Lots of Free Homemade Puritan Books for the Kindle

Status
Not open for further replies.
Parker234

Parker234

Puritan Board Freshman
Since last January when I purchased a Kindle, I've been hard at work creating e-books of classic Puritan writers that work on my Kindle. I found them for free on different websites and cobbled them together into readable e-Books for the Amazon Kindle. Recently, I started posting them to download for free from our blog, and I thought that of all the people who might enjoy these books, my friends here at Puritanboard would enjoy them most.

I'm continuing to post more and more books all the time, but here are the posts I have so far with the free books in them:

Free Puritan Books Volume 1
Free Puritan Books Volume 2
Free Puritan Books Volume 3 (This one has 11 books by William Perkins, which are not exactly easy to get your hands on in e-format.)
Free Puritan Books Volume 4 (Added on 5/17)
Free Puritan Books Volume 5 (Added 6/1)
Free Puritan Books Volume 6 (Added 6/1)
Free Puritan Books Volume 7 (Added 6/10)
J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism for Free
Free Books by Bavinck and Ridderbos (Added 5/18)
Free Kindle Formatted Church Fathers (Added 6/5)
 
Last edited:
Adam:

I'm looking to learn a bit about these formats and have a question.

You have set these up in the .mobi format. From a quick bit of research, I confirmed that the Kindle will read .mobi, .azm and .pdf formats.

May I ask why you chose the .mobi format instead of either the .azm or the most widely used .pdf formats? Was it for ease of conversion or some other reason?

To put my question another way, I have a lot of .pdf files available on the PCA Historical Center's web site. Why would I want to take the time to convert them to other file formats, particularly if the Kindle will read .pdf ?
 
Thank you so much... Tim Challies is going to be doing a "book club" style of reading a chapter a week of Machen's book... starting in June... Perfect timing! :)
 
Wayne said:
Adam:

I'm looking to learn a bit about these formats and have a question.

You have set these up in the .mobi format. From a quick bit of research, I confirmed that the Kindle will read .mobi, .azm and .pdf formats.

May I ask why you chose the .mobi format instead of either the .azm or the most widely used .pdf formats? Was it for ease of conversion or some other reason?

To put my question another way, I have a lot of .pdf files available on the PCA Historical Center's web site. Why would I want to take the time to convert them to other file formats, particularly if the Kindle will read .pdf ?
Click to expand...

Wayne,

Even though PDF format is better for PCs (and I think iPads too), the Kindle format (.mobi) is much better for Kindles. Kindles read PDFs, but they are a bit clunky (especially if it is not a DX model). You can resize the fonts, search, and use the read out loud function (I think), which you cannot do with a PDF on Kindle. I also think that the azw format is the same (essentially) as mobi, except azw has Amazon's proprietary DRM built in. Hence, no one would make an azw.
 
Well Wayne, the Kindle technically does read PDFs, but I don't recommend PDFs on the Kindle for a number of reasons:

1. You can't change the text size. The PDF is like a frozen image, and you can only zoom into the page.
2. PDFs page turn slowly on the Kindle. It is like making the Kindle load a full page image each time, and so using PDFs is sluggish.
3. PDFs are small. With a 3.5x5" screen on the average Kindle, PDFs look like junk on them.
4. The Kindle text-to-speech function does not work for reading PDFs.
5. PDFs are dramatically larger file size than mobi. Whereas some books can be as large as 50 megs in size in PDF format, the same book, when converted properly to mobi, can be around 600KB.

The mobi format was not necessarily chosen on purpose. The program I use for converting to Kindle format is Calibre, and mobi is the best choice that it offers with full Kindle comatibility. Although I know the Kindle does read .azm, I have no experience with them. I can tell you that the .mobi extension can be changed to .prc without harming the file, so in essence these are .mobi OR .prc files.
 
Hey Adam,

I've got a few Puritan books I've converted to .mobi up on my blog as well here that you might be interested in, and I'm working on converting Owen's Correspondences into a workable kindle format.
 
