Bookcase project

    There are many public bookcases in Germany. The photo shows the one closest to my apartment. Anyone can place no more needed books in such a public bookcase or take books from it without obligation to return them.

    These bookcases and having received a book by an Epicurean friend last year inspired the idea to set up a bookcase on http://www.epicureanfriends.com.

    Preferably, there should be a page on http://www.epicureanfriends.com with the list of books. The format should not be like a forum page but a table which lists the books with author, title and username of the owner, with the option to add photos of the books and comments.

    To minimize the need for administration, any member of http://www.epicureanfriends.com should be able to edit the list.

    A member who would like to get a book from the list sends a private message to the owner to ask for the book and to write the address to where the book should be shipped. Then, the owner sends the book, pays the shipping fee and removes the book from the list, and the requestor gets it for free. It is up to the owner and the requestor to negotiate different terms.

    Preferably, the content of books on the list should be philosophy, science, history, arts, self-help or non-trivial fiction, but there are no restrictions on the content except for spam and material which is restricted by law in some countries such as pornography, calls to commit a crime, Nazi propaganda.

    An alternative way to implement the bookcase project could be that instead of one page with the table of all available books, each willing donor creates a list on the own profile page.


    Please feel free to comment and suggest rules which should be added for the implementation.


    epicureanfriends.com/wcf/attachment/2979/

    I fixed the extra attachment Martin.


    Sounds like a great idea.


    Possibly we ought to expand the list of exceptions so that it includes all books that are overtly modern politics so as to not violate our general forum rules, but in this case I would not consider it inappropriate to trade copies of books devoted to other philosophies or most amy other topic beyond what you listed.


    Over the years I have had people send me books, and lent some from my library, and I think this is a great idea toward building community.


    We can set up a table feature using the "lexicon" tool and allow all registered members of a certain level of participation to edit the list.


    We can set that up and post a link here in the thread.

    Martin that is so nice that they have such big bookcases with free books over there in Germany. I have seen something similar in Oregon, and now even in Georgia where I live, but they are always very small, often with the name "Little Free Library" (and here they often have mostly kids books).


    Maybe the title of the EF forum thread should be something more open, like:


    "User Book Reviews and Free Book Exchange"


    Then also people can post if they really enjoyed a book, or if it is free on archive.com.

    How do we feel about sharing PDFs? ( Don, I'm looking for your input).


    If so, we can add my digital collection to the list of available literature upon request:



    Biblical Epicureanism:

    Epicureanism and the Gospel of John by Fergus J. King (2020)

    Paul and Philodemus - Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy (1995)

    Philodemus and the New Testament Word (Supplements to Novum Testamentum) (2004)

    St. Paul and Epicurus by Norman De Witt (1954)


    Biographies of Epicurus

    Epicurus and His Philosophy by Norman De Witt (1964)

    Epicurus by Gassendi (1660)

    Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius translated by Stephen White (2021)

    Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius translated by Pamela Mensch (2018)


    De Rerum Natura

    On the Nature of Things translated by Cyril Bailey (1910)

    On the Nature of Things translated by Frank Copley (1977)

    On the Nature of Things translated by H.A.J. Munro (1908)

    On the Nature of Things translated by Martin Smith (1969)


    Epicurus the Sage (comic book)

    Epicurus the Sage Issue 1

    Epicurus the Sage Issue 2


    Original Epicurean Texts

    Epicurus the Extant Remains by Cyril Bailey (1926)

    On Methods of Inference by Philodemus edited by George Hadzsits (1941)

    On Piety by Philodemus

    Stoics and Epicureans by Robert Hicks (1910)

    The Art of Happiness - Works of Epicurus translated by George K. Strodach (2012)

    The Epicurus Reader - Selected Writings and Testimonia translated by Inwood and Gerson (1994)

    The Epigrams of Philodemus: Introduction, Text, and Commentary


    Other Literature

    A Few Days in Athens by Francis Wright (1831)

    A Life Worthy of the Gods - the Materialist Psychology of Epicurus by David Konstan (2008)

    Epicurea by Hermann Usener (1887)

    Epicureanism by William Wallace (1880)

    Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity by Catherine Wilson (2008)

    Epicureanism by Tim O'Keefe (2009)

    Epicureans and Atheists in France, 1650-1729 (2016)

    Epicurus and His Gods

    Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition by Jeffrey Fish (2011)

    Epicurus and the Singularity of Death by David B. Suits (2020)

    Epicurus On Freedom by Tim O'Keefe

    How To Be an Epicurean - The Ancient Art of Living Well by Catherine Wilson (2019)

    Lucretius and Modernity: Epicurean Encounters by Jacques Lezra (2016)

    Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism

    Philodemus and Poetry - Poetic Theology and Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus and Horace (1995)

    Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics by R.W. Sharples (1996)

    The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism (2009)

    The Faith of Epicurus (1967)

    The Invention and Gendering of Epicurus by Pamela Gordon (2012)

    The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. 1 by Long and Sedley (1987)

    The Philosophers of the Ancient World: An A-Z Guide by Trevor Curnow

    The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy (2020)

    The Swerve - How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblat (2012)

    The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum

    Yes even though there are numbers of "grey market sites" where they can be downloaded, it's not a good idea to post here and be trading PDFs of modern works that we know to be in copyright, for which distribution would appear to be in violation of applicable laws.


    In addition to books another difficult area is that of PDFs imprinted and downloaded from JSTOR, of which the status is not particularly clear but which seems likely to be controversial.


    I think Martin's main idea here is that of person-to-person forwarding of hard-copy books as in the example in the photos.


    Being one myself, I wonder if this is likely to appeal only to "Boomers," but that doesn't mean we should not do it. "We" (superannuated as "we" are) are probably the only ones who still have hard-copy libraries, and as we "age out" (when the play ceases to please us ;) ) do we really want our books to end up at the local Thrift store when we are gone? Nope.


    Death may be nothing to us but we need to make provisions for our Epicurean books!

    Unfortunately Audible discontinued its "lending" feature last April. That's where most of my 'reading' is done these days.


    Ironically, I decided on Saturday to start reading through a self-curated "banned books" list. I'm keeping track of that on the 'Wall' on my profile. You can finally find out how poorly-read I really am!

    Could we use GoodReads somehow?


    I'm also torn on whether we could have a library of PDF papers we downloaded from Academia.edu or if we'd have to link to them and let people download them from there.

    As to Goodreads perhaps we create an Epicurean section?


    I am thinking that Martin is focused on the community-building aspects of person to person physical books, but Martin tell me if otherwise.

    Quote from Cassius

    As to Goodreads perhaps we create an Epicurean section?

    I'll admit I'm still a novice Goodreads user, but if you create an account (using a general Epicurean Friends email?) you can create lists. Not sure how helpful that would be, but throwing it out there.