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Best place to find college textbooks! Share yours and request from others. Ideally they should be free or cheap! (Not full price etc). See 1st post for all amazing links to download PDF and ePub ebooks/etextbooks. /r/TextBook is now Online. Hope it helps you save money for other things to use at college :)

UPDATED SITES AND SOURCES FOR FREE BOOKS

This used to be in textbooks*, but that sub (along with textbookrequest, which shadowbans/censors free links etc, has been taken over by a greedy bookseller who has removed this message, and only wants to make money. While there is no harm in buying cheap textbooks, all options should be given, esp free ones.*

Add all the list of places where you can get cheap/free text books!

Goal is to be able to get textbooks to students for free/super cheap (hopefully free)

The first if obviously LIBGEN , the best place for ebooks!

Any ebook shared with us, we upload on libgen - Msg me and I'll try and get you what you want , though I've graduated now and don't have as much time, I still try and keep uploading new textbooks to Lib gen/zLib. If you end up buying one from someone here on reddit, do please share with me and I'll upload it :) There are people here who sell textbooks but their prices are slightly higher. Make sure they are legit from buying from them.

Custom search engine script that searches through many free sites: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=b1e7d762449d340d5

More resources:

( They are not in any order. Also be careful, some of these sites try to make you download viruses so be careful. Tell us which sites are clean and which are not so clean and which should NOT be here! We try and remove all the malicious ones - ALWAYS USE AN ADBLOCKER )

Do please tell us if you know of any more.. If any of the above site doesn't work, please tell us that too. Also add comments etc below or message me and we'll try to add them here for guidance.

Before buying from anyone here, make sure their ID is old, have some comments and successful orders. Too many scammers nowadays :( Also if you end up buying ANY textbook, pls also send a link to me ( u/blainemeans2 ) so I can upload it to Libgen OR you can upload it there directly so everyone benefits! That would be huge!!

IF you can't find it anywhere, but its available on VitalSource, you can order it from ToF Books Custom (Domain updated from dot com to dot org) (they charge $23). - Make sure its available on Vitalsource.com first (basically they can rip mostly any ebook from vitalsource).

BEWARE OF SCAMMERS MESSAGING YOU ABOUT BOOKS. THEY USUALLY WON'T MESSAGE IN THE SUB FIRST

Known scammers: https://www.reddit.com/r/textbook/comments/10gsnyz/increasing_scammers_please_do_your_due_dilegence/ (Mods will try and keep this updated but please do your due diligence)

Updated post & links on 30th June 2023 - Publishers have been very active and taken down MANY MANY sites!! Some changed domains, some are gone forever.. - PM me for any updates and good sites

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8 Of The Best Websites To Find And Download eBooks For Free

If you're an avid reader or audiobook listener, you've probably explored Amazon and similar sites for your next great read. However, did you know there's a treasure trove of free books available at your fingertips? 

While there are dedicated e-readers, the associated costs of purchasing books through their platforms can get pricey. The good news is that the following websites are great places where bookworms can find and download ebooks — and even audiobooks — for absolutely free. If you're missing the library vibe, several of these sites allow users to borrow digital titles, just like you would at your local public library.

Of course, clicking on a link that promises free products online can sometimes feel risky. However, rest assured that every site mentioned in this list has been verified to genuinely provide free ebooks or audiobooks in various file formats. Additionally, these sites are user-friendly and completely legal for downloading content — after all, nothing is worse than clicking on a free link only to receive a free virus or a DMCA violation.

Modern technology has made it easier than ever to read a wide range of books and grow your digital library without breaking the bank. Here are eight of the best websites to find and download ebooks for free.

For free physical books, you turn to your local library. For free ebooks, the solution is OverDrive , a digital library platform offering patrons access to a vast collection at no cost.

Overdrive is a system used by public libraries around the world. It makes it easy for you to find the books you're looking for and download them directly to your Kindle or device, completely free of charge. The system works just like a library. To sign up, simply input your local library account information and then select which books you want to check out. The books are then downloaded directly to your device for a set duration, usually about two weeks. When it's time to return the book, the lending license expires and is automatically made unavailable so that the next person can download it.

While OverDrive provides a convenient and legal avenue to access fresh ebooks outside the public domain, there is a limitation to note. Due to copyright restrictions, each ebook has a set number of licenses available for lending. This means that, at times, you might encounter a waitlist for popular titles. The system ensures copyright compliance, preventing unlimited duplications of a single ebook. So, while OverDrive offers an exceptional free and legal resource for the latest reads, you just may have to wait in line for really popular titles.

Internet Archive: Open Library

Have you ever considered the monumental task of archiving the entire internet? While it may seem impossible, that's exactly what the Internet Archive is attempting. Founded in 1996 during the rise of public internet access, the Internet Archive: Open Library is an online library and repository whose mission is to archive as much of the digital world as possible, including websites, music, and ebooks.

The Internet Archive is the largest repository of historic website data with snapshots dating back to 1996 that capture the evolution of websites over time. You could spend hours reliving the '90s internet in the Wayback Machine . The site's digital library has an impressive collection of both public domain titles and copyrighted works shared with appropriate permissions. All content on their platform is accessible to the public at no cost.

The site hosts millions of books and different texts that are freely available for download, making it one of the easiest places to find free ebooks online.

Google Play Books

Google Play Books is another easy way to fill your digital shelves with paid and free ebooks. The app is incredibly intuitive, making it easy to store and organize your digital library by genre, series, or any other criteria. If you do end up purchasing a book, it stays with your account forever, granting access to it on any of your devices. The app also has a massive library of free ebooks that anyone can access with their Google account.

It may take a bit of looking and adjusting filters in their store, but Google Play Books has over 10 million free ebooks available for download. There's no cost or subscription fee. Users can simply browse through the listings and choose the ones they want to appear in their Google Library.

Many of the titles for free are public domain works that are free from copyright laws. This category includes timeless classics and favorites such as the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However, the free offerings don't stop at the classics. Google Play Books also showcases an extensive list of contemporary works that have been submitted by authors or requested to be made publicly available.

From acclaimed New York Times best-selling authors to budding literary talents, Google Play Books has something for everyone. You can also take advantage of their occasional promotions, where you can snag modern titles at a steal or even for free.

BookBub isn't a library or an ebook repository, but signing up for an account will definitely help you find ebooks for cheap — and occasionally even for free. When major platforms like Google Play host flash sales or offer ebooks at reduced prices, BookBub monitors the retailers and sends out alerts to subscribers.

Upon registering with BookBub, users can specify their literary preferences by genre or book type. That way, whenever a deal aligns with your reading tastes, BookBub promptly notifies you about the discounted price and the corresponding retailer. This makes BookBub an easy way to fill up your hard drive with free and legally downloaded ebooks.

Beyond mere alerts, BookBub fosters a vibrant community of avid readers. The platform encourages user-generated content, including book recommendations tailored to your favorites. For instance, if you're a fan of "The Lord of the Rings," fellow users might suggest diving into "The Wheel of Time" series. It's a friendly community of book lovers, and most are more than happy to chat about their favorites.

Drawing from its Latin roots, Libri (books) and Vox (voice), LibriVox is a vast repository that offers a plethora of free audiobooks to the public.

Largely, the collection at LibriVox contains public domain works, making it less likely to offer contemporary titles. The platform's main mission is to ensure audiobooks are available to anyone with an internet connection. This is a daunting task since audiobooks typically require extensive production and drastically increase the price of a book. However, LibriVox manages to offer them at no cost, thanks to the dedication of volunteers who record the books. These volunteers range from ardent fans of the literature to professionals, ensuring a rich and immersive listening experience.

For those who prefer a synchronized reading experience, LibriVox often provides links to the exact text referenced during the audio recording, consolidating the search for both ebooks and audiobooks . The platform's admirable mission has significantly expanded public access to literary works. For those inspired by the cause, LibriVox welcomes new voices, offering an opportunity to volunteer and contribute to their ever-growing collection.

Initially established in France, Feedbooks has grown into a globally-recognized digital library and publisher. It works similarly to Google Play Books in that it offers a wide range of ebooks, both paid and free.

On Feedbooks, users can easily access thousands of free ebooks, either through their user-friendly app or their online platform. Once a book is downloaded, it remains in the user's account, available for direct reading via the app. Additionally, like other online book retailers, Feedbooks periodically offers special deals and flash sales, giving opportunities to get books at substantial discounts or entirely for free.

What sets Feedbooks apart is that they don't specifically cater to English text. While many platforms provide ebooks in various languages, Feedbooks prioritizes offering a wide linguistic range. This includes, but isn't limited to, French, Ukrainian, and Spanish. Furthermore, to cater to diverse reading preferences, their ebooks are available in formats compatible with Android, Kindle , and Apple devices.

Manybooks began as a platform to help fledgling authors publish their works and gain a following. It has since evolved into a comprehensive repository for ebooks. All of the books on the site are completely free and legal to download.

While Manybooks collection includes a wide range of public domain works, the best part is how the site helps to promote new authors. It is used as a starting point for authors to publicize their books, get feedback from readers, and start to build an audience. Many authors will post the first book in a series for free as a strategy to engage readers and solicit feedback. This approach paves the way for readers to discover lesser-known yet talented writers.

Using Manybooks is very easy, thanks to its intuitive interface. Users can easily filter their searches by genre or explore unique combinations. It's a great way to explore works that you may not otherwise find. Beyond its free library, Manybooks also curates newsletters and author spotlights to aid subscribers in finding interesting reads.

Project Gutenberg

Established in 1971, Project Gutenberg has been a pioneering force in the free distribution of ebooks to the public. Its enduring mission is "To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."

Named after the Gutenberg press, its founder, Michael Hart, envisioned the computer's important role in storing and spreading information, particularly books and literature. He recognized that once digitized, information could be endlessly replicated and shared, enriching society through free access.

Today, Project Gutenberg offers thousands of public domain works and legally submitted content for download within the United States. For those outside the US, it's crucial to check your nation's copyright laws before downloading.

Beyond ebooks in various formats, Project Gutenberg also provides a diverse range of audiobooks. This collection includes both human-narrated audiobooks by volunteers and voice actors, as well as AI-generated readings, offering users a broad spectrum of listening experiences that might otherwise not be available.

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12 sites where you can read full books online.

To enjoy reading books, you don’t need a tablet or e-reader. You can read entire books online, completely legally, in an internet browser on your computer. The most popular sites are listed below.

The internet is the ultimate tool for finding answers and items we need. With a vast majority of products available from online stores, you don’t have to leave home to get anything that’s on your wishlist, including books, movies, games or audiobooks.

The best thing is that you don’t have to wait for delivery. Most books are digitized and it means you can start enjoying them in a matter of seconds. It’s just a matter of finding the most convenient – and fully legal – online source of books to read.

World’s most beloved classics are available online for free. They are the so-called public domain books . They are free because their intellectual property rights have expired, and everyone is entitled not only to download and read them but also remix and reshare.

Institutions like Project Gutenberg or Internet Archive digitize public domain books and make them available for free through their online catalogs.

