A Weltanschauung - 31 Downloads
The download button above enables you to download a free ebook in epub format to your own device (PC, Tablet, Mobile Phone). You will see the file’s name is A-Weltanschauung-Zeno-the-Stoic.epub and the file size is around 6 mb.
I haven’t written a fancy introduction or included any further comment at all. Its simply an ebook version of this website for those who find, like myself, that it is a great deal easier reading an ebook than endlessly scrolling through websites.
As I have often said before, my only real purpose in writing was originally to explain the world to my own satisfaction. My essays have become my garden. Like Candide, I have ceased to wander.
These days I like to imagine my plea for peace and meditation may make some small mark on a troubled world.
The front cover features a painting by Poussin – Et In Arcadia Ego. A momento mori. A suitable reflection on the transience of earthly life.
The ebook contains every post on this website from its inception in March 2018 up to and including 3rd March 2026
Each post has an image and the text of the post. I have not included the comments made on posts (if any) nor clutter like menus which would have greatly increased the file size and made the book far less readable.
The total number of posts is 380.
EPUB (short for “Electronic Publication”) is the global industry standard for digital books. Unlike a PDF, which acts like a static “digital photocopy” of a physical page, an EPUB is designed specifically for screen-based reading.
Key Characteristics
- Reflowable Text: The most important feature. The text automatically adjusts to fit any screen size, whether it’s a small smartphone or a large tablet. You won’t need to “pinch and zoom” to read.
- Customizable Layout: Readers can change the font size, typeface, line spacing, and background color (e.g., switching to “Dark Mode”) to suit their preferences.
- Open Standard: It is a non-proprietary format maintained by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), meaning it isn’t owned by a single company.
- Technical Structure: Under the hood, an EPUB is essentially a “website in a box”—a ZIP archive containing HTML files for text, CSS for styling, and images.
Compatibility
- Supported Devices: It is the native format for almost all e-readers, including Kobo, Barnes & Noble Nook, Tolino, and PocketBook.
- Kindle Support: While Amazon previously ignored EPUB in favor of its own formats (MOBI/AZW), modern Kindle devices now support EPUB files sent via the Send to Kindle service.
- Apps: You can open EPUBs using free apps like Apple Books, Google Play Books, or the Libby app for library loans.
See the following link to download the file onto your kindle:
It works very well. Kinde is the only ebook reader I use and I have not tested the file on other devices but it should work fine.
I have downloaded your ebook to my kindle and it works perfectly. Its quite easy to select a post from the list at the beginning and jump straight to it. I will enjoy browsing some of your posts that interest me. I’d also be interested to know how you produced the ebook. Is there an app or site that does everything automatically, or did you have to do a lot of manual formatting?
I ask because I have thought of doing something similar. My sister found an on-demand publishing website that had software that automatically converted her wordpress blog posts into a book which could be on-demand printed as a book. I think she was able to select the posts she wanted to include, but their order was determined by their post dates. I was thinking of doing something similar, but this might be a preferable format.
I’ll get back to you with more details if you need them but basically download a free app on your laptop called Calibre. This has an option to download “news” using “recipes”. The trick is drafting a “recipe” to do exactly what you want, based on the structure of your website. There are examples of recipes but I coded my own using VS Code (an IDE) and Python etc. I also made extensive use of Copilot for GitHub which is very useful AI. I’m not sure how familiar you are with coding but it’s all fairly simple if you are. If not, see if there is a ready built recipe which does the job. You will probably need some familiarity with HTML structure to do all this. Once you have the basic epub file, you can then polish it with the Calibre Polish option. Needless to say, all this took me quite a few days. That always seems to be the case with any software project. If you don’t have all this experience it’s probably better to hire someone to do it for you. Best, A
On reflection my taxonomy could use an overhaul. I’m going to replace my rather chaotic old structure with a new one I generated using Google Notebook LLM. Which read the whole book and then came up with a new scheme. There are various plugins you can use to change all the categories and tags but to be honest it seems easier to me to do it myself using Python and the WordPress API
Oh, and it’s all free
“my only real purpose in writing is to explain the world to my own satisfaction”
I grok.
My conscious/stated purpose in most of the articles in my 7 or 8 blogs is/was “Look what I found!”
Concurrently–to continue my education in the liberal arts, which was mostly neglected in my college and university training.
Thank you for this valuable collection of observations and insights.
Great blogsite. Very creative.
Very kind. Thank you for the most welcome feedback.