Get Free Magazines and Newspapers Delivered to Your Computer, Nook, or Kindle

One of the best and most money-saving pieces of software is Calibre, and it gets even better because you can download it for free here. It lets you do so many things with your computer and ebook reader that my only problem with writing an article about it is, which of its functions do I start with?

Calibre will greatly enhance your computer. If you have a Kindle, Nook, or other such device and you do not have Calibre, however, I want to report you to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ebook Readers. You can enjoy its range of newspapers and magazines delivered daily to your computer in PDF format, or if you have downloaded the free software to turn your computer into a virtual Kindle (here) or Nook (here) you can have it delivered in the appropriate format (.epub for Nook or .mobi for Kindle). I have mine sent directly to my Kindle device in the Kindle's preferred .mobi format.

Do I get anything worth reading?

Linda Louise Johnson (her index is worth a visit) asks if the downloads and subscriptions are free (in her comment below). Yes, they are free. A few publications, such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have both free and paid subscriptions. But you can obtain over 260 English language publcations from the United States alone for free. Linda also asks about the memory needed. I just downloaded today's Boston Globe, and it is 1187 KB (in .mobi format). The program folder for Calibre takes up 107 MB on the hard drive.

For starters, how about daily newspapers such as The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, as well as major regional newspapers literally from one corner of the country to the other, from Alaska (The Anchorage Daily News) to Florida (The Orlando Sentinel)?

Get news from such services as CNN, ESPN, FOX News, Associated Press, and United Press International.

Magazines include Business Week, Discover, Esquire, Forbes, Harper's, Harvard Business Review, National Review, The Nation, The New Republic, New York Magazine, New York Review of Books, The Onion, Popular Science, Psychology Today, Rolling Stone Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Time, and USA Today, as well as many others.

Among the available specialized periodicals are Journal of Accountancy, Journal of Hospital Medicine, Linux Magazine, MacWorld, Our Daily Bread, PC World, and Scientific American.

From other countries, you can read The Sydney Mornng Herald from Australia, The Times of India, Macleans Magazine from Canada (as well as a variety of Canadian newspapers), and from the United Kingdom, The Guardian, The Times, and The Daily Mail (among others) as well as many English publications from countries where English is not the first language.

I practice my Spanish with newspapers from my beloved Buenos Aires, such as Clarin and La Nacíon, as well as El País from Spain. Looking at the list, I think you can get material in most languages.

Imagine if you teach in a school or in a home-school, what a periodical library like this could add to your lessons.

Update: Check my "Get Magazines and Newspapers You Want as Free Ebooks" (here). I take a sort of wish-list of newspapers and magazines and discovered how many of them are available for free through Calibre.

Really?

Yes, really. Now, this is free. In general, you do not get the full edition. My New York Times, delivered fresh to my Kindle every day, includes about three dozen articles. The Wall Street Journal has a mix of complete articles and teasers, a paragraph or two, hint that you may want to subscribe to receive all the content. In general, the articles that you receive are complete. They are not Readers Digest (yes, you can get that also) condensations.

How?

Just download and install Calibre (again, the download link is here). From the top of the screen, set your Preferences, and then go to Fetch News, your virtual newsstand, and get what you want. Most days, I will try out something new; sometimes, I will select something in a language I do not know, just for the fun of trying to figure things out.

You can try a periodical once, or if you wish, you can subscribe to it. I have only five subscriptions at the moment: The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Smithsonian Magazine, The New Republic, and Time. I have subscribed to others, but it is as simple to cancel a subscription as it is to begin one.

Temptation, sentimentality and parrots

The biggest problem with this assortment of free periodicals, using Calibre, is that it gives me one more temptation to spend more time at my computer or Kindle. Perhaps if you are considering the purchase of an ebook reader, this might be the final temptation you need.

I am amazed at the recurring theme in comments on my articles on the free software to turn the computer or telephone that you already have into a virtual Nook (here) or Kindle (here) about being sentimental about musty, bulky old dead-tree books. Surely no one is going to be sentimental about newspapers and magazines?

Such ephemera are not friendly to the environment. Besides all the paper that is discarded after a day or so, there is the expense and pollution of delivering it and hauling it away. The high Calibre publications that I enjoy have no physical existence, but as long as my little friend in gray feathers shares a house with me, I will need hard-copy newspapers.

Check this index to my articles on "How to Read Ebooks for Pleasure and Convenience."