Unless you are determined to create a stunningly large personal collection of ebooks, you don’t have to deal with copying and converting files. You can read books the moment you find them in one of the sites listed below.

But what “read books online” means exactly? It means you won’t need any of these:

• A dedicated device, such as a Kindle e-reader
• A tablet with a book reading app installed
• An ebook reader application on your computer
• An extension for your internet browser

All you need is a computer connected to the internet and the internet browser of your choice, such as Chrome, Safari, or Firefox.

When it comes to paid books (and it doesn’t matter whether you want to buy a print or ebook version), free book previews are a standard feature offered by many online bookstores, including Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

The free previews account for approximately 15% of the paid book. It’s long enough to make a decision whether to order a book or not.

The sites listed below are the ones where you can read books online from the first to the last page. In the detailed descriptions, we have included a choice of titles and tips how to improve the reading experience.

One big disadvantage of reading books in the web browser is that you have to be connected to the web. What if you’d like to read books offline? One way is to download web pages to your computer and open them from a downloaded file directly in a browser.

A much better way is to download an ebook file and use an e-reader, such as a Kindle , or one of many book-reading apps available for iPad , iPhone, Android tablets and smartphones, and almost any other mobile devices.

Most of the sites listed below offer an option to download files in several formats. All you have to remember is the correct format. Make sure to download:

• mobi file – if you own a Kindle or Amazon Fire tablet.
• epub file – if you own iPad, iPhone, Kobo, Nook, or Android device.

Would you like to add any site to the list? Let’s contact on social media. We are waiting for you on Twitter and Facebook . Thank you for dropping by. You’re awesome as always!

Read full books online – here are 12 best sites

1. project gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg is a mother of all ebook sites. It started in 1971, when the world’s first ebook was created by Michael S. Hart. It was “Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” and you can read it right away in a next tab of your internet browser.

Many sites that offer free ebooks from the public domain use the titles created and uploaded to Project Gutenberg.

Currently, there are over 60,000 public domain books in the catalog. If you’re looking for great classic books, Project Gutenberg is the best destination to explore.

To read the book in your browser, simply click “Read this book online: HTML” option on the list of available formats.

The option to read the book online displays all elements of a book. You will be able to see the original cover of the book, as well as illustrations inside. You can also navigate the book easily using the table of content or click on hyperlinks inside the file.

There is one more benefit of a html file opened in a browser. This file is searchable. You can use your browser’s find tool to search for words inside the book.

You can start exploring Project Gutenberg from the list of the most popular ebook downloads . The world’s most loved and adored books are here: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Bram Stoker’s Dracula , Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, works by Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain’s A Tale of Two Cities , Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, or Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre . And it’s just the beginning!

2. Internet Archive

Internet Archive, founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization offering free access to digital or digitized content: books, images, videos, or audio files.

The catalog includes over 25,000,000 fully accessible books and other text files. From here, you can also start browsing a collection of 1.3 million contemporary ebooks that you will be able to borrow for free once you register an account. The ebook section can be reached at:  archive.org/details/texts .

Use the search box in the top right corner to find the book. By default, the list of results shows collection from popular libraries. You can sort the results by relevance, views, title, and the date of adding the item to the catalog.

You can use the tools on the left side to narrow down the list of results by collection, media type, availability (free or to borrow), language, or creator.

To start reading, just click on the arrows in the bottom bar of the image of the opened book. You can enter full screen by clicking on the full-screen toggle in the bottom right.

The online viewer presents the scanned pages of the book, what brings an extra flavor to reading. There are many ways to go through the content of the book, including one-page view, and zooming.

One thing to keep in mind is that the content of the book is fully searchable, let not the scan mislead you. Use the search bar in the top right corner to find a word. All found instances will be marked in the progress bar at the bottom.

One of the most amazing things on Internet Archive is the text-to-speech function. You can turn it on by clicking on the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the book viewer.

What’s worth highlighting is that the Internet Archive hosts a vast number of foreign-language books. There are over 20 languages with the number of published text works exceeding 1,000 each.

3. Open Library

Open Library is Internet Archive’s separate project, focused on collecting library records. Its goal is to create one web page for every book ever published. On a page of a single book, you’ll find all its documented editions.

Compared to the Internet Archive, with its vast catalog and advanced search features, the Open Library website is simpler and more user-friendly, and you can find the books you need much quicker.

When you go to  Classic Books  section, you will find over 3 million books that are “accessible,” which means they are free to read online or download.

Once you find the book, you will immediately know whether you can read it online or not. Just look for the big blue “Read” button. When you hover open the headphones icon, you will be able to listen to the audio version.

Click on the Read icon and you will be redirected to a full-screen online reader on the Internet Archive website.

In the top right corner of the viewer, you will see an option to download the book, usually in either epub or pdf format.

Open Library is more than just a catalog of free classic books. It also shows contemporary books that are free to read if you decide to borrow them. To do that, you may need to register at Open Library or find the book in your local library using WorldCat or Library Link. Each library book is marked with a “Borrow” button instead of “Read.”

4. Google Books

A huge collection of books that Google has scanned and turned into viewable files is available on Google Books.

The homepage of Google Books at books.google.com is actually nothing more than a search box. To start exploring this vast library of digitized books, you have to type in something, for instance a name of your favorite classic author or a title of a book.

Not all books can be fully previewed online, but you can narrow search results to those that are.

To do that, in the upper bar click on “Any view.” From a drop-down list select “Free Google eBooks” to see only the books that can be read online from the very beginning to the very end.

Google Books gives also a chance to preview free samples of books that are not available in the public domain. To see a list of these books, select “Preview available” option from the “Any books” drop-down menu.

The free preview of a copyrighted title included in Google Books doesn’t have to be a first part of the book.

Let’s say a publisher sets a free preview to be 20% of a book. You can select a chapter in the middle and read 20% from now on. Or jump from page to page, if you want.

You’ll be able to preview the book until you reach the limit of free pages set by a publisher.

5. Smashwords

Smashwords is a leading online platform with ebooks from independent authors and publishers. There are currently over 500,000 from over 100,000 self-published authors.

Thousands of books are available for free download and online view. The total number is changing, but usually around 100,000 titles are available for free viewing.

Smashwords authors have an option to set up the length of a free preview. Many writers decide to let readers preview the entire book online.

To see which books are free to read in your internet browser, go to Smashwords’ catalog of free ebooks . Then, change the way entries are being displayed – from stacks to list. Do it by clicking the bullet list icon in the top right.

In the list view, look for “Online Reader” button displayed at the bottom of an entry, next to blue buttons with ebook formats.

There are several customization options to choose from. You can select a size (4 levels to choose from), and font face (Arial, Courier, Times, Verdana, Georgia). You can also personalize colors by setting up your own font and background.

Quite frankly, reading interface offered by Smashwords is not the strongest part of this great site. There is no full-screen view, for example. It would help a lot, as the book content window is very narrow.

6. ManyBooks

ManyBooks offers free books in a clean and friendly interface. The site is ad supported but these ads are displayed usually at the bottom of the browser window and are not too disturbing.

Most books are sourced from Project Gutenberg and sites that offer books with a Creative Commons license.

In total, over 50 thousand books are available, all with nicely designed covers. Plus, each book is available in several file formats, a lot more than what you can find elsewhere.

Most importantly, each title from the ManyBooks catalog can be read in your internet browser.

After you find the book you want to read, go to this book’s details page and click on a large “Read Online” button.

The reading interface is very clean and nicely designed, although it takes some time to load it, especially when it comes with a book cover.

You can change the font size (4 levels), plus the site works well on mobile devices, so you can read books also in a browser on your tablet.

BookRix is a platform that offers books from self-published authors combined with free books from the public domain.

A catalog of free ebooks is an essential part of the website. On the top of a list, you will find the most popular categories, including literary fiction, fantasy, romance, thrillers, and young adult fiction.

When you enter any category, you will see books sorted by the popularity. On the top, you will see free books offered by contemporary authors.

Many classic titles from the public domain are also included in the BookRix directory of free ebooks. You will find them in the Fiction category.

When you find the book you want to read, click on its cover or title to enter the book details page. To open an online viewer, look for the “Read Book” button located next to the cover.

8. Authorama

If you are looking for a site that loads quickly even when you have a slow connection speed, you should visit Authorama.

Created and maintained by Philipp Lenssen, this dead-simple website includes several dozen popular books from Project Gutenberg. You can find here books by Mary Shelley, Francis Bacon, Charles Dickens, Jerome K. Jerome (yes, Three Men in a Boat !), or Robert Louis Stevenson.

The front page is at the same time a simple table of content, sorted by the name of an author.

Clicking on a book title link will open a simple html viewer. The content of each book is divided into several parts to let data load as quickly as possible.

This site can be viewed also in a browser on a mobile phone.

9. Bookboon

Bookboon is an online platform focused on providing free and paid textbooks for students and businesses.

The site offers textbooks written by professors from the world’s top universities. There are over 1,000 books that are free to download, but to do that, you have to sign up. When you visor the site for the first time, choose “Sign up for free eBooks.” You can use your Google, Facebook, Linkedin credentials to quickly access the catalog of books.

You can find on Bookboon several interesting books from the following categories: engineering, IT & programming, economics & finance, career & study advice, marketing, strategy & management, or languages.

Each book can be downloaded in pdf format, but you can also open an online reading interface by clicking “Start Reading” button.

If you are a free member, you will see ads in the content of the books you read. The company claims ads take no more than 15% of the content.

It’s worth highlighting that Bookboon has the nicest online reading interface. It’s clean, very well designed, and uses 100% of the web browser window without switching to full-screen mode.

10. Wattpad

Wattpad is one of the most popular e-reading websites in the world. It connects over 80 million readers-writers who spend over 23 billion minutes a month engaged in original stories published directly on the platform.

The site offers and promotes paid stories, but a vast majority of content is free to enjoy – but only for registered users, so you have to sign up to get access.

Use the “Browse” tab next to the logo on the left to find favorite genres. You can choose from adventure, fan fiction, LGBT+, new adult, romance, short stories, urban, or werewolf.

After you select the book from a list of results and click on its cover, a pop-up window will appear. Click on an orange button saying “Read” to start enjoying the story.

Please note that the site is ad supported and the reading interface also displays ads.

11. Library of Congress

Did you know you can read the world’s beloved children’s classics on the Library of Congress website?

The digital collection Classic Books includes “only” about 60 titles, but they are the ones you can’t find anywhere else.

This catalog looks like a great idea to spend some time with your kids reading together the books in their original look and feel. The books are scanned and digitized beautifully and the interface looks gorgeous!

To start reading, simply click on a link “Read This Book Now” that’s located next to the book’s cover.

What would you like to start with? How about Humpty Dumpty , with extraordinary illustrations by W. W. Denslow? Or the original edition of The Jungle Book ? You can read Peter Rabbit , The Rocket Book by Peter Newell, or one of the best stories from Hans Christian Andersen – The Snow Queen . Enjoy!

12. HathiTrust Library

HathiTrust Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from academic and research libraries, aggregating millions of books and texts from Google Books, Internet Archive or Library of Congress.

