3 Free eBooks – November 2016

There are so many free eBooks to choose from. All three of my picks for this month are from HathiTrust.

Swainson, William. Zoological Illustrations. London: Baldwin and Cradock. 1832. Available from HathiTrust here and three additional volumes on Internet Archive here. The illustrations are a subset of zoology: ‘ornithology, entomology, conchology’ as advertised in the subtitle. I like the red and white shells…color and shape.

Jardine, William. The natural history of gallinaceous birds. Edinburgh: W.H. Lizars. 1834. Available from HathiTrust here. The first illustration in the book was of a wild turkey! I decided to choose another bird just to be different before Thanksgiving. There are some beautiful birds in this groups (much more colorful that our domestic chickens and turkeys).

The Architect: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Art, Civil Engineering, and Building (renamed to The Architect and Contract Reporter. London. Issues from 1869-1885 scanned from University of Michigan available here and from 1869-1922 (with some missing years) scanned from University of California available here. I’ve been making my way slowly through the volumes and up to 1909. As I browse through the volumes and look at the illustrations – I note the ones that are timeless. Can you guess that the illustration was from 1881? Other times I do a search to see if the building was built and/or if is still exists. These volumes are a mix of art and history…depending our perspective.

3 Free eBooks – April 2016

My picks this month range in publication date from 1850 to 2015!

King, Derrick. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand – 9900 km, 7 Weeks. 2015. Available from Internet Archive here.  I liked that this was a book with lots of pictures of these countries…and relatively recent (early 2012). Many of the pictures included people that provides scale to the rest of the structures – such as the tree and ruin in the one a clipped to include with this post. There are other books about his travels that he has posted on the Internet Archive as well.

Thomas, Edward; Cameron, Katherine. The Flowers I Love. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. 1910. Available from Hathi Trust here. I didn’t look much at the poetry…the visuals were too wonderful.

Bacon, M.A.; Jones, Owen. Fruits from Garden and Field. London: Longman & Co., 1850. Available from Hathi Trust here. Skip the poetry (the font makes it a challenge to read and just enjoy the visuals. I liked that the flowers and fruit were almost always included….then maybe an insect as well.