scribD

I started a free 30 day trial of Scribd on April 15th.  Today I'm at the halfway point of the trial, and so far I've read

Doppler by Erlend Loe
Lazy Days by Erlend Loe
and The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Star Trek / Planet of the Apes issues 1, 3, 4 and 5 (issue two was      
     only posted as a preview, which irked me)
Citizen of the Galaxy issue 1
Bee and Puppycat issues 1 through 6
Ragnarok issue 1
G. I. Joe issue 5
Orphan Black issue 1

I'm in the process of reading
The Deadly Streets by Harlan Ellison
Some Rain Must Fall: And Other Stories by Michel Faber
Seth: Conversations by University Press of Mississippi

and listening to 
Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

And in my library I currently have waiting for me so many books that there's no way I can finish them all before the end of the trial period . . . including The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare, a bunch of Charles Bukowski books, Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford, Fantastic Four Masterworks Volume 4 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby . . . .  

This is looking like a hell of a deal for $8.99 a month.  In fact, since I've been watching Orphan Black I decided to check out the comic book next time I went to Great Escape, then had a thought and looked to see if Scribd had it.  They did indeed have the first issue, which I immediately read.  I'd have spent $3.99 just for that one issue.  And the same goes for the Star Trek / Planet of the Apes crossover series--that would have been $3.99 a pop, so the issues I read on Scribd would have cost me $15.96.  (At least in theory.  The art was so bad and the story so mediocre that I probably wouldn't have bought more than the first issue.)  I've also started taking long walks with my Kindle, and I really need audiobooks to make this something I can continue to do, and Scribd lets me download audio books to my device.  That alone is probably worth the full price of monthly admission.

So I think I'm sold.  At this point my only reservations are (1) there are some things I want (such as Erlend Loe's Naïve. Super 1) which aren't available on Scribd, and (2) it pisses me off that a couple of times I've seen comic book runs with issues missing from the series--like Star Trek / Planet of the Apes missing issue 2.  On the other hand, I've found enough books that I want to read to keep me going for some time, and I've been absolutely gobsmacked once--when I found that they had the Kamandi story from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade issue 2--I don't even know how that's possible.  I'm thinking that I can probably save more than $8.99 a month just in comic books that I'd like to read.  

If you fancy a glimpse, go HERE.

1 Ut ut ut!  I was just browsing around on the Scribd site and put in Naive. Super for like the dozenth time (just in case they decided to slap it in there) and noticed that there was a category called "documents" which had several listing for this title.  When I've looked at "documents" before they've been things written about the book in question, but I decided to have a look anyway, and lo and behold . . . the first document seems to be the complete text of the novel.  Whassup with that I don't know, but I'm going to go read me some Erlend Loe right now.

UPDATE:  May 10, 2015
Nearing the end of the free trial period.  Since then (above) I've slowed down a bit on my Scribd reading, but have continued listening to Silver Linings Playbook, and have finished reading Seth: Conversations, Paying For It, and Ed the Happy Clown.  And the slow down wasn't due to lack of interest or lack of material to read, I just was writing more and started reading I Am Radar by Reif Larsen (real book form) because I happened across it on a visit to the library.  Plus the new Palookaville (#22--must have item, btw) just came out.  I still have a lot of stuff I want to read, so it looks like I'll be following in Chester Brown's footsteps next month and paying for it.  We'll see how it goes.  For now, though, I'm pretty happy.