HathiTrust is like Google Books but much more user friendly. The front page includes a search box with advanced options. Make sure to check “Full-text” and “Full view only” options to see only the books that are ready to be opened in an online reading interface.

A surprisingly enjoyable way of exploring available books is to use Collections (you can choose this option in the top navigation bar).

When you find the book you want to read, simply click on the “Full View” link and the viewer will open immediately. You can dismiss the left sidebar to enter the full-screen mode. If you don’t see the “Full View” link, it means the book is not available for online reading.

Keep exploring. Here are other popular lists for book lovers:

• Free ebooks for Christmas 2023: here are the top 20 downloads Just like a year ago, we are presenting the list of ebooks that were most downloaded from Project Gutenberg in […]
• 12 best personalized gifts for librarians and library supporters These library-themed gifts are extremely easy to personalize. All you have to do is add your own text!
• Here are the 12 best iPhone case covers for book lovers In this updated overview, you’ll see gorgeous iPhone covers that will remind you of the joy of reading books anywhere, […]
• 12 best metal accessories and home decor for book lovers Explore some of the best home decor items for book lovers that are handmade from metal: steel, brass, copper, bolts, […]

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4 responses to “12 sites where you can read full books online”

[…] have a detailed list of sites where you can read ebooks online – why not exploring it right […]

[…] Before ordering a hard copy, first, try to find an online textbook. You can use various websites or just conduct your research using Google (remember to type a format, like epub, pdf, txt, mobi). You can also find and read the books online. […]

Please check out Century Past Free Online Library. An easy way to find exactly what you want from the free 3.6 million book online library at Internet Archive. Plus we have 500 free magazines.

centurypast.org

[…] Whenever you need to buy a textbook, try to find it online first. You can use various websites or just conduct your research using Google (remember to type a format, like epub, pdf, txt, mobi). You can also use .html or .htm to find and read books online. […]

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Big magic: creative living beyond fear.

by ELIZABETH GILBERT

Once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Gilbert, who was not related to me – unfortunately for me. 

Jack Gilbert was a great poet, but if you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. He never much cared about being known. But I knew about him, and I loved him dearly from a respectful distance, so let me tell you about him.

Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh in 1925 and grew up in the midst of that city’s smoke, noise, and industry. He worked in factories and steel mills as a young man, but was called from an early age to write poetry. He answered the call without hesitation. He became a poet the way other men become monks: as a devotional practice, as an act of love, and as a lifelong commitment to the search for grace and transcendence. I think this is probably a very good way to become a poet. Or to become anything, really, that calls to your heart and brings you to life.

176 words read ...

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Revolution Begins Book Lover Funny T-Shirt – Time to start a revolution, comrades! Wait, I need to finish the book, first – and a bookmark comes as a handy excuse. This vintage artwork says: “The revolution begins as soon as I remember where I left my bookmark”.

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When I bought my first physical eReader, I was devastated to learn that I didn't actually own the books I purchased. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo primarily sell you licenses to read digital books, which they're free to revoke at any time.

Ever since finding this out, I've made it a priority to seek out DRM-free books and comics instead. While I can't purchase most bestsellers this way, I've still come across far more than I could ever read. Here are the top sources.

1 Humble Bundle

For many gamers, Humble Bundle needs no introduction. It made its debut in 2010, offering bundles of indie games with a choose-your-own-price model and a lack of DRM . A proportion of each bundle goes to charity unless you tell them otherwise.

The organization now offers a rotating selection of book bundles in addition to games. At any given time, you can select from a half-dozen bundles on topics ranging from science fiction novels to home improvement guides. Humble Bundle is also a great way to amass a large collection of DRM-free comic books and manga. These cheap deals are one of the advantages ebooks have over physical books .

2 Story Bundle

The folks behind Story Bundle saw what the Humble Bundle folks were doing with games and decided to apply the same model to books (back before Humble Bundle decided to also get into books). The formula is the same. Choose your own price and get a bundle of books, with a portion of the sale going to charity.

While Humble Bundle now attracts major publishers, Story Bundle still keeps the focus on independent writers. It's a good place to stumble upon works you're likely to have overlooked otherwise.

3 Google Play Books

Like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, Google primarily sells books restricted with DRM. What sets Google Play apart is that when a publisher doesn't restrict their books, Google will make this information clear. You will either see "This book is DRM restricted" or "This book is DRM-free" listed among the details when you check the "About this Book" section of a book in the Play Store.

Google also provides a straightforward way of exporting the books you purchase. When you access your Play Books library in a web browser, click the three dots next to a book and select the "Export" option. Ebooks will usually be available as EPUB files, while comics are offered as either EPUBs or PDFs. As someone who reads ebooks directly on my phone , I like being able to purchase books, export them from my Google Play library, and read them all on the same device.

4 Image Comics

Image Comics is one of the largest comic publishers in the US. The company used to sell DRM-free comics directly through its own website. While that option is no more, digital comics that come from Image Comics remain DRM-free.

When I want to read a new digital comic, I search the Image Comics website for something that catches my eye and then head to Google Play to make the purchase. It's easier than browsing Google's store directly, where you're more like to come across Marvel and DC titles that will not let you download a non-restricted digital copy.

The Tor Publishing Group, like Image Comics, doesn't sell books directly from its own website, but its entire library is available DRM-free. Tor offers a massive selection of predominantly fantasy and science fiction novels.

Tor offers casual fare for readers of both genres, but you can also find multi-volume fantasy epics and hard sci-fi alike.

6 J Novel Club

The largest manga publishers aren't keen on distributing digital copies of their bestselling titles without restricting where you can read them. Fortunately, that doesn't mean there isn't manga to be found. If you grow impatient waiting for manga to appear on Humble Bundle, consider J Novel Club.

J Novel Club contains plenty of series for you to follow. If you become an avid reader, there's a subscription option available. Each month you get a certain number of credits to apply toward a purchase, which you can get for a discounted rate. You can then read this manga on your eReader or tablet .

7 Blackstone Publishing

Like Tor and Image Comics, Blackstone doesn't let you purchase books directly from the publisher's website. Yet the site is a good place to search through the catalog and see which ebooks catch your eye. This is a mainstream publishing company, one of the relatively few willing to sell you a New York Times bestseller without DRM.

When you're ready to purchase a book, the site links you to other publishers. Again, I would stick with Google Play and export the EPUB immediately after purchase.

8 Standard Ebooks

Project Gutenberg is a well-established source of DRM-free ebooks that are in the public domain. These aren't modern books by any means, with most being well over half a century old. The bigger issue, though, is that formatting can be all over the place.

That's where Standard Ebooks comes in. This initiative takes a selection of titles from Project Gutenberg and applies a coat of polish. Each book gets a consistent theme and is supplied with a cover, usually a work of art that is also public domain. This is a good source of classics that are not uncommon to see resurface in a new edition at Barnes & Noble every few years, such as works by Agatha Christie and Walt Whitman . You can also read the inspiration behind classic Disney films, such as Bambi and Tarzan .

It's not too hard to remove DRM from an ebook, but it's nice not to have to go through that effort. It's good to support the publishers who don't try to limit how we reach our books. The music industry learned that it could sell us unrestricted MP3s and still turn a profit. Hopefully, book publishers eventually figure this out, too.

The 6 best places to find free books online:

Project gutenberg, open library, digital public library, the 6 best places to find free books online in 2021.

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• It's great to support authors by directly buying books, but cost shouldn't be a barrier to reading.
• You can read thousands of free books online using everything from Libby to Project Gutenberg .
• You can read more about Insider's Education and Personal Development section here .

It's great to support authors by directly buying their books. But if buying every exciting bestseller isn't realistic for you, many authors are the first to say that cost should never be the reason you miss out on great books.

—Ashley C. Ford (@iSmashFizzle) June 15, 2021

Public libraries have existed to increase accessibility to knowledge and benefit the public since the 18th century (though this last year forced closures across the nation ). Luckily, you can find the same books for free online (and even browse your local library's shelves via apps) if you know where to look.  

Below, you'll find six places where you can read free books online, from Project Gutenberg and thousands of books in the public domain (which tend to be classics) to digitized open libraries where you can borrow and download books for free. 

And if a book sparks a new interest, you can also find free online courses from some of the best universities in the world, too. 

Read for free on Libby

Borrow ebooks, audiobooks, and more from your local public library for free. You can download them for offline reading via the app . 

All you need is a library card, which you can potentially sign up for in the app itself , depending on the library. 

What to read:

Note: select your local library to see custom search results

• " Where the Crawdads Sing " by Delia Owens
• " Becoming " by Michelle Obama
• " Educated " by Tara Westover
• " Little Fires Everywhere " by Celeste Ng

Read for free on Project Gutenberg

Choose from reportedly more than 60,000 free ebooks , especially older classics for which US copyright has expired. 

There's no fee or registration required, so you don't need an ID or library card to access these.

• " Pride and Prejudice " by Jane Austen
• " Frankenstein " by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
• " Alice's Adventures in Wonderland " by Lewis Carroll
• " Moby Dick " by Herman Melville

Read for free on Overdrive

Overdrive hosts millions of books and audiobooks online for free (and owns apps Libby and Sora ). You can find everything from "The New York Times" bestsellers to children's books . 

As with Libby and other library apps, you'll need a library card to access the books.

• " The Four Winds " by Kristin Hannah
• " The Rose Code " by Kate Quinn
• " The Sanatorium " by Sarah Pearse
• " Klara and the Sun " by Kazuo Ishiguro
• " A Court of Silver Flames " by Sarah J. Maas

Read for free on Open Library

Open Library's eBook lending library gives you access to millions of books through the Internet Archive , an American digital library and preservation project that has been the subject of some controversy . 

Unlike other sites, you'll be flipping through images of a book that's been digitized rather than downloading a PDF. 

You can register with an email address, and you won't need an ID or library card to use it. 

• " The Four Agreements " by Don Miguel Ruiz
• " Snow Falling on Cedars " by David Guterson
• " The Lord of the Rings " by J.R.R. Tolkien
• " Pale Blue Dot " by Carl Sagan

Listen for free on LibriVox

Listen to free public domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world. Audiobooks range from historical fiction to children's action and adventure .

LibriVox's collection is also included in the Internet Archive . 

What to listen to:

• " Anna Karenina " by Leo Tolstoy 
• " Wuthering Heights " by Emily Brontë 
• " Adventures of Huckleberry Finn " by Mark Twain
• ​​" The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes " by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read for free through the Digital Public Library

Download free ebooks within the public domain without creating an account.

You can search the Digital Public Library site by title, or scroll through collections that range from textbooks , children's books , young adult titles, language-specific books , works most recently added to the public domain, and editor picks .

• " Monah Loves the Market " by Nathalie Aigil
• " Japanese Fairy Tales " by Yei Theodora Ozaki
• " Romeo and Juliet " by William Shakespeare
• " Meditations " by Marcus Aurelius
• " Introductory Statistics " by Senior Contributing Authors

While you'll find the best combination of title choices and helpful or unique features above, you can also find free books through Wikisource (a now inactive catalog of texts ranging from " The Art of War " to " Sherlock Holmes "), and some on Amazon through Kindle's free popular classics.

