Best Source for Chinese Ebooks?

[Luxi]

@books I'm sorry the instructions I pasted above are not clear, I think they are for a Linux system, so you won't see those exact folder names. 

 

3 hours ago, books said:

I got the most current paperwhite

 

That may be bad news. I saw somewhere in passing that the latest one may not be compatible with the Duokan software. I used an old Paperwhite with a slightly blotchy screen. Before you go ahead, double check that adding the Duokan software is not going to brick your Kindle. Can you post a question in the in Amazon's Kindle Help Forum? (search in the forum too, it may have been asked before)...Would it be safer to look for an old paperwhite (Kindle Touch are very hard to find, but there must be loads of 1st edition Paperwhites about)  

Assuming it is safe to try with your Kindle model, then go ahead. First, if you have non-Amazon books or documents in it, back them up somewhere safe. When the Kindle connects through the USB, you should see a new volume called 'Kindle' in your Mac, you click on it and the directory you see when it opens is the so-called 'Root Folder'. That's where you should paste a copy of the 'DK_system folder' that you extracted from your earlier software download.

Once you pasted the folder, close the directory and disconnect the Kindle from the Mac. Go into the Kindle settings and look for the 'Update Software' option. Click and let the Kindle do its thing, it can take a while (make sure the battery is well loaded!). Once the software has been installed, the Kindle will reboot automatically and - all going well - when it comes on again, you should have the Duokan system (with an ostrich in it) as well as the Amazon system. If things don't look too good, you can try a hard reboot (hold the off button for a long 25 seconds, until it reboots).

Good luck!

 

 

 

[books]

@Luxi, you are correct! PW3 firmware is not compatible with Duokan.  I need to "downgrade" PW3 firmware to 5.4.3.2,  I have tried several times but failed.  Now, I am reading books from 3 different devices; 

 

in order to read "Chinese books" from Duokan, I use iPod or Mac web platform (there are some bugs problem with Duokan app on android phone, many people downloaded but not able to open it)

 

To read books from Duoban, I use Android phone or iPod and Mac web platform 

 

For my regular books in English, use Kindle PW3.

 

maybe I should look for an used iPad to support my "Chinese hobby".......

thank you for sharing all those useful Chinese book websites, 

 

 

[roddy]

On 10/9/2014 at 9:35 AM, roddy said:

FWIW, I recently registered a new account on Amazon.cn, put in a bogus Beijing address, then had no problems buying Kindle books with a foreign credit card.

Has Amazon.cn tightened up on purchasers of Kindle books? My order history is showing my last purchase was in October, but when I try to buy something now, I get a 'please contact support' message if I claim to be in China (admittedly, my 北京三十号 address is a bit dubious); and a "该商品目前无法进行购买" message when I change to a UK address. 

 

My assumption is they're more worried about us picking up cheap English ebooks - eg, Camus' The Plague is Y9.99 on .cn, £4.99 on .co.uk, so there's money to be saved.

 

I'm happy to put a bit of effort into working around this - would a Hong Kong / Taiwan VPN pass muster? Or is my overseas credit card going to cause a problem anyway?

 

It's quite annoying. I'd thought the days of scrabbling about in the depths of the Chinese internet for a badly scanned .txt file were finally over. Can I still download eMule somewhere? 

 

Edit: Ok, bizarrely, I found the book I was looking for on amazon.co.uk, but in traditional. It hadn't shown up earlier as I was searching by the author's name, which the .co.uk listing doesn't have, for some reason. So problem temporarily solved, but any insights still welcome. 

[realmayo]

I have no problems but I'm not using a credit card: I used to use gift cards to add to my balance, and that worked in the past.

I can't say for sure if it works now: I my balance is in credit at the moment not because I've added to it with a gift card, but because of a refund for a book order which they had to cancel and refund.

 

 

[Expugnator]

Sorry if his has been asked before, but i'm looking for a way to buy VIP audiobooks from Ximalaya (or any other services you guys may suggest).

 

Also, will try to replicate the Douban suggestion. I have both Android and iOs devices.

[Luxi]

On 2/27/2020 at 1:32 PM, Expugnator said:

a way to buy VIP audiobooks from Ximalaya

 

You can buy from outside China through the Ximalaya App in your device. I use the Apple store, it's a little more expensive than buying directly but easy and safe. Make sure you have signed in as a user in Ximalaya  (you can use your Weibo, WeChat, QQ credentials to sign in). The snag is, you can only use your VIP rights on an IOS device (I don't know how it is with with Android, probably the same). Also, make sure you sign in for the Chinese version of the Ximalaya App - the icon with a 听 in the centre, there's now an international version (I think it's called Himalaya in the Apple store) but as far as I can see it offers little of interest to Chinese learners. Now and then you may get a nag invitation from Ximalaya to move to the international app - IGNORE!

 

Chinese audio books are quite expensive. If you're going to use VIP benefits a lot, you may be better off with a VIP subscription, it gives you free access to most (not all) 有声书 and many lectures courses and other series. The annual subscription fee in the Apple store is less than the purchase price of a single lectures series. You can also pay monthly but the fee is higher. Cancelling is easy (through your Apple/Android settings) and there's a handy subscription trial.

 

On 2/27/2020 at 1:32 PM, Expugnator said:

or any other services

 

e.DangDang (green icon for books and audio) has a very good selection of audio material. Again you buy from the app through the Apple (or Android) store, same signing-in method and restrictions as for Ximalaya.  It also offers a VIP subscription that gives you free access to a million or so e-books and several thousand audio-books  (which you lose when your subscription stops)

 

There must be others, just search your devices store,  but signing in, payment, subscriptions and restrictions will probably be similar for all.