Once you type "convert" on the subject line when emailing the PDF to your kindle, the document becomes like any kindle ebook, with all the features. It's free if the transfer is made via wireless only. Small charge for sending via 3G.
 
Adam, it only worked on a single book for me, is your site still running ok? I've tried several times and several titles and it always makes an error.
 
Cesar, I'm in the process of moving all of my Kindle files over to Google as my file host. Filedropper sucks, and I'm about to cancel my contract with them. If you look at the newer ones, volumes 5 and 6, for example, they should all work. Of course, if the ones hosted on Google don't work, please let me know so that I can get those fixed. Eventually they'll all be hosted on Google Documents which is a much more reliable service.
 
Parker234 said:
Cesar, I'm in the process of moving all of my Kindle files over to Google as my file host. Filedropper sucks, and I'm about to cancel my contract with them. If you look at the newer ones, volumes 5 and 6, for example, they should all work. Of course, if the ones hosted on Google don't work, please let me know so that I can get those fixed. Eventually they'll all be hosted on Google Documents which is a much more reliable service.
Click to expand...

Thank you Adam, I'll try it now. And thanks again for your great effort. You may want to check what is available here - link below - for your own use and to save you unnecessary work.

http://puritanlibrary.com/

NOPE, it's still not working, I click the right side of the mouse to save target as and it just makes it an html or if I click on nit sends me to google docs.

Please let us know when it is working, since you have very good books that we could use.
 
Cesar, I just tried accessing the blog and downloading the books from Volumes 5 and 6 from another computer and I was able to download immediately, so I know it's not my computer. I'm wondering if anyone else is having this problem.
 
Adam, I already could download some while others still don't work, but I think it's my connection. Thank you.
 
Adam, I don't mean to bump or be ungrateful of your work, actually it is because you had all that work that I'm sure you want it to work.

I tried to download from other laptop with the same mixed results, for instance on the Perkins page only the link William Perkins - Hebrews 11 Commentary

works, but that one link works perfectly every time, I try it as a ref. conect. every time I go back to your website. Well, just to let you know that it still doesn't work on most titles for me.

Thank you anyway, I guess you may be still relocating the files.
 
Still only works Hebrews 11 link on the Perkins page for me, is it telling me I should just read one at a time :) ?

Since that link works fine I imagine it is not my laptop or connect problem and I hope you will fix the other links when possible.

Like Dennis said, thank you so much, it is a blessing to get all these good resources !
 
Same as Cesar - only Hebrews 11 on the Perkins page. Also tried Volume 5, could only access the Mueller, Taylor, and Paton autobiographies. Tried several other pages and couln't access anything.
 
Marrow Man said:
Adam, I bought a Kindle yesterday and am now making great use of these resources!
Click to expand...

Pastor, are you able to download all of Perkins links or only hebrews 11 like me or Mark? I tried once again right now and still only that link on Perkins page works for me.
 
Some of the books wouldn't download the first time I tried--it simply reloaded the page--but if I clicked the download button again, they went through.

It would be nice if you could download them all at one pop in an archive, though.
 
For me here in europe with only an e-book reader as my companien is there a way for me to get these books?
 
Can you guys tell me where is the download button - Parker mentions a Grey button - on the pages, I just don't get it or see it at all.
 
I have friends all over the net telling me that the downloads all work, Cesar. I don't know what could be the problem.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

CuriousNdenver
  • Locked
Any Recommendations for FREE Kindle Books?
Replies
10
Views
3K
Parker234
Parker234
S
  • Locked
Free reformed kindle books!
Replies
14
Views
12K
sevenzedek
sevenzedek
PaulCLawton
  • Locked
Puritan Reformed Journal: Free for Kindle
Replies
13
Views
3K
PaulCLawton
PaulCLawton
reaganmarsh
  • Locked
2 free Kindle books today
Replies
11
Views
2K
C. M. Sheffield
C. M. Sheffield
Richard King
  • Locked
A FREE book for Kindle owners
Replies
0
Views
1K
Richard King
Richard King
Back
Top