• Main content

Welcome to Project Gutenberg

Project gutenberg is a library of over 70,000 free ebooks.

Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for you to enjoy.

Kultakuoriainen y.m. kertomuksia by Edgar Allan Poe

The heart of London by H. V. Morton

Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains by Toofie Lauder

History of the Protestants of France, from the commencement of the Reformation…

Maalaisaiheisia pakinoita by Ilmari Kivinen

Henkensä uhalla by Martti Wuori

The conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater

The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 11, October, 1836 by Various

Scotland under her early kings Volume 1 (of 2) by Eben William Robertson

Geology, Vol. 1 [of 3] by Thomas C. Chamberlin and Rollin D. Salisbury

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The best free ebook download sites: from new bestsellers to classic Shakespeare

Fill your Kindle or Kobo (or Nook or Onyx Boox) for free

If you’ve taken up digital reading recently, having picked up one of the best ereaders there are on the market, you’ll find that there are ways to fill up the device without having to spend a penny.

There are thousands of ebooks available to download legally – either because their copyright has expired, or because their authors have chosen to release them without charge. And sometimes, publishing companies make them available to a limited number of readers before a public release to get feedback.

The difficulty, however, is tracking down exactly what you want in the correct format, and avoiding anything poorly written or formatted. We’ve searched through the masses of sites to bring you the very best places to download free, high-quality ebooks with minimum hassle and no legal strings attached.

It’s worth remembering that the absence of a price tag doesn’t necessarily mean that the book is in the public domain. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the author will retain rights over it, including the exclusive right to distribute it. Similarly, even if copyright has expired on an original text, certain editions may still be in copyright due to editing, translation, or extra material such as annotations.

While EPUBs are the most common type of ebook file format most ereaders can display, you’ll find digital editions in other formats as well. So if you find an ebook in a format you need, you can convert it with free software like Calibre . Please note that ebooks that are DRM protected cannot be converted.

• Thinking of buying a Kindle? Our guide to the best Kindles

So, without much ado, here are the best free ebook download sites to help you get lost in a good story.

1. Amazon First Reads

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

A hidden treasure trove of new titles for your Kindle

It used to be called Kindle First Reads, but its rebranding has not changed what it truly is – a reading platform that gets you early access to newly released titles published by Amazon Publishing. Each month 10 new books are made available on First Reads – which you can get access to by signing up for the First Reads newsletter – and one of these is totally free for Amazon Prime subscribers . The rest of the new releases are available for a hugely discounted price. First Reads selections are announced on the first of each month, and you get the whole month to decide which title you want to read, after which the cycle begins anew.

As you’d expect, free ebooks from Amazon are only available in Kindle format – users of other ebook readers will need to convert the files – and you must be logged into an Amazon account to download them.

If you’re already invested in Amazon’s ecosystem, its assortment of freebies are extremely convenient. As soon as you click the 'Buy' button, the ebook will be sent to any Kindle ebook readers you own, or devices with the Kindle app installed. However, converting Kindle ebooks to other formats can be a hassle, even if they’re not protected by DRM, so users of other readers are better off looking elsewhere.

Amazon First Reads for US customers Amazon First Reads for UK customers Amazon First Reads for Australian customers

2. Kobo eBook Store

Over a million free ebooks for your Kobo

Kobo might make some of our favorite ereaders, but the company also has a vast store of ebooks and, the company claims, over a million of them are free. There’s a dedicated section for all the Kobo freebies on the website, with several of them being newly released titles.

You can even find the free ebooks on the Kobo Store by searching for author names, a book title or genre, then selecting 'only free items' under the price filter in the left sidebar of the search results.

Kobo’s freebies are usually for a very limited time and can change each day, so you’ll likely never run out of good reads for free. That said, the books you get from the Kobo Store, even the free ones, are DRM-protected and will be available to read only on your Kobo ereader or the Kobo ereader app for smartphones and tablets.

3. Google Books

A vast catalogue of fiction and nonfiction EPUBs

Google Books can be a rabbit hole of self-published fiction and non-fiction titles, with several really great finds in there as well. However, the vast majority of the ebooks on Google Books are in the EPUB or PDF file format. So while that’s perfectly fine for Kobo users, Kindles don’t support EPUB and the file will need to be converted to MOBI before you start reading.

Being a Google undertaking, the store is easily accessible on a web browser or Android device, but you will need a Google account to register a card before you can access the freebies. Your card won’t be charged for the free ebooks and audiobooks, but it could put some potential users off.

Moreover, the Google Books interface wasn’t designed for free stuff. To locate them, you need to search for 'free books', which then gives you a vast catalogue of free reads. If you’re after a particular genre, you can search for that, plus the word 'free' (free fantasy or free history, for example). Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy enough to discover a veritable treasure trove of free books.

4. Project Gutenberg

An immersive archive of world literature

Project Gutenberg (named after the printing press that democratized knowledge) is a huge archive of over 60,000 books in EPUB, Kindle, plain text, and HTML. You can download them directly, or have them sent to your preferred cloud storage service (Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive). 

You can search for a specific title or browse by genre (books in the same genre are gathered together in bookshelves). It’s a shame that fiction and non-fiction aren’t separated, and you have to open a bookshelf before you can sort books by country, but those are fairly minor quibbles.

The site itself is available in English, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese, and the catalog includes books in all languages. There’s a heavy bias towards English-language works and translations, but the same is true of all the ebook download sites we’ve looked at here.

Project Gutenberg is a wonderful source of free ebooks – particularly for academic work. However, it uses US copyright law, which isn’t universal; some books listed as public domain might still be in copyright in other countries. RightsDirect explains the situation in more detail .

5. Free-Ebooks.net

A self-publishing platform that’s great for authors and readers alike

Free-Ebooks.net is a platform for independent authors who want to avoid the traditional publishing route. You won’t find Dickens and Wilde in its archives; instead, there’s a huge array of new fiction, non-fiction, and even audiobooks at your fingertips, in every genre you could wish for. There are many similar sites around, but Free-Ebooks.net is our favorite, with new books added every day.

Because this site is dedicated to free books, there’s none of the hassle you get with filtering out paid-for content on the Kobo Store or Google Books. We also love the fact that all the site’s genres are presented on the homepage, so you don’t have to waste time trawling through menus. Unlike the bigger stores, Free-Ebooks.net also lets you sort results by publication date, popularity, or rating, helping you avoid the weaker titles that will inevitably find their way onto open publishing platforms (though a book has to be really quite poor to receive less than four stars).

Digital books are available as PDF, EPUB, Kindle and plain text files, though not all titles are available in all formats.

6. ManyBooks

A curated collection of free and discounted fiction and nonfiction books

At the time of writing, ManyBooks has over 50,000 titles in its library of both fiction and nonfiction. And a large part of that is available to download for free – from modern novels to classic literature. You’ll be able to find Grimms’ Fairy Tales alongside books from Agatha Christie and newer fantasy fiction. 

That’s because the vast majority of the books on the platform are seeded from Project Gutenberg, but a whole load of self-published titles have been added since the mid-2000s. They’re all available to browse in genres, all of which are listed on the homepage itself, making navigation easy.

One of the main reasons we like ManyBooks is because of the several ebook file formats available on the site. Most of the titles are available in the most common formats, including EPUB, MOBI and AZW, so you’ll be able to read on any ereader you might prefer. ManyBooks also lets you read online, if you prefer that route.

It’s also one of the few sites we know of that lets you filter books by language. You can also search by book title and author, but there’s also a curated 'editor’s choice' section if you’re looking for more choices. Downloading books, however, requires an account which can be created for free.

7. Feedbooks

Plenty of originals available to download for free

Feedbooks came into being in 2007 as a digital library for public domain books as well as a cloud publishing service. So not only does this platform give you plenty of free classics to read – from Shakespeare to Homer to James Joyce – there are plenty of original books to choose from as well.

While it’s easy enough to access the free public domain ebooks on the site, finding the original content is harder. There’s an easy link to this category on the homepage under 'browse' but it doesn’t work. So you’ll need to trawl through a vast catalogue of digital books to find those marked down to cost nothing. It’s not the best user experience, but that extra bit of work might well be worth it if you find a story you can truly get lost in.

There are several genres as well, including short stories, so there’s likely going to be something here for everyone. And if you do choose to buy an ebook, Feedbooks displays the price in your local currency by picking up your IP address.

8. Smashwords

A self-publishing platform with several free reads

It’s one of the most well-organized free ebook sites you can find and, considering it’s essentially a self-publishing platform, there’s a lot you can read for free. Authors publishing via Smashwords use it to distribute their books and, at the time of writing, there are over 85,000 titles available. To narrow down your search, there’s a handy genre list on the side, and an equally handy filter bar on the top of the page to find 'highly rated' books or the bestsellers.

You will need to set up an account with Smashwords to download books – this is completely free and gives you full access to the platform. So if you’ve got some good words to share, you can get published… for free. Creating an account also allows you to leave reviews of the books you read, which can be really helpful to the authors.

Join the club and get a free ebook each month

Tor is a publishing company known for putting out science-fiction and fantasy fiction bestsellers like Robert Jordan’s Conan and Wheel of Time series, Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti books and Brandon Sanderson’s ongoing Stormlight Archive series. So it’s not really the obvious place to look for free ebooks, but you can get one new read each month for free.

All you have to do is join Tor’s book club. 

The Tor.com eBook Club sends out regular newsletters – that you can sign up for by filling out a form for free – with a link to download a particular book, whether a standalone or part of a series. However, the duration for which the book is available for free is very limited, typically just three days, so you will need to keep an eye on your inbox for the next newsletter.

The ebooks are available in EPUB and MOBI formats, so you should be able to read on any device, whether ereader or reading app on your phone or tablet.

It’s perhaps the best source of free reads that are not self-published, particularly if you’re a sci-fi or fantasy fiction fan.

10. Your local library

Use OverDrive to borrow ebooks for free

The great thing about using Kindle and Kobo ereaders is that you get access to ebook catalogues of your local library too. The Kindle library borrowing feature, however, is limited only to the US, while Kobo’s baked-in OverDrive support will set you up in several other markets.

Almost 45,000 libraries worldwide have OverDrive support, which allows you to borrow ebooks and audiobooks, as long as you have a library card. Depending on the rules of your library, you get to 'borrow' an ebook or digital magazine for a specific period of time, after which you lose access, or you can 'renew', just like you would a physical book in a bricks-and-mortar library.

Don’t use either a Kindle or a Kobo device? Libby is the mobile version of OverDrive, so installing it on your phone or tablet will give you the ability to borrow ebooks from a supported local library you’re a member of.

