An alternative is plain old school irc. I'm not kidding.
Connect to irc.irchighway.net then /j #ebooks then !search <author and/or title>
Receive search results via xdcc which gives you the commands to download that stuff.
Or query one of the bots (e. g. @bsk) and get a list of hundreds of thousands of books that are available and search that for what you want.

I prefer that over ad infested one click hosters with countdowns, link shortener cascades and captchas. I find and get the stuff much faster by using irc.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't #ebooks basically just mirror Libgen?

Among the major book downloading websites, only libgen.li has ads, and only Anna's Archive has a countdown.

[–] obbeel 6 points 3 weeks ago

#ebooks is composed of datahoarders that have a lot of stuff available. You declare the data source you're getting the book from (e.g. Oatmeal) and then the name of the book.

[–] Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not sure if #ebooks mirrors Libgen. I wouldn't be surprised if they copy from each other.

I have allergies against ads, countdowns, etc. The interweb is polluted with that stuff and so are most piracy sites.

I find irc to be much easier to use than the alternatives. Just a click to start hexchat and then it auto-connects to the right server and auto-joins the right channel. All within seconds. I even get my animes from irc like I did in 2005. 😁

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I’m not sure if #ebooks mirrors Libgen. I wouldn’t be surprised if they copy from each other.

It is unclear to me what's the method to upload to #ebooks. I've uploaded some obscure books to Libgen in the past, so I checked whether they're available on #ebooks, and they're not. So... they don't mirror each other. I checked both UnderNet and IRCHighway, and the latter even directed me to these websites in case I'm looking for textbooks. It doesn't seem like an adequate replacement for LG, at least for my purposes.

I have allergies against ads, countdowns, etc. The interweb is polluted with that stuff and so are most piracy sites.

As I've said, this is not a big issue with the sites listed on the uptime tracker I linked. Libgen.is and Z-library have neither (the latter has daily download limits per IP), AA has a countdown (not always), and libgen.li has ads (which I had no idea about until I saw other people mentioning it, thanks to uBlock).

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 3 weeks ago

it's pretty cool that folks are still doing it that way. maybe I'll make an account and suck some dicks

[–] ma1w4re@lemm.ee 47 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Neat. If only I actually read what I download. Ngl, the only book that I've read start to end in the last 8 years was the easy way to stop smoking by alen carr

[–] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 20 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I used short essays and short stories to get back into reading, maybe that approach would help you. They're really old, but try A Modest Proposal or some of the satirical essays by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), they're short and sweet and inspire a desire for more.

[–] maltasoron@sopuli.xyz 19 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

If you like reading older books, check out https://standardebooks.org/. They make nice digital editions of public domain works for free.

[–] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 8 points 3 weeks ago

Nice, looks like a bit more care went into the visual presentation in comparison to Project Gutenberg. Thanks for sharing.

[–] ma1w4re@lemm.ee 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

For me the amount is not a problem. I used to be an avid reader during my teens, I've read under two hundred books during that period, ranging from fiction to romance. The problem usually is that I'm bored reading them now. I'd prefer reading the entirety of GNU C Manual now because it feels more productive. But fret not, when I burn out of IT, quit and touch grass I will absolutely come back to reading my favorite stories, especially the one where a small mousy mouse fell in love with a scary kaiman and they lived happily ever after after surviving through hell together.

[–] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I read a ton as a kid too (probably averaged 3-5 books a week for many years), as an adult it's hard to escape the cycle of wanting to feel productive but I've since tried my best to remember that reading for pleasure isn't meant to be productive in the capitalist sense. It's an investment in your own happiness, in my opinion, and that can be productive in other ways. Trying new genres or quick "summer reads" has helped me not get bored.

I mostly just don't read much because I have other hobbies I like more and tend to watch a lot of video content and browse social media. I didn't really do any of those things much as a teen, other than a bit of Facebook because everyone had it. For me it's not the priority that it used to be, but I have a book server for easy access when I get the urge.

[–] ma1w4re@lemm.ee 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's an investment in your own happiness, in my opinion, and that can be productive in other ways.

I find this profound. Might as well invest in my own happiness right now, it's gonna be a long night anyways 😁

[–] Ilandar@lemm.ee 3 points 3 weeks ago

I find reading books quite meditative and I like the initial challenge of maintaining my concentration for the first 10 minutes or so before I can relax and sink into it a bit. I sympathise with everyone else struggling to read as much as an adult though, it was so much easier for me during childhood. Sometimes I feel a bit embarrassed about how little I read now given how advanced I was as a kid. It feels like I've been wasting a skill/hobby that could have provided me with a lot of happiness and growth as an adult.

[–] weirdo_from_space@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I decided to push my gaming to only evenings because I was unhappy with how much time it consumed, so now I read during the day.

I don't know if you play video games so this may not be helpful to you, but doing this skyrocketed my reading.

[–] DannyBoy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Did it work?

[–] ma1w4re@lemm.ee 27 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It worked immediatly as I finished the book and I didn't smoke for 5 months so far

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 26 points 3 weeks ago

Piracy may have saved your life!

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Edit: replied to gur wrong comment. Sorry

[–] EndofLife@feddit.org 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Unforgivable.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 2 points 3 weeks ago

Hahaha!!!

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Convert them to audiobooks. You don't get the voice acting benefits, but at least you can listen to them while you're doing something else.

[–] ma1w4re@lemm.ee 6 points 3 weeks ago

Been there, done that.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Convert them to audiobooks

You can just do that? Easily and in halfway decent quality?

[–] aTun@lemm.ee 3 points 3 weeks ago

Use @Voice aloud reader on Android.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 3 points 3 weeks ago

On Linux, it's pretty painless. Takes a while, depending on the length.

This is what I use.

[–] MelonYellow@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago

Same here. I've been reading Steven King's The Stand for like 2 years now😆

[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee 4 points 3 weeks ago

It's a very good book though

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 18 points 3 weeks ago

[–] UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 weeks ago

[–] fossphi@lemm.ee 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Is there some more background to this, as in, what happened?

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 weeks ago

It's been offline for like a month, maybe more, I haven't kept track. I don't know any details, maybe there's info on their forums, but overall the owners are quite secretive.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 weeks ago

For years they've managed to keep their indexing (think html, not torrent) online by separating out the indexing from the actual storage. They've only changed URLs once in recent memory. Throughout the years they've stored content in various places. Protected safe havens, compromised websites, and ipfs.

There are still a lot of places in the world where hosting a link to data is not illegal.

Well through whatever methods required it looks like the publishers finally managed to shut down the search/hosting on wherever .is was pointing to.

There is a static IPFS index laying around somewhere so technically the content's still quite available. Along with Torrents.

Well they finally managed to bring it back up somewhere and I don't even care to go and figure out where that is. Just glad they're still around.

[–] Anono14168@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

What is on libgen? Movies? Animes? Songs?

[–] Throbbing_banjo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 weeks ago

Books. They have both non-fiction and fiction. Between this and Anna's Archive I haven't paid for a book in years.