Bukowski books - full text online (1 Viewer)

[Johannes]

Over the years I stumbled over a couple of places on the net, where you can read large bodies of Bukowski-work (up to whole novels) online. Mainly I found them by accident - most of the time through googling certain lines I remembered, trying to get the name of a poem or short-story.

Most of them seem to be located in places you wouldn't expect, like Russia or Argentinia. And some of them seem to disappear quietly after a certain time and never show up again. Or I'm just unable to find them once more.

I don't know how this works concerning copyright-issues and stuff and don't want to cause any problems. Also I don't know how many of you forum-members are or are not already aware of this.

But I just found another one yesterday and so I'm going to link it.Up to my knowledge, there are recently two places like this on the net.

1. http://ebooks.noctis.com.ar/archivos/Bukowski/ (Site is gone. -ed.)
--> where you can read

- Bone Palace Ballet

- Burning in Water Drowning in Flame

- Dangling in the Tournefortia

- Love is a Dog from Hell

- Mockingbird wish me Luck

- Play the Piano Drunk ...

- The Days Run Away ...

- The Last Night of the Earth Poems

- The Rooming House Madrigals

- War All the Time

- What matters most ...

- You Get So Alone At Times ... and

- Factotum (!)

2. http://www.lib.ru/INPROZ/BUKOWSKI/

--> where you can read

- The Captain is out to lunch ...

- A quite large "Short Stories Collection"

- South of No North and

- Ham On Rye (!)

... just follow the links with an (engl.) at the end.

What do you think of this?

 

[Olaf]

Excellent find!

I certianly couldn't sit and read from that site for too long, the glare from the white screen would drive me blind with retina burn, but I suppose I person could print them off...which is a great idea.

Personally, I love the physical book, I'm a materialist in that sense, I NEED the book, I want the book, the object, the artifcat, the pretense! But, great find nonetheless!

:D:D

 

[roni]

Gorgeous!
Thank you!

 

[adrian]

It's difficult to sit at the computer and read entire online books so I've downloaded a couple of them from Emule and printed them. Same with the poems

 

[ESO9]

Great, but I don't know. Isn't there a copyright laws? I mean, come on...

 

[Bukfan]

Great finds! Of course, most of us have the books already, but for those who don't, it's a goldmine!

 

[hank solo]

I'm sure those txt files could have some use ;)

 

[roni]

sure, I prefer reading in a real book WAY before onscreen.
but it's great for research!
just looking up words like "Jane" or "Mahler" or "art" or "people" or whatever topic you're on. You can't beat a full-text-database for such reasons.

 

[bospress.net]

I hate to sound like a copyright bitch, but it pains me a little that anyone can buy a $5 paperback, unbind it, autofeed it through an OCR scanner and then distribute it free to millions. So now Ecco makes less money, Linda makes less money, etc. I know, I'm not going to be popular for this stance, but if we cannot convince people like Ecco that there is money in publishing poetry, then for what other reason would they publish it? They publish Bukowski to make money, period. If they make no money, they will not have an interest in publishing any new Bukowski books and may not care to continue to reprint older books. This is probably not going to happen, but for a lesser known poet, this could be a huge problem. What publisher would spend the money to publish a book of poetry knowing that the 2000 people that would actually buy it will probably just download it free and that his 2000 copies will sit in a warehouse (or his garage, if he is like me)?

On a similar point, soon before (?) Krumhansl's book came out, it was released on the internet as a .txt file. The ENTIRE book was released in one easy file. It was almost immediatly pulled (for VERY good reason). I secured a copy and use it to maintain my inventory (I do not have the heart to write in an actual book), but how many others would spend $50 or $75 for a book, where they already have the full text? I'm so sick into Bukowski, that I bought a regular copy and a numbered copy....

Bill

 

[hank solo]

Of course you're right Bill.

Digital versions of these texts are very useful, but do not surfice for reading purposes, and obviously they don't have the collectable quality of the actual books.

I'm sure that almost everyone prefers to have a book for reading purposes.

Despite the various pocket technologies that have the capability to display ebooks and this type of text, I can't imagine that reading from an actual book will ever be improved upon. A good book is a perfect object.

 

[Johannes]

@ all: you are very welcome.

I have to agree with all your points, Bill, hank solo and roni.

This kind of thing sucks from the publisher-author viewpoint but will probably never be able to do some serious kind of damage as in the music-industry because reading longer texts or even entire novels on the computer-screen simply sucks. And copy+paste+print seems to much work and flying paper. The book IS the perfect medium so far.

On the other hand it IS great for research and study purposes.

Also I got the feeling that it was originally one guy wo made it online and a couple of others copy+pasted the content. I remember the content of the russian page on at least two other pages (with and without "The Captain is out to Lunch ..."), both with an .com ending, if I remember it right.

The one from Argentinia sort of sticks out and is by far the one with the most texts online I've ever seen.

 

[mjp]

People have kind of come to expect that everything they want will be freely available online. I get email all the time along the lines of, "Your database sucks! It should show the whole poem, not just the title!"

But reading online, I have to agree, is painful. Bill can back me up on this, but books are laid out the way they are for a reason. The format has been perfected over centuries, and when you deviate from that basic format the text becomes more difficult to read and concentrate on.

And online, forget it. You'd have to be a masochist to read a novel online. I have the OJ Simpson book here in a PDF and I can't get through 3 pages of the thing.

Oh wait, that's because it sucks so bad!

Never mind.

 

[gordanflash]

why all the simpathy for those publishers who ignore works by authors because it is a risk to their profits. then after the author is dead or nearly dead they start to pick him up and proceed to make money on works the author never could. I think all information should be available on line including music. bookstores and music stores make money because of their convenience and collectablility and always will. Just one question to everyone who thinks books and music will cease to be published once the majority of work is online what the hell do you think of libraries? radio stations? anyone? don't they just give exposure to an author and generate interest by the individual who eventually becomes hooked and buys the book.

 

[bospress.net]

i think that you are a troll....

 

[mjp]

This may be our friend from Michigan who we have to ban under a different username every once in a while. Same idiot "points," same idiot spelling, Michigan IP address, blah blah blah, yawn.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

It is nice to know this web site is closely guarded. The dogs of Buk Net at the ready. Cutting the crap. Being there. Knowing all.

Ahh, security and peace. Thank you.

 

[1fsh2fsh]

This may be our friend from Michigan who we have to ban under a different username every once in a while. Same idiot "points," same idiot spelling, Michigan IP address, blah blah blah, yawn.

Damn Michiganders....:rolleyes:

 

[rjwink666]

is this the future? will there be something like itunes or napster for literature

 

[HerbertWells]

thanks. it gonna be interesting to read Bukowski in English (to say nothing of the fact Charles himself behaves like a real russian.Guys,if u have an opportunity to go to Russia, u'll make sure z i'm not kidding)

 

[ESO9]

But reading online, I have to agree, is painful. Bill can back me up on this, but books are laid out the way they are for a reason. The format has been perfected over centuries, and when you deviate from that basic format the text becomes more difficult to read and concentrate on.

Agreed. I prefer to hold a book in my hands and read. My eyes start bleeding after a few pages of a PDF file.

 

[Danny Mac]

Books Rule. You can take a book to the park, on a train, on a plane, in a car, at a bar, in a bed. You can read next to Ned, you can read next to Char. You can take a book on a trip, you can read just a blip. Books are great. PDF files doesn't rhyme with anything. Plus you can collect books which you can store in a nook. You can keep your computer files. I would float them away, down the Nile.

 

[hoochmonkey9]

yeah, and I don't like green eggs and ham either.