• Looking for a new way to enjoy your ebooks? Take a look at our guide to the best free ebook readers

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While she's happiest with a camera in her hand, Sharmishta's main priority is being TechRadar's APAC Managing Editor, looking after the day-to-day functioning of the Australian, New Zealand and Singapore editions of the site, steering everything from news and reviews to ecommerce content like deals and coupon codes. While she loves reviewing cameras and lenses when she can, she's also an avid reader and has become quite the expert on ereaders and E Ink writing tablets, having appeared on Singaporean radio to talk about these underrated devices. Other than her duties at TechRadar, she's also the Managing Editor of the Australian edition of Digital Camera World, and writes for Tom's Guide and T3.

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13 Ways to Get Free Textbooks Online

Find textbook downloads on the web to help cut college costs

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Whether you're studying at a major university, taking online college courses, or just learning on your own, there are tons of ways to find free textbooks online. Some books can be viewed in your browser while other are available for download in PDF format.

Most of these websites specialize in free textbooks. There are also other websites that offer free audiobooks and free e-books .

First Stop for Free Books: Google

Search multiple websites at once.

Very effective at finding any free textbook.

Limited range of file types are supported.

Google should be the first place you go to find free textbooks online. Using a search engine like Google will scour the whole web for textbook PDFs.

However, instead of a general search, you'll want to take advantage of Google's filetype command. Enter filetype:pdf followed by the name of the book you're looking for, making sure to use quotes around the whole title. For example:

If you don't have luck with the book's title, try the author (surrounded in quotes) with or without the title. You might also mix up the file extension and use PPT or DOC ; you never know what format the textbook might be in.

Google Scholar is another search engine from Google that you should try along with a Google search. It's a great place to find all sorts of academic-oriented content.

Biggest Selection of Textbooks: Bookboon

Over 1,000 free textbooks.

Website is extremely easy to use.

Several categories to browse through.

Access to more textbooks requires a paid membership.

There are a few advertisements.

Bookboon should definitely be your second method of finding free textbooks online. There are hundreds upon hundreds of books available for download as PDFs, or you can read them directly in your browser.

When you're viewing a textbook's download page, you'll see a star rating from other users and similar textbooks you might like.

Some of the categories of free textbooks here include economics and finance, marketing and law, IT and programming, accounting, statistics and mathematics, and engineering.

And several business e-books and the option to block ads are available with a business account. There's a 30-day trial if you want to see what that's like.

Best Mobile App for Free Textbooks: OpenStax

View online or download the textbook PDF.

Read free textbooks from the OpenStax mobile app.

No search function.

OpenStax, a service offered by Rice University, provides access to high-quality textbooks in categories that include humanities, business, essentials, and math. This project was initially kicked off for college students by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

You don't need a user account to access these textbooks, so just pick a subject, find the textbook you want to use for free, and then choose how you want to get it (online, through the app, or as a PDF).

Links to Free Textbooks: Open Culture

Hundreds of free textbook download links.

Most links go to PDF; no extra searching required.

Textbooks are categorized by subject.

Reliability not a given; textbooks are on external sites.

Finding the exact book you need can be challenging.

Open Culture, a fascinating repository of some of the best content on the web, has assembled an ongoing database of free texts ranging in subject from biology and management to computer science and physics.

All links are to external sites, so while the list itself is sometimes updated with new books, the download pages might be broken and the textbooks missing.

Search Engine for Textbooks: MERLOT

Find free textbooks on multiple sites at once.

Tons of filtering and sorting options to narrow results.

Sign up for alerts when new textbooks are added.

Textbooks stored on other sites.

Links may end up as redirects or dead links.

You can search for free textbooks on MERLOT by title, ISBN, or author. There are thousands of books to pick from, and they're all completely free.

However, what makes MERLOT different from most of these other free textbook websites is that it's more like a textbook search engine: It indexes books from other sites and provides links to them.

To find only the free textbooks here instead of other things like tests, animations, or tutorials, be sure to select Open (Access) Textbook from the filtering menu.

Some of the subjects you can filter by include social sciences, workforce deployment, education, business, arts, and science and technology. Within any category of free textbooks, you can copy the RSS feed link and use it in your RSS reader to get alerts when new books are added to MERLOT's site.

Free Books for Free Classes: MIT OpenCourseWare

Includes a page with only online textbooks.

Supports advanced search commands.

Convenient "PDF only" filter.

Includes PDF textbooks only for specific classes at MIT.

MIT has offered OpenCourseWare (OCW) for several years now, and along with these free classes come free college textbooks. Feel free to search for the textbook you're after, or you can browse the online textbooks by department or education level.

Free Textbook Finder: Open Textbook Library

Hundreds of free textbooks.

Textbooks cover common subjects.

User account not required.

Very basic search tool.

All books are hosted on external sites.

Hundreds of peer-reviewed and free textbooks are available at Open Textbook Library. This site is more of a search engine for textbooks since all the links point to other sites, but it's still very useful for finding free textbook PDFs.

Some of the subjects include law, medicine, management, linguistics, biology, psychology, applied mathematics, and history.

When you land on the textbook's download page, you're given a table of contents and other details about the book. There's a PDF button you must click to reach the actual download page. There's also sometimes an option for reading the textbook online.

The Wikipedia of Textbooks: Wikibooks

Huge range of subjects.

Run by the same company as Wikipedia.

Some textbooks are PDFs.

Anyone can add annotations or edits.

Books can change because they're open for editing.

Most textbooks must be read online.

Wikibooks offers a wide variety of over 3,300 free textbooks in subjects from computing and languages to social sciences, engineering, and miscellaneous books.

This free textbook website is run by its visitors, much like Wikipedia . This open-to-all philosophy means that some books are only partially finished. On each subject's page, you'll see which books are completed and which ones still require some work.

Free Books for Every Grade Level: OER Commons

Super detailed descriptions of the textbooks.

You can view all the books online.

Lots of helpful filtering options.

Might run into non-textbook materials like audio or video.

Open Educational Resources (OER) is a digital public library that offers a variety of free textbooks to anyone and everyone. There are over 10 subject areas you can look through, and each subject is divided into three grade levels (primary, secondary, post-secondary).

Choose Textbook from the side of the page to filter out all the other kinds of content you can find here, which includes lectures, guides, games, full courses, and case studies. Each download page provides a link to view the textbook online in your browser.

Free Books About Freedom: Online Library of Liberty

No user account is required to get free books.

Download textbooks in a few different file formats.

Several ways to browse the textbooks.

Some textbooks are scanned and aren't as easy to read.

The Online Library of Liberty has over 1,700 free textbooks pertaining to the subjects of individual liberty and free markets.

You can browse for the books by title, author, time period, and idea. This website lets you download PDF textbooks, or you can choose the HTML option to read the textbooks online.

Free K-12 Textbooks: Curriki

Range of textbooks meant for K-12 students.

Extensive filtering option.

Must create a free account to download textbooks.

Some download links don't work.

Curriki offers a fantastic array of free textbooks in categories like health, language arts, world languages, technology, and math. There are books for all grade levels including K-12 and college.

This resources also has textbooks for special education and professional development. There's also a lot of other helpful educational content, so be sure to select the Textbook filter option to see only the free books.

Free Public Domain Books: Project Gutenberg

Multiple download options.

You can read the textbook online if you want.

Limited selection of school textbooks.

Most of the books are very old.

Project Gutenberg offers a wide selection of over 70,000 texts. Many are e-books in the public domain, but there are also free textbooks.

There isn't a page dedicated to just online textbooks, so the best way to find free textbooks on this site is through the search tool. If you're taking a classical literature class, there's a good chance you can find all of the required reading at Project Gutenberg.

Free Books Message Boards: Reddit User Submissions

Updates frequently with new submissions.

Help from other students seeking free books.

Many older links no longer work.

Some links might violate copyrights.

Reddit is a great platform for sharing content, and you can use it to find free textbooks online. It's common for users to share links to free textbooks and websites where free books can be downloaded.

Not all of the links are valid because some older ones have been taken down. If this is the case, you can reply to the thread and ask for an updated link, or start a new topic requesting help finding a book.

More Ways to Get Free and Cheap Textbooks

Here are some more websites where you can find textbooks for free or cheap:

• Book exchange sites
• BookFinder.com
• Affordabook.com

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Where to Read Web Novels for Free

Wondering where to read web novels for free? Check out the best places to read web novels online, including Royal Road and others.

Arvyn Cerezo

Arvyn Cerezo is an arts and culture writer/reporter with bylines in Book Riot , Publishers Weekly , South China Morning Post , PhilSTAR Life , the Asian Review of Books , and other publications. You can find them on arvyncerezo.com and @ArvynCerezo on Twitter.

View All posts by Arvyn Cerezo

Although web novels have been around for a while, the readership only boomed in recent years. I remember when it was just Wattpad that was well-known. Now, there are bazillion other web novel websites out there, and it can be difficult to keep track of them. Wondering where to read web novels for free? I’ve compiled some websites in this post. But first, let’s discuss semantics.

What is a Web Novel?

Along the immense popularity of web novels comes the inevitable confusion as similar terms have popped up. Light novels? Manga? What’s the difference?

Web novels are mostly works published online, usually on a website. In traditional publishing, we might regard them as self-published works, sans the tangible format. You can think of them as ebooks, but that they’re not available in epubs or whatnot. Web novels can be in other languages aside from English. Many stories in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are also sought-after works.

Manga, on the other hand, are comics originating from Japan. You can read more about manga in our beginner’s guide to the format.

Meanwhile, light novels are mostly released by Japanese publishers in small volumes. When a web novel gains traction, it’s picked up by publishers and turned into a light novel. Rigorous editing comes into play, and some fluff will be removed. In the U.S. publishing industry, this is similar to a self-published work on Amazon Kindle and getting picked up by a Big Five publisher.

Where to Read Web Novels For Free

Now that you know what these terms mean, below are the best places to read web novels online. These web novel websites are regularly updated, so you won’t miss out on your favorite stories. Make sure to bookmark these 10 websites!

This website is, hands down, one of the go-to places to read web novels. Readers can search for a particular story, check out the latest updates on their favorites, and interact directly with authors. What I like most about it is that it has a big community. Inside the website is a forum wherein readers can discuss many topics about a web novel, ask for recommendations, get reviewing tips, and more. Aside from web novels, readers can also find fan fiction here.

Accessing Royal Road is free, but if you want to support the platform, you can pay a monthly subscription fee to access more features . The downsides of this website are that the design looks outdated and that Royal Road doesn’t have an app.

This is also one of the big names out there when it comes to web novels. Unlike Royal Road, Web Novel’s site design is visually appealing. It has one of the best web novel apps in the market, too. This site is more focused on fantasy and romance and their sub-genres.

When you browse a web novel, the experience feels a lot like Goodreads: there are reviews and the star rating system on a web novel page. Like Royal Road, you can browse curated lists here. The site also has a dedicated forum wherein you can discuss almost anything.

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Avid web novel readers would recognize this platform, as it’s also one of the popular websites in the web novel terrain. It mostly offers popular Chinese fiction to the English speaking world, as it says on its website .

There are lots and lots of sci-fi and fantasy works on Wuxiaworld. Not only that, there’s also wuxia and xianxia, which are uniquely Chinese genres. In the website, web novels are mostly organized by series name, so it’s easy to find works that are already completed. The authors are also consistent in giving updates on their ongoing series.

