Slate's Greatest HitsThe best of our first five years; plus Bushisms, The Road to Chadville, and other downloads.
Updated Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2001, at 7:44 PM ET
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Slate's Greatest Hits: The Best of Our First Five Years
When it launched on June 24, 1996, Slate set out to publish smart, witty, provocative journalism that uses the Web inventively. We've changed a lot since then, but we like to think we're still doing just that. It is in this spirit that we offer Slate's Greatest Hits: The Best of Our First Five Years, a collection of 30 articles, including:
- Dispatches From the1997 Presidential Inauguration, by Karenna Gore
- "Internet Envy," by Michael Kinsley
- "Go ahead—sleep with your kids," by Robert Wright
- "Martin Scorsese: The vicar of cinema," by A.O. Scott
- The Good Word: "Airline English—Why flight attendants talk like that," by Cullen Murphy
Plus much more from your favorite Slate writers.
Price: $2.95
Download:
Click on the button above to buy and download Slate's Greatest Hits from bn.com.
Click on the button above to download the free Microsoft Reader, which is required to read Slate's Greatest Hits and other Slate eBooks.
The Magic of Reading
"How can you have a paperless office, when reading on the computer screen is so awful? We are about to break through that barrier. And everything will change when we do." In this 1999 white paper, Microsoft researcher Bill Hill—who has spent more than 15 years studying typography and reading—lays out the ideas that led to the creation of the Microsoft Reader platform for electronic books. But Hill does more than that: He also explains why we read, how we read, and how we can revolutionize the act of reading on a computer screen. (Note: The Magic of Reading was written in 1999, which is why it refers to various technologies that didn't exist at the time but have since been developed. It also contains some graphics that look best when viewed on a desktop or laptop PC.)
Price: Free.
Download: 
Click here or on the button above to download The Magic of Reading as a free eBook. (File size: 265 KB.) You'll need the free Microsoft Reader software. Scroll down to "How To Get and Use Slate eBooks" to learn how to install it.
George W. Bushisms, The Slate Book of The Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Our 43rd President
Each week, Slate's Chief Political Correspondent Jacob Weisberg collects quotes from George W. Bush, such as, "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family," and "It is clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." We've collected the best tidbits into a book. Download a free sample below, or click here to buy the paperback book.
Price: Free excerpt.
Download:
Click here or on the button above to download a free excerpt from George W. Bushisms, The Slate Book of The Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Our 43rd President as an eBook. (File size 280 KB.) You'll need the free Microsoft Reader software. Scroll down to "How To Get and Use Slate eBooks" to learn how to install it.
The Road to Chadville: Campaign 2000 as Seen From Cyberspace
In July 1999, Slate chief political correspondent Jacob Weisberg filed his first dispatch from the 2000 presidential campaign trail: "Styles of Stiff," about the stylistic differences between Bill Bradley (whom he called "merely boring") and Al Gore ("actually a bore"). Over the next 18 months Weisberg followed Democrats, Republicans, Greens, and Reformers around the country, judging their stump speeches, refereeing their debates, and calling their bluffs—all the way to Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court. The Road to Chadville is a collection of his 154 articles, which were originally posted in Slate's "Ballot Box" department and includes an introduction by Slate editor Michael Kinsley.
Price: Free.
Download:
Click here or on the button above to download The Road to Chadville as a free eBook. (File size 520 KB.) You'll need the free Microsoft Reader software. Scroll down to "How To Get and Use Slate eBooks" to learn how to install it.
Excerpts From the Slate Diaries
In November 2000, Slate published our first paper book, The Slate Diaries, an anthology of the weekly journals that have run in the magazine for the past four years. Sadly, printing and distribution costs prevent us from giving the paperback version away free. But you can read an excerpt right now, for no charge, on your desktop, laptop, or Pocket PC computer. Simply follow the instructions below to read Diaries from Karenna Gore Schiff, daughter of the vice president; radio host Ira Glass; school nurse Leslie Carr; and NYPD detective Lucas Miller; as well as an eBook-only introduction by our "Diary" editor. If you'd like to order the paperback version or see who else is in the book, click here.
Price: Free.
Download:
Click here or on the button above to download The Slate Diaries excerpt as a free eBook. (File size 115 KB.) You'll need the free Microsoft Reader software. Scroll down to "How To Get and Use Slate eBooks" to learn how to install it.
Click here or on the button above to open The Slate Diaries excerpt as an HTML file. (File size 102 KB.)
A Week's Worth of Slate
Every weekday after 6 p.m. PT, you can download an eBook containing every article Slate has published in the past seven days, from each edition of "Today's Papers" to our latest political and cultural commentary.
Price: Free.
Download:
Click here or on the button above to download a week's worth of Slate as an eBook for the Microsoft Reader software. (Scroll down to "How to Get and Use Slate eBooks" if you don't already have the Reader installed.)
Click here to open MySlate, a nifty tool that lets you pick just the articles you want, then save them as an eBook or Web page, print them out, e-mail them to yourself or a friend, or even listen to them.
Sons: George W. Bush and Al Gore
Our first electronic book, Sons, contains the two most influential and talked-about articles of the campaign season: "The Redemption" and "Gore Without a Script." These incisive profiles—of George W. Bush and Al Gore, respectively—were written by Nicholas Lemann and originally appeared in The New Yorker earlier this year.
Price: Free.
Download:
Click here or on the button above to download Sons as an eBook. (File size 180 KB.) (You'll need the free Microsoft Reader software. Scroll down to "How to Get and Use Slate eBooks" to learn how to install it.)
Click here to open Sons as an HTML file. (File size 216 KB.)
How To Get and Use Slate eBooks
You can download this book as an eBook file and read it—using free Microsoft Reader software—on your desktop or laptop computer. You can also transfer eBook files to a Pocket PC device. In addition, we offer Slate eBooks as HTML files, which you can use on a device (such as a Rocket eBook) that doesn't accept Microsoft Reader files. But if you plan to read an eBook on your standard PC, we recommend the Microsoft Reader for its booklike layout and print clarity.
To read eBook files: If you haven't already done so, install the Microsoft Reader 2.0 by clicking here or on the button below. (It's about a 6.75 MB download and requires Windows 95 or higher.)
Once the Reader is installed, click the "download as an eBook" link for the book you want. The file will be saved to your hard drive and, when it's finished saving, automatically opened in Microsoft Reader. It will also be added to your Microsoft Reader library.
Cool tip: When you've opened the Microsoft Reader, hit F11 on your keyboard to center the Reader on your screen and turn the rest of your desktop black. This makes it even easier to read. Hit F11 again to return your screen to its normal, distracting state.
You can also copy any Slate eBook to your Pocket PC device—just sync it as you would any other file. Microsoft Reader is preinstalled on Pocket PCs.
For more information about the Microsoft Reader, see this page.
HTML: Click the "open as HTML" link, then choose File, Save As in your browser to save it to your computer.
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