I'm back!

I am returned home from a wonderful and lovely time outdoors with friends - time spent paddling in warm, clear waters, swimming, reading, having lovely food (both homecampsite-made and dining out), knitting some socks, looking at the lush greenery, making oodles of bad puns and generally relaxing a lot. It was not only wonderful, but also a much-needed recharge of my batteries.

I spent the first day back going through 300+ emails, and one of those is the reason you get a blogpost today already instead of tomorrow. If you have read German academic books, chances are that you have held one published by de Gruyter in your hands. It's one of those typical academic publishing houses that have a very good reputation, but can be extremely pricey.

De Gruyter has bought up two other academic publishers, namely Akademie Verlag and Oldenbourg Verlag. To celebrate this, they are granting free access to the ebook versions of all the current titles of both publishing houses. The books are in German, but if you read German and need a book from their programmes, this is your opportunity.

Free access is possible until August 31; you find the titles of Akademie Verlag here and those of Oldenbourg here. And if you visit the site, have a laugh at some of the ebook prices they offer - the printed and bound version costs 19.80 €, while the ebook is priced at 198.00 €! (I wonder why... don't they want to sell ebooks too?)