For those interested, Wuxiaworld also offers ebooks , but those are not free and can be expensive.

Top Web Fiction

This site, meanwhile, doesn’t host its own web novels, and it’s pretty obvious from the lackluster site design. Instead, it aggregates already existing web novels from popular sites like Royal Road and other obscure sources.

If readers like a web novel, they can “boost” it to increase its ranking among the popular stories of the week.

Top Web Fiction is a useful site if you’re following many web novel sites and can’t keep up with the plethora of web addresses. It’s also a valuable resource to find hidden gems from non-mainstream sites.

r/RedditSerials

Reddit is a gold mine for many bookworms. While it can be a place for bookish forums, AMAs, and recommendations, it can also be useful for stuff like this. This particular subreddit is a place for redditors to share their serialized web fiction. If you’re on Reddit anyway, you might as well join the sub.

You don’t need external sites to read web novels, as you can just browse them on the site itself. You may be wondering how can you keep up with the updates of a web novel. Well, Reddit has a “save” feature for when you want to go back to a story. Also, most authors on this subreddit post links to previous chapters, first chapters, and next chapters of their works.

This popular fan fiction website has been around for a long time, and we know it for its self-published stories and fan fiction. It’s no surprise that it has ventured into web novel territory.

In Wattpad, you get to read more web novels originally published in English. If you’re looking for Chinese or Japanese web novels translated into English, you can try the options above.

The obvious advantage here is that you get the familiar look and feel of Wattpad’s interface. The only downside is that since Wattpad is not a dedicated web novel site, there are just a few web novels here and there. You don’t get lists and other recommendations. When you visit the subsite, you can only sort by “Hot” and “New,” nothing else.

Creative Novels

Creative Novels is an obscure but great place to find web novels. Mostly, it features Japanese web novels in English. Among the genres available are fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. On the website, you’ll see different lists, like which novels are trending and top-rated. You can also browse for popular and new releases.

The site also has subscription options for when you want some extra perks. Still, it’s not necessary as you can still read many web novels for free.

If you’re into merch, you can buy some at its online shop .

This web novel website features many Chinese and Japanese web novels in English. When it comes to genre, it has more fantasy, sci-fi, romance, wuxia, and xianxia.

What’s great here is that Tapread has an app, too. My only gripe is that there appears to be fewer titles on the website, and I think there’s only around a hundred available. You can check out all of them at their website .

If you like comics, Tapread also has a few.

Flying Lines

In this web novel website, there’s a point system wherein if you check in every day, you get to earn points that allow you to access more web novels. You can also vote for your favorite web novel so that its ranking increases. You can also send “gifts” to writers. If they receive many gifts, that also improves their work’s ranking.

In Flying Lines, there are more Japanese and Chinese web novels in English. There are also romance, fantasy, and comics.

Volare Novels

This website has many Chinese web novels in English. It mostly features fantasy, wuxia, romance, and action. What I love about it is that its web reader has the ability to increase and decrease font size without changing browser settings.

The biggest downside is that it doesn’t have an app. Also, it seems like there are few choices as there aren’t enough titles. You can see that there are only a handful of titles that are regularly updated. Nonetheless, Volare Novels has an active community at their Discord channel for when you want to discuss your favorite works.

Web novels are an accessible, exciting, free, and fun way to enjoy stories. Wondering where to read web novels is one thing, and these websites definitely point you where they can be found. But what about choosing individual works? Which web novels should you read now? If you don’t have time to browse all the options, here are the 17 Best Web Novels for Your Serial Fiction Fix .

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33 websites to get free college textbooks.

As a college student who wants to make the best grades, you need textbooks to aid your studies, understand your lectures, and in the end, pass your exams without fuss. However, buying these textbooks can be a hassle due to their high prices, low availability, and minimal usage. Also, there are some textbooks that you won’t utilize fully as you only need a few chapters’ worths of information but no one is going to sell part of a textbook to you. Luckily, there are 33 websites where you can get college textbooks for free ! Let’s have a look, shall we?

1. Archive.Org (The Wayback Machine)

Kicking off our list is Archive.org , a site that does more than you think. It offers an extensive catalog of media such as online books, PDFs, documents, and even old YouTube tutorials. 

What’s more, you can download these books in different formats based on your preferences. With archive.org, you can back up your digital books and documents. As a website, it’s a testament to its name and you have access to media you can’t find anywhere else.

2. Bookboon

With Bookboon , you’re not only getting access to textbooks for free but also textbooks that were written and published by the top lecturers of the best universities. Whether the course you’re studying is in the Business department, Economics, Literature, Science and Technology, you have a catalog of top-end books to pick from.

Also, the site offers you a skill learning program for personal development.

3. BCcampus OpenEd

The aim of any free college textbooks website is to make higher learning tools more accessible to the masses. That’s exactly what OpenEd promotes through its catalog of materials centered on the most popular courses in British Columbia.

The books offered are well versed in areas of Accounting, Sociology, Media, Arts, Biology, Business, Skill Learning, Trading, and Technology. The site is easily accessible through keywords and specific fields.

If you’re on the lookout for a free college books website that offers textbooks specifically for science, then look no further. bioRxiv is a science-dedicated website that offers a catalog of books for topics like Dermatology, Ecology, Pharmacology, and so on.

It’s also a site that keeps its consumers informed as you get notifications about newly published articles and papers. They also have a Twitter page that you can follow for updates.

5. Bookshare

It can be hard to find a free college books website that offers the less popular textbooks in the less known fields of study. Luckily, Bookshare is your go-to source for all things non-mainstream. From cooking to literature to graphic arts, there’s a book for each of your needs.

Also, if you require college books for free to prep for an SAT or MCAT, LSAT, or GRE exam, look no further than Bookshare.

6. Cite Seer X

When it comes to getting free college textbooks from before the 21st century, Cite Seer X is the website for you. With a wide array of books written before 2000 and created by Penn University, Cite Seer X offers a portal to the past and ensures you have a blast looking for the books you need. Cite Seer X also offers citations for the content you use; a handy tool.

7. Digital Book Index

As the name suggests, Digital Book Index offers links to hundreds of thousands of digital books for all subject areas. These subject areas range from Math to Sciences to Medicine to Religion to Law to Philosophy and History. At Digital Book Index, you are granted access to thousands of PDF books from authors, publishers, universities, and private websites, all for free.

8. Every Poet

Every Poet is your online buddy for all things poetry. You get access to outstanding classical poetic publications from renowned poets like Sylvia Platt and Robert Frost. What’s more, you can submit your publications for assays and even read other publications from other Every Poet users. A hub for poets looking for free college books, Every Poet is a website dedicated to making your studies of English and literature courses easier.

9. Free-E-Books.net

Free E-Books.net is a website that also offers free college textbooks for students to aid their studies. It offers a catalog of books in all areas of study, with a huge focus on Literature. When you access the website, you get a drop-down menu that organizes all textbooks based on their area of study. Another cool feature is the access to online videos and blogs from skilled experts in various fields of study.

10. Free Book Spot

Free Book Spot is another treasure chest for students looking for free college textbooks to download in PDF format. Here, you can search for digital books on topics such as Agriculture, Economy, Astronomy, Sciences, Math, Archaeology, and much more.

The Free Book Spot website allows you to search for digital books using keywords, authors, ISBN, and languages. You also have access to literature novels.

11. Freeditorial

What happens when you mix the features of an open digital library and an online publishing house to form one website? The result is an open-for-all hub of writers and publishers known as Freeditorial . You see, at Freeditorial, you get access to download free college textbooks from all spheres of education. Also, these books are available in English and Spanish in an easy-to-access catalog. Writers can also publish their works for the masses to see.

12. IntechOpen

IntechOpen has been a household name for all things digital textbooks since 2004. It boasts over 2,000 published textbooks in the fields of computer science books , robotics, and many STEM courses you’re interested in. To further prove its credibility and popularity, IntechOpen has amassed over 60 million downloads on its websites. The website also offers journals that have been reviewed by your peers in your field of study for your reading consumption.

13. Library Genesis

Popularly known as LibGen, Library Genesis is a website that offers college textbooks for free for any kind of student. That’s right, every free college textbook you need is available to download in PDF on the website. You can easily search through the LibGen Library using keywords, ISBN, year of publication, authors, extensions, and so on. The textbooks are available to download in various languages making them a popular choice around the globe.

14. Libre Texts

When it comes to the user-friendly interface and a large digital library, Libre Texts packs a punch in the hub of the digital book. With 398 textbooks on offer, the website is host to over 220 million students looking for free college textbooks. Also, it’s the kind of website you go to when searching for PDFs that have already been tested and reviewed by your fellow college students.

Lyryx is a website that offers free college textbooks but it doesn’t end there. With Lyryx, your learning process is taken a step further with the implementation of online assignments tailor-made to help keep your senses sharp and develop your skills. Lyryx as a website offers free college textbooks to all college students with subjects like Mathematics  Statistics, Economics, and Business as their main focus.

16. Manybooks.net

From the name of the website, it’s pretty obvious how abundant the catalog of this website is. With over 29,000 digital books available to college students, Manybooks.net boasts an extensive catalog and houses an attractive interface that makes searching for books to download worthwhile. But it’s not just their books that are many, the website offers free college textbooks in 46 languages making it a global go-to place.

17. Mobilism

Originally created as a forum for users to share their media with others, Mobilism has established itself as an extensive eBook library for the masses. With an extensive catalog and an easy-to-search feature, you’ll face zero difficulties finding the academic books you need. Another great feature of Mobilism is the regular updates, especially to the download links. So, if you encounter a broken link, the authors can be notified and changes will be made.

18. Online Mathematics Textbooks 

Online Mathematics Textbooks  website provides students with a list of 77 titles that can be safely attributed to the category of ‘must-have’ mathematics textbooks. Such a book collection is a real find for aspiring math students and people with a keen interest in math. The book list is thoroughly elaborated by George Cain from Georgia Tech, being at the same time one of the authors of various textbooks, and includes valuable materials created by other professors. All books are 100% free and available for downloading.

19. Openstax.org

Openstax is a website created by Rice University, a nonprofit organization. It’s a website that provides free college textbooks in PDFs with the sole aim of improving students’ access to learning tools. The website offers its services in both English and Spanish languages. As for the textbooks offered, they range in subjects from Math to Sciences to Economics to Business and so on.

20. Open Textbook Library

Open Textbook Library is a free online source for college textbooks that was created by the Open Educational Network. It was set up to help improve the quality of higher education as well as increase access to learning tools such as free textbooks. They offer PDFs for subjects such as Arts, Mathematics, Social Sciences, History, Media arts, Journalism, and many more. These textbooks have been licensed by the authors and made available for your use.

21. OER Commons

A subsidiary of the Open Educational Resources, OER Commons is a digital platform for you to explore thousands of useful digital books. With a variety of subjects available for you, the platform offers you access to educators and their works, all to help improve your educational prowess. The advanced search feature of the website makes it easy to search for the free college textbooks you need quickly and accurately.

