3 Free eBooks - August 2014

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for August 2014.

Shelley, George Ernest; Keulemans, John Gerrard (lithographer/llustrator). A monograph of the Nectariniidae, or, Family of sun-birds. London: Published by the author. 1876. Available from the Internet Archive here. The illustrations are the best of this book and there are other books that have the same lithographer also available on the Internet Archive that are worth a look too (although I think the sun-birds book is the best).

Dam, Jan Daniël van; Tichelaar, Pieter Jan; Schaap, Ella; Lins, P. Andrew. Dutch Tiles in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art.1984. Available from the Internet Archive here. I started looking for books that had tile patterns after the Coursera course I am taking on Symmetry used them as part of the introduction to the vocabulary used to discuss symmetry. What do you think of the grapes and pomegranates tiles? Notice that the tiles are rotated to create the pattern (the stems always point to the center).

an hui sheng chu si hai zong zhi hui bu. xiao mie wen ying de ye sheng zhi wu. 1958. Available from the Internet here. This is a Chinese botany book. I always enjoy botanical prints and these were no exception. It was also good to realize that books from around the world are making their way into the archive.

Enjoy these and many other books that are freely available on the internet.