ebooks

I chose to look for H G Wells' book 'The Time Machine' on the Project Gutenberg site - I wonder if Johannes is turning in his grave or delighted about ebooks! - and found three versions I could download, only one of which was not in audio format.

I suppose if you have researched using ebooks you'd know what the 'formats available for download' blurb meant, but it was all Greek to me. I wondered how, if you lived outside the States, you'd check whether the ebook you were interested in was copyright-free in your own country - would that be easy to find out? Here's the link to the page -
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/35

It sounds as though the main problem with the portable devices (like Kindle) for reading ebooks is that they're limited to the titles that manufacturer publishes in their format. However I can see how they might appeal to some people as they allow you to carry a lot more than one book around with you. It'd save a lot of trees if we all used them, as well as other resources (transportation around the world must create a lot of pollution), but they do need power to run and somehow curling up in a warm spot with a cuppa and an ebook reader doesn't quite have the same appeal YET.