22. Ocean of PDF

The name of the website says it all. Just like the ocean is a massive body of water, Ocean of PDF is a massive digital library of free college textbooks for you to pick from. With its extensive library and easy interface, searching for the textbooks you need is a piece of cake. Dive into the Ocean of PDF , and if you don’t find what you need, you can request for it to be added.

23. Open Culture

Founded in 2006, Open Culture is a website that offers an immense amount of resources with textbooks offering every form of knowledge available. The site is most popular for its provision of materials centered on cultural and educational media content. The site is home to thousands of free college textbooks and you can bump up your learning with audiobooks if you wish. The website is easily accessible and the contents are of top quality and free too.

24. Project Gutenberg

A dream come true for students of the Humanities department. Project Gutenberg is a project that offers an increase in the distribution of useful resources, especially free college textbooks. Humanities students will love this site because of its extensive library of large fictional and cultural resources. The textbooks are easy to search for and downloading them is no fuss at all.

25. PDFBooksWorld

Sometimes your search for a free college textbook requires a trip to the past and that’s what PDFBooksWorld offers its users. The website’s library is filled with textbooks written by renowned authors from the pre-digitization age. One feature that makes this site worthwhile is the availability of different digital textbooks, each suited to the different screen sizes available. This makes reading a lot easier.

26. PDF Grab

PDF Grab is another website that grants you access to free college textbooks in the form of e-books or PDFs, depending on your visual preference. The search feature of the website allows you to search using either the title of the book or ISBN. With PDF Grab, you get access to digital books of different categories including Business, Law, Medicine, and so on.

27. PDF Drive

There are classical books that help your research, and then there are the new, modern textbooks that offer a different perspective to your learning scheme. PDF Drive is just the website you need to discover these textbooks and download them for free. Browse through their catalog and discover the most sought-after textbooks.

28. PDF Magazine

Just like the name suggests, PDF Magazine is host to thousands of magazines that can be viewed and downloaded in PDF format. The large library of this website contains half a million resources and is a good place to source the free college textbooks you need. A great feature of this website is the availability of textbooks in 40 different languages, making it easy to access globally.

29. ScholarWorks

A few of the free textbook websites on this list have their roots in universities, and this is no different. Created and maintained by Grand Valley State University, ScholarWorks offers a wide range of free college textbooks for students and aims to improve learning at a higher level. This is achieved through the easily accessible digital books written and published by scholars. 

30. Saylor Academy

Saylor Academy is a digital free college textbooks library that offers you textbooks in PDF, Microsoft Word, and Epub formats. Added to that, you’re allowed to review each textbook through a survey so you can let the publishers know what you think of their books and papers. Saylor Academy offers diverse digital books across many fields of study including online marketing and public speaking.

31. Sci-Hub

Sci-Hub is for students in the science field looking for free college textbooks specific to their area of study. Regardless of its specificity, the website has a lot of great content and features digital books, journals, and research papers. The site also houses files that are hard to find and makes it easier to access a lot of science-related textbooks.

32. The Assayer

If you’re on the lookout for a large digital library that houses all the free college textbooks that remain constant from year to year, then The Assayer is a great pick. The contents of the digital library are textbooks that have been released by publishers and made available for public use. This site makes it easier to download textbooks from previous years rather than spend money on new ones.

33. Wikibooks

Picture a website that has an immense wealth of knowledge in all fields across the globe. This is exactly what Wikibooks offers. It’s a site dedicated to helping you start up and build your knowledge in all fields including STEM courses, Social Sciences, and language learning. Browse the various e-books available to get started.

Olivia Smith

Olivia Smith is a seasoned content writer and BookScouter website advocate. She believes that high quality well-researched content is the key to success for any business. Having been involved in content marketing for 6+ years, she's proud to help BookScouter users to complement their education and pursue personal development delivering great stories and pieces of advice.

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Top 15 Free Textbook Resources According to Reddit

Textbook prices can be extremely high and make access difficult for some people. This article lists the top free textbook resources according to Reddit.

Jun 23, 2021

1.  Library Genesis  

Library Genesis, also known as LibGen and Genesis Library, is the classic Reddit recommendation to find textbooks, articles, journals, books, images, magazines, comics, general-interest books, you name it, online. It’s one of the larger online library websites and usually will have what you’re looking for. It has easy download options and tends to be a top choice for most people seeking online books from Reddit.

2.  Z-Library

Z-Library, or zlib, is a great source for books and scholarly articles. This site was originally created on the basis of being a shadow library for peer-reviewed journals, but it’s content eventually expanded to several other areas. Now, a lot of newer, popular reads are usually on this site. 

3.  Project Gutenberg

This site is a really well known source for books that have been released under United States copyright law and fallen under public domain. Everything on this site is distributed with permission. Not every book is on this site, but it’s a great resource for older texts and easy download. Lots of professors and librarians tend to recommend Project Gutenberg since it is the oldest digital library.

4.  Sci-Hub

Moving towards more precise content, Sci-Hub is a great resource for science focused articles, peer reviewed journals, and anything science related you may be searching for. This is a more specific resource but really has a lot of content that may not be found elsewhere. It includes mostly books and research papers.

5.  The Wayback Machine

The Wayback Machine, also known as internet archive, is a service that preserves archived content from the internet, including pdfs, ebooks, and sites that are no longer live. Internet Archive has millions of ebooks that are used from public libraries digital inventories. It has books, movies, software, music,  websites, and pretty much any media that could be uploaded on the internet. 

6.  The Assayer

The Assayer is a large database of content that authors have released for free use. The library likely doesn’t have the most current materials, but is great for content that doesn’t change year to year. Users can also leave reviews and engage in book discussions with other people on the platform.

7.   PDF Drive

PDF drive is a great resource for popular reading choices. They have most of the newer books and even recommend different titles each week. Sometimes there may be a wait to download certain titles based on how requested they are. There is a premium option available to avoid this issue, but most users do not. 

8.  Open Library

This site operates most like an actual library and is connected to The Wayback Machine/Internet Archive. You are able to borrow a book and then give back access. It has a large art section and has almost all of the classic books. The site is translatable to several languages.

9.  PDF Magazine

This site is catered towards magazines and has over 565,000 available for PDF download. Every kind of print magazine is in digital format on this platform. You can also browse by language and they currently offer issues in 40 different languages.

10.  Every Poet

Similar to PDF Magazine and Sci-Hub, Every Poet focuses specifically on poetry. This site would be very helpful for anyone taking an English class. Beyond classics like Robert Frost and Sylvia Platt, you can also submit your own poetry and read submissions from other users. 

11.  Ocean of PDF

This site has a very extensive category list so you should be able to find what you’re looking for in specific subjects. The site also has the option to request they add a book if it is not already available, which could be helpful for tricky titles. 

12.  bioRxiv

This site is another source focused on science. It offers a great breakdown of different subjects like epidemiology, ecology, cancer research, etc. You can also subscribe to the site using RSS feed so you have a constant refresh of new articles and information. They also tweet when papers in certain subjects are published to the site.

13.  Cite Seer X

This site works well for content published before 2000 and created by Penn State University. You can search by author and title, but you should know what you’re looking for since there isn’t a browsing tab. They also have premade citations for the content you use.

14.  Mobilism

Mobilism offers apps, games, and reviews on top of books. This site acts as a community of resources with lots of guidance and different areas. Individual users upload content to this site so there’s more variance. 

15.  Bookshare

This site has a lot of lesser-known titles and different genres to choose from including topics like cooking, graphic novels, and literary criticism. The site also has SAT, LSAT, MCAT, and GRE prep books that tend to be updated with recent versions.

Other Ways to Find Cheap Textbooks

• Sometimes professors have textbooks donated by previous students, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask.
• Renting is a great way to save some money, especially if you don’t intend to continue studying a subject after a class. Amazon and student stores usually have this option for most textbooks.
• Buy used! Used textbooks are another fantastic option because they have the same content you need but can sometimes be hundreds of dollars cheaper.

Finding ways to save money in college is necessary for a lot of people. Saving on textbooks is a great way to start but not a foolproof solution. Financial aid, including grants, scholarships, and loans are a nice start to cover all of your expenses in college.

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The 20+ best places to find free audiobooks online.

It’s not hard to see why audiobooks have recently grown in popularity: there’s something uniquely magnetic about stories brought to life by professional actors who can add texture to various personalities. If you want to absorb stories while you walk, do your chores, or lie down with your eyes closed, audiobooks are your portable friends.

While audiobooks are generally more expensive than ebooks or print books, we can help you minimize your spending (and maximize your library) — start by browsing through this list of the best websites to find free audiobooks online!

This music streaming giant hosts a number of audiobooks on their service , and have even entered the game by producing their own series of high-quality, professional audiobooks . Both of these lists feature public domain works, meaning their 95 year copyright has expired and they’ll be fairly old classics — so put your sophisticated hat on, and get ready to start checking books off your ‘ books to read before you die ’ list. 

Spotify also houses a large number of short story podcasts featuring works from around the world, so it’s worth searching for the authors or stories you’re interested in on Spotify’s search bar. A great starting point is the 1001 Classic Short Stories and Tales podcast. Just remember that you’ll need a (free) Spotify account to listen to any Spotify content.

2. LibriVox

LibriVox ’s recordings are all made by volunteers, so audio quality can vary, and certain voices or accents can be a little difficult to understand if English isn’t your native language. That said, this nonprofit service provides a vast trove of free audiobooks with the mission of making audiobooks more accessible online, and was a pioneer in recording public domain books for the general public. If you have any trouble navigating their website, they also upload their recordings to YouTube — you can check out their channel here . And hey, if you’re feeling grateful, you can even volunteer to read a book yourself!

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Okay, we get that not everyone feels like reading the classics. If you’re looking for contemporary audiobooks, or you’re after a specific title that isn’t in the public domain, Amazon’s Audible offers a massive number of professionally narrated books. Though it’s ordinarily a paid service, you can sign up for a 30-day trial that comes with a free audiobook and access to a bunch of perks like Audible’s fiction podcasts (we recommend Sour Hall , based on a story by Naomi Booth) and a further selection of free audiobooks for Alexa users .

Lit2Go is a free collection of public domain books, offered by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology at USF. Lit2Go’s collection includes some wonderful classic children’s books like The Secret Garden , The Story of Doctor Dolittle , Little Women , and Peter Pan . Adults are spoiled for choice, too, with some of the best books of all time : to give you a glimpse, you’ll find classics like Great Expectations , Moby Dick , Dracula , and Wuthering Heights in their library. 

5. Audiobooks.com

Audiobooks.com is another service you ordinarily have to pay for, but their generous trial offer includes 3 free audiobooks. Like Audible, this is ideal if you’re after specific contemporary releases, or don’t particularly fancy the classics. Their professional-quality audiobooks are narrated by experienced voice actors, so it’s hard to go wrong no matter what you select. Audiobooks for your next road trip , anyone?

