you want and thanks for the feedback!

>> No.14280205

Is this illegal?

>> No.14280591

big problem here is unless the books are obscure or esoteric you can find them easier elsewhere online

>> No.14280879

>>14280591
But not properly tagged you retard

>> No.14281210

>>14280591
>>14280879

Basically, it'd be a first stop. Sure, if you just wanna quickly download a book, I'd recommend something like libgen/b-ok. If you want to get a lot of books and very specific retail editions, I'm sure you can find them on IRC too.

Never read Ulysses or Gravity Rainbow and not sure where to go find them online in decent quality? It'd be right there, easily accessible. After popular books here from /lit/ I'd deviate into popular books in general (say, Harry Potter) and I'm sure there'd be some more obscure/esoteric books because of recommendations from places like /x/, but if I just start adding absolutely anything that comes to mind, it'd be no different than those torrents with 5000 books in them. I don't think many people here would want to wade through 30 "How to use Microsoft Excel" books before reaching the things people read and talk about on the board.

Just my opinion anyways. Probably will pick this back up around christmas time and make a thread when I got something very solid to show already. The thread can go die in hellfire now.

>> No.14281243

Can I asked a general ebook question?
Why do I hate .epubs but like .pdfs? Why the fuck do people like .epubs when they are so ugly? Is it just me? Am I autistic and/or retarded?

>> No.14281263

>>14281243
You hate epubs because you don't actually use an e-reader. You read on your phone or computer like a fucking barbarian.

>> No.14281267

>>14281243
Well, what do you like about pdfs? I'm sure pdf supports way more and is more well suited for a lot of more advanced books, like let's say a computer science book with tons of images and specific ways to build things. It's closer to something like Word .doc file where you can freely edit a lot.

I don't use pdf otherwise because those don't play very well with Kindles, that tend to just display each massive pdf page on a tiny screen, then you have to zoom in. If all you care is the text of a book on an e-reader, epub/mobi will work out way better. Of course, if you are reading things on your pc, I'd imagine pdf is the superior choice, then again I have never actually read anything non-technical on PC or my phone.

>> No.14281315

>>14281210
Also it's a curated collection which makes browsing for books a thing

>> No.14281348

>>14281263
You're right.
>>14281267
I just like how most of the pdfs I download look like actual books when I open them. Maybe I'm downloading shit epubs or need to customize my calibre more.

>> No.14281435

>>14281243
Yeah autistic fuck

>> No.14282292

>>14281210
>Never read Ulysses or Gravity Rainbow and not sure where to go find them online in decent quality?
http://www.joyceproject.com