I’ve wanted to get back into reading G. K. Chesterton, but I wasn’t very happy with any of the EPUB editions of Heretics out there, so I’ve made my own. Since, um, that’s what I do. At least with public domain books.
Anyway, head on over to the book page to download it in EPUB or Kindle formats.
I should also add that this is my first release in a new category, Inklings. Many of the Inklings’ books are still under copyright (C.S. Lewis only has Spirits in Bondage in the public domain, for example), but there are still authors and books that influenced them or that they mentioned in essays or letters, and that’s what I’ll be publishing in that category — G. K. Chesterton’s works, George MacDonald’s works, A Voyage to Arcturus, The Worm Ouroboros, etc. Basically, anything related to the Inklings that’s in the public domain.
Update: I’ve finished and released this. Sorry it took so long.
This isn’t done yet, but it’s coming along nicely:
It’s a study edition of the Book of Mormon, with extra large outside margins and more line spacing so there’s plenty of room for taking notes. I’ve also moved the verse numbers out of the way so the text stands on its own.
When I finish it, I’ll release a free PDF on here as usual and make a paperback perfect bound hard copy available on Lulu at cost. (It’ll probably be around $20 plus shipping. I asked my local copy shop how much it’d cost to print and bind this — around 580 pages — and they said $60 for the printing costs alone, so it looks like Lulu is going to be much, much cheaper.)
An itch scratched: md2epub, a Python script for making an EPUB out of Markdown files.
All it takes is a simple book file, which gives the script some basic metadata about the book and then lists the files that need to be included. The script runs Markdown on the files and makes an EPUB.
# Sample book file for md2epub
# 9 Jun 2010
Title: My Sample Book
Author: John Doe
Language: en-US
URL: /books/my-sample-book/
CSS: content/style.css
# Chapters
Foreword | content/foreword.text
Chapter 1 | content/chapter_1.text
Chapter 2 | content/chapter_2.text
Chapter 3 | content/chapter_3.text
# Images to be included
Images: images/illustration1.jpg, images/illustration2.jpg
Image: images/illustration4.jpg
And then you just run “md2epub myfile.book” and voila, instant EPUB. I’ve already used it on my Pearl of Great Price reader’s edition (which I’ll be releasing shortly) and it works like a charm.
Last but not least, the code is based on my friend Matt’s script GetBook.py. (And, in fact, that’s where I got the idea for this script.)
The only people for me, are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
From Erik Routley’s bit in C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences, as found on The Inklings:
I know myself what others know far better — how unfailingly courteous Lewis was in answering letters. I think I corresponded with him on three or four occasions… But there was a reply every time — it might be quite brief, but it was always written for you and for nobody else. I think this was his greatest secret. He hated casual contacts; human contact must, for him, be serious and concentrated and attentive, or it was better avoided. It might be for a moment only, but that was its invariable quality. That is not only why so many people have precious memories of him; it is also why he couldn’t write three words without the reader’s feeling that they were written for him and him alone. It’s why his massive books of scholarship read as delightfully as his children’s stories, and why he’s one of the few preachers who can be read without losing their message.