6. BBC Sounds

BBC Sounds is a free new app by the BBC. It’s now the home of its radio channels, hosting a wide variety of radio shows, podcasts, and even audiobooks. The BBC has a long history of working with the most prolific actors in the UK to provide dramatizations for radio, and it’s now branching out to free abridged audiobooks . As long as you don’t mind listening to abridged editions, you’re guaranteed some absolutely top-quality listening. 

7. Rakuten Kobo

Operating similarly to other subscription services, Kobo’s audiobook list is quite extensive, so you’re probably going to find whatever it is you’re looking for here. Like Audible, it’s normally a paid service, but a free trial can get you a high-quality complimentary audiobook, so it’s worth a try! Just remember to cancel your subscription before you’re charged (and the same goes for all other trial periods mentioned in this post).

8. Open Culture

Open Culture has done all the compiling for you, and rounded up a long list of free audiobooks available on the web. For that reason, you’ll see some overlap with the public domains books found on the rest of this list — but their list is so incredibly handy that you’ll get over it. 

9. Learn Out Loud

Learn Out Loud ’s mission is to offer free multimedia for educational purposes, and they’ve been doing a great job of it since 2005. Their website features over 3,000 free audiobooks for you to expand your horizons, and if you’re feeling flexible with your listening habits, you can also check out their broader directory of audio and video content : in addition to audiobooks, it lists lectures, courses, speeches, and so much more. 

10. All You Can Books

Think buffet, but books. Like Audible, Kobo, and Audiobooks.com, this is a paid service. However, signing up for a free 30-day trial with All You Can Books means that you are free to consume as many audiobooks as you can within that period of time — and yes, that’s a challenge! 

🚨We do have to note two things, though:

• Despite the fact that this service provides more than just public domain books, its 40,000 audiobooks don’t tend to include hot new releases, which may be a significant drawback for many readers. 
• Many of this service’s online reviewers say they had trouble cancelling their trial, or had difficulty getting through to customer service when they’ve subsequently been charged for failing to cancel, so be careful. Don’t leave cancelling to the last day of your trial!

11. OverDrive

OverDrive is a distributor of digital content to libraries. If you’re a member of your local public library, you may have access to OverDrive through your online account — that’s something to ask your librarian about. They’ve also launched an app called Libby to help facilitate a smoother reading experience for their users. This is an excellent, professional-quality resource that includes old classics and contemporary releases alike. And most important of all, you’ll make your librarian happy!

12. Scribl 

Scribl is an online retailer of ebooks and audiobooks — but over half of their listed audiobooks are available to download for free, so their site is well worth a browse. Many of the books they list are by indie authors , so if you do listen to their offerings, make sure to leave a review. Reviews mean the world to indie authors! 

🎁 If free books in exchange for a review sound like your kind of thing, why not sign up to be a Reedsy Discovery reviewer ? There’s a whole bunch of ebooks to choose from.

13. Free Classic Audiobooks

Still hungering for the classics? Free Classic Audiobooks is a straightforward website that’s just what it says on the tin: it allows you to download MP3 or M4B files of classic works. Sure, it’s just another option for public domain books, but the great thing about having so many options is that you can really take your pick of narrator if you hate someone’s voice. The web is spoiling you. Appreciate it.

14. Storynory

Educational content, fairy tales, full-length audiobooks: Storynory has your child’s audiobook needs covered. From Oscar Wilde’s tales to Greek, Indian, or Norse mythology, little readers are bound to find something they’re happy with in this wonderful collection. In fact, we might catch up on some mythology ourselves. It’s never too late.

15. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the world’s oldest digital library, and run by volunteers. Like many of the services above, it provides exclusively public domain works, but it stands out because of its linguistic diversity — the site provides audiobooks in 50+ languages . Do check that the audiobook you select is narrated by a human, though, as this website also lists computer-generated recordings that are nothing if not a bizarre experience. (Okay, you’re probably curious, so here’s a computer-read version of Middlemarch by George Eliot . Enjoy!🤖)

16. Mind Webs

Mind Webs used to be a dramatized radio programme hosted by Michael Hanson. Its archive of over 100 speculative and sci-fi short stories is now available online, and it makes for magnificent listening. These high-quality half-hour shows are guaranteed to transport fans of sci-fi audiobooks into different worlds.

Sync is an annual summer reading marathon for teens, held by AudioFile Magazine in collaboration with OverDrive. (Don't worry, it doesn’t really have to be a marathon: you can simply choose to read some books and not others.) You can learn more about how it works on Sync’s FAQ page , but the gist of it is that participants gain free access to two thematically linked audiobooks every week over the course of the summer.

18. World Book Day 

You'd be wrong if you assumed that World Book Day only offers audiobooks for a single day. Instead, they provide a selection of free listens for children for six months, starting mid-February (with the exception of books published by Penguin and Hachette, which only stay up for one month). From picture books to options for teens, they cover a wide age range — and all of them are professional recordings.

19. Digitalbook 

You may remember Digitalbook from the old days when it was called Librophile — it’s a website that operates as a search engine for free audiobooks in the public domain. Through their site, you can find specific titles from the various sites listed here, as well as retailer sites like Amazon. With its focus on simplicity, Digitalbook really helps streamline the process of locating specific books. 

20. RBDigital 

RBDigital operates in the same way that OverDrive does: it works with local libraries, providing access to a large collection of professional-standard audiobooks. You’ll probably find that your library is subscribed to either RBDigital or OverDrive. Both boast excellent lists of reputable titles, so don’t worry, your library will have you covered whichever they choose!

21. Chirp Books

If you've heard of popular retailer of discount ebooks Bookbub , you'll be excited to know they also have a platform for discounted audiobooks. It's called Chirp Books , and you can sign up to it for free. If you're based in the US or Canada, you'll have access to their catalog of free titles, which at the time of writing includes books by Walt Whitman, John Grisham, and Carmen Maria Machado. The rest of the audiobooks on their platform are available to buy at steep discounts (up to 95%), so there's plenty of options to browse. In fact, the folks over at Chirp have sent us a discount code for any Reedsy readers to claim a discount on their first purchase, so you can use the code REEDSY30 for 30% off.

We hope these resources lead you to some amazing reads — do check out our lists of free Kindle books and the best places to find free books online if you’re looking for more freebies, and happy reading!

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Ieee spectrum, follow ieee spectrum, support ieee spectrum, enjoy more free content and benefits by creating an account, saving articles to read later requires an ieee spectrum account, the institute content is only available for members, downloading full pdf issues is exclusive for ieee members, downloading this e-book is exclusive for ieee members, access to spectrum 's digital edition is exclusive for ieee members, following topics is a feature exclusive for ieee members, adding your response to an article requires an ieee spectrum account, create an account to access more content and features on ieee spectrum , including the ability to save articles to read later, download spectrum collections, and participate in conversations with readers and editors. for more exclusive content and features, consider joining ieee ., join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to all of spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more about ieee →, join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of ieee spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more about ieee →, access thousands of articles — completely free, create an account and get exclusive content and features: save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders — all free for full access and benefits, join ieee as a paying member., get tech alert in your inbox, the top programming languages 2024, typescript and rust are among the rising stars.

Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum.

Welcome to IEEE Spectrum ’s 11th annual rankings of the most popular programming languages. As always, we combine multiple metrics from different sources to create three meta rankings. The “Spectrum” ranking is weighted towards the profile of the typical IEEE member, the “Trending” ranking seeks to spot languages that are in the zeitgeist, and the “Jobs” ranking measures what employers are looking for.

You can find a full breakdown of our methodology here , but let’s jump into our results. At the top, Python continues to cement its overall dominance, buoyed by things like popular libraries for hot fields such as AI as well as its pedagogical prominence. (For most students today, if they learn one programming language in school, it’s Python .) Python’s pretty popular with employers too, although there its lead over other general purpose languages is not as large and, like last year, it plays second fiddle to the database query language SQL , which employers like to see paired with another language. SQL popularity with employers is a natural extension of today’s emphasis on networked and cloud-based system architectures, where databases become the natural repository for all the bytes a program’s logic is chewing on.

Top Programming Languages 2024 is brought to you by the IEEE Computer Society . Get connected with the world’s largest community empowering computer science and engineering professionals.

Stalwarts like Java , Javascript , and C++ also retain high rankings, but it’s what’s going on a little further down that’s particularly interesting. Typescript —a superset of Javascript—moves up several places on all the rankings, especially for Jobs, where it climbs to fourth place, versus 11th last year. Typescript’s primary differentiator over Javascript is that it enforces static typing of variables, where the type of a variable—integer, floating point, text, and so forth—must be declared before it can be used. This allows for more error checking when Typescript programs are compiled to Javascript, and the increase in reliability has proven appealing.

Another climber is Rust , a language aimed at creating system software, like C or C++. But unlike those two languages, Rust is “memory safe”, meaning it uses a variety of techniques to ensure programs can’t write to locations in memory that they are not supposed to. Such errors are a major source of security vulnerabilities. Rust’s profile has been rising sharply, boosted by things like a February cybersecurity report from the White House calling for memory safe languages to replace C and and C++. Indeed, C’s popularity appears to be on the wane, falling from fourth to ninth place on the Spectrum ranking and from 7th to 13th on the Jobs ranking.

Two languages have entered the rankings for the first time: Apex and Solidity . Apex is designed for building business applications that use a Salesforce server as a back end, and Solidity is designed for creating smart contracts on the Ethereum   blockchain .

This year also saw several languages drop out of the rankings. This doesn’t mean a language is completely dead, it just means that these languages’ signal is too weak to allow them to be meaningfully ranked. Languages that dropped out included Forth , a personal favorite of mine that’s still popular with folks building 8-bit retro systems because of its tiny footprint. A weak signal is also why we haven’t included some buzzy languages such as Zig , although those proficient in it can apparently command some high salaries .

As these other languages come and go from the rankings, I have to give the shout out to the immortals, Fortran and Cobol . Although they are around 65 years old, you can still find employers looking for programmers in both. For Fortran, this tends to be for a select group of people who are also comfortable with high-energy physics, especially the kind of high-energy physics that goes boom (and with the security clearances to match). Cobol is more broadly in demand, as many government and financial systems still rely on decades-old infrastructure—and the recent paralyzing impact of the Cloudstrike/Microsoft Windows outage incident probably hasn’t done much to encourage their replacement!

• top programming languages - IEEE Spectrum ›
• The Top Programming Languages 2023 ›
• Programming Languages ›
• List of programming languages - Wikipedia ›

Stephen Cass is the special projects editor at IEEE Spectrum . He currently helms Spectrum's Hands On column, and is also responsible for interactive projects such as the Top Programming Languages app. He has a bachelor's degree in experimental physics from Trinity College Dublin.

Great article!

Nevertheless, while it notes C# and even F#, the article misses VB (Visual Basic) classic and .Net.

Until very recent years, VB.Net used to be more popular than C#, despite a decade long "effort" from internal Microsoft forces to bash and ban it in the hope to raise the C# public profile.

VB.Net is still supported by Microsoft (not to mention open source efforts from enthusiasts) and continues to have a strong following, so it is unfair to exclude it, while mentioning F# which never reached the VB.Net level of popularity.

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