 

[roddy]

On 2/9/2020 at 5:11 PM, realmayo said:

I have no problems but I'm not using a credit card: I used to use gift cards to add to my balance, and that worked in the past.

How are you getting these gift cards? 

 

I tried books.com.tw today. Advantages: Easy registration process (didn't even need to validate my email address), only had to fake a Taiwanese mobile number, but (so far) haven't actually had to use that to do anything, took a UK Visa Debit payment happily. Disadvantages: Although it uses the epub format, I can't see any way to read it apart from the their in-browser reader and iOS and Android apps. The in-browser reader seems ok, I haven't tried the apps yet.

 

Out of curiosity I looked to see how much physical books would cost me. £13 postage *per book*.  

[realmayo]

On 4/13/2020 at 10:03 AM, roddy said:

How are you getting these gift cards? 

 

I did all this three or four years ago so my memory might be faulty. But I think:

 

I couldn't use a UK card to buy e-books because (a) I needed a UK address for the card, and (b) that UK address disqualified me from buying e-books

But there was no problem using a UK card to buy other stuff on amazon.cn, such as physical books shipped to the UK.

Or indeed gift vouchers for myself.

 

So I used the UK card  to buy gift vouchers for myself, and added those funds to credit my account.

Then I ahem moved to China and with my Chinese address was able to buy Chinese e-books.

 

I can't remember my amazon.cn login these days so can't check it myself but see if searching for 礼品卡 gets you any joy.

[roddy]

I might have a look, but if I remember correctly the current state of play is that I'm locked out of my amazon.cn account, and activating it, or registering a new one, requires a mainland phone number. 

[Shelley]

"Try Project Gutenberg.

 

This is the result of typing chinese into the search bar.

 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=chinese

 

If you know the title or the author's name you can search for that. You can choose the format to read it in.

 

Only downside (possibly?) is that these are all in the public domain ie. no copyright, so that makes them all rather old but seeing as some books come out of copyright after 50 years this means you could be reading books from the 1970s.

 

This what you get if you choose a book"

 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42290

 

 

The text above is copied from my entry here in the topic https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/59417-few-books-on-kindle-store/?tab=comments#comment-462423

 

I copied it because it saved typing, it is a good source of books and surprisingly of chinese books and other languages too. They are all free. You can choose from several formats to read it in.

[imron]

Project Gutenberg is a fantastic resource in general, however it focuses on books that are out of copyright, so if you want any modern Chinese (or English) works, you're generally out of luck.

[Shelley]

Yes, that is true, I did point that out. Nevertheless its good free resource.

[roddy]

@Luxi made me think of this question - those of you doing Chinese ebook reading, what devices are you using? Has anyone got any of the proprietary Chinese ebook readers - ie, Dangdang's? Using in-browser readers, or apps, or finding liberated copies and sending them to your Kindle?

[realmayo]

I previously bought e-books which I liberated, turned into text files and sent to a tablet where I read them using Pleco's Reader. I know that Pleco would be unnecessary for some and frowned on for its crutchiness by others!

[xinoxanu]

26 minutes ago, roddy said:

those of you doing Chinese ebook reading, what devices are you using? Has anyone got any of the proprietary Chinese ebook readers - ie, Dangdang's? Using in-browser readers, or apps, or finding liberated copies and sending them to your Kindle?

 

For my purchases in Amazon.cn, I usually just convert the .azw3 to .tx/.epub via calibre and send it to Pleco. In the past I've used the kindle app in windows/iOS/Android, and Chinese epub readers that come with a bookstore, but nothing beats the Calibre+Pleco combo tbh (and I'd like to thank @mikelove again for creating such a great resource, it's by far the best tool a Chinese learner might need)

 

I used to have a kindle PaperWhite before. It was great, but too slow for language learners.

 

 

[Luxi]

13 minutes ago, roddy said:

what devices are you using?

 

Most of the above.

 

Primarily, the reader for e-book sellers like Dangdang (Douban, Duokan, Baidu, etc.) comes with the App you use to buy the ebooks. The app readers incorporate dictionary and other useful things like search web. I can also use the website for that same seller which also opens a reader and is much much more convenient when browsing for books (you can try them on the website before buying from the app). I find website reading very handy when it's something difficult full of new words and concepts that I may want to search outside.

 

All the e-book sellers I tried (Dangdang, Duokan, Douban, Baidu, Google Play books and Amazon) have been very good. Not long ago, Duokan cut their links with Apple, at least in UK, but I still have the app with all my ebooks and all is working well, even though the app is no longer available on Apple UK store.

 

If I have the text file, I like sending it to the Kindle to read in the sun. Sometimes use Word to edit, format or play with Word's Chinese tools. Standard e-sellers no longer allow copying e-books as text, but if necessary one can  paste one page at a time on Pleco. For weird new words or Classical Chinese, I paste the text on Pleco or Wenlin.

 

 

[mikelove]

@xinoxanu thanks! Revamped document reader is going to hit 'ready for beta' probably today or tomorrow, as it happens (though still a number of other parts of the app that aren't quite there yet).

[imron]

18 hours ago, realmayo said:

and frowned on for its crutchiness by others!

[Jan Finster]

19 hours ago, xinoxanu said:

nothing beats the Calibre+Pleco combo tbh

 

Lingq does ?

 

Yeah, I use Lingq.com (premium). You can important any txt files and PDFs. I have not tried it for Amazon ebooks yet, but worst case I convert them with Calibre first.

[Insectosaurus]

Anyone know where I can find traditional Chinese e-books? Either free or cheap, since it's books I've already bought in physical form. I just need txt files to scan for characters. Scanning for words works fine with simplified versions, scanning for characters not so much. Ttherefore it's also important it's not been online converted to traditional, but rather is the real traditional edition.