These are our favorite sites with free books covering a wide variety of subjects.
Downloads should be free and without retribution under U.S. copyright law.
Librivox
Free audiobooks.
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Audiobooks are available in multiple languages.
Large collection of children’s audiobooks.
Books are read by volunteers; performances are hit or miss.
Many listed authors have zero books available.
If you’ve been looking for a great place tofind free audiobooks, visiting Librivox is a good start.
The site has many volunteers who work to release quality recordings of classic books.
ManyBooks
More than just classics and Creative Commons books.
Great categorization makes searching easier.
Variety of download formats.
A few areas of the site hardly ever receive updates.
Some books do cost money.
ManyBooks is one of the best resources on the web for free books in a variety of download formats.
There are hundreds of titles here in all sorts of interesting genres, and they’re completely free.
Unlike some sites, this one lets you browse free books by language.
you might also search by author and genre.
There are often several download options, like EPUB, PDF, AZW3, and FB2.
They’re also readable online through the site’s built-in book reader.
Google Play Books
Saves books in your online account.
Read from the website or the mobile app.
Requires a Google account.
Google lists the top several dozen free books available on Google Play through the link below.
Open Library
Good alternative if Internet Archive is too confusing.
Just pulls results from Internet Archive.
Some books can only be borrowed.
Open Library is a search tool that pulls data from Internet Archive.
You might use it if that site (listed below) isn’t helping you find the right book.
I particularly like the Library Explorer section because it feels like I’m looking through real bookshelves!
you might search for e-books specifically by checking theE-booksoption after running a search.
Wikibooks
Wikijunior offers books for children 12 and under.
Offers community features like a forum.
Not all of the books are completed.
Wikibooksis an open collection of mostly textbooks.
Subjects range from computer and engineering to science, humanities, languages, and more.
Project Gutenberg
Over 75,000 titles.
Wide variety of formats.
Top 100 list aids discoverability.
Majority of books are in English only.
The vast majority are released in English, but there are other languages available.
you might also check out thetop 100 list to see what other people are downloading.
you could read right in the net surf tool.
Lacks many titles in foreign languages.
Lacks advanced search features.
These are in the public domain, which means they’re freely accessible and allowed to be distributed.
In other words, you don’t need to worry if you’re looking at something illegal.
The website is really simple to use, maybetoosimple.
Free-eBooks.net
Diverse selection.
Large number of categories.
you might only download one free book a month.
Internet Archive
Books across a wide variety of interests.
you could sort by view count or popularity.
It can be difficult finding exactly what you want.
Site can be slow to respond.
The free books on this site span every possible interest.
Free Computer Books
Extensive collection of computer books.
Everything on the site is just hyperlinks to other sites.
Lacks file format variety.
Every computer subject and programming language you could think of is represented at Free Computer Books.
There are free textbooks, extensive lecture notes, and more.
There are also many subgenres, giving you an easy way to find the book you’re after.
eBooks.com
Hundreds of free books.
Download or view online in your net net app.
Must go through a “checkout” process.
Some books need special software for offline reading.
eBooks.com has a couple of ways to find free books.
The other way is tobrowse their DRM-free eBooks.
There’s also a format (PDF or EPUB), release date, and language filter.
Sacred Texts
Large collection of free religious texts.
Text is quite small.
Manual saving required for most; no download button.
you might view a list of all the books by title or author.
Every book is available online from their website.
The Online Books Page
Boasts over three million books.
Dozens of different formats.
Links to downloads on other websites.
The site itself is pretty boring, but the long list of titles might make you a repeat visitor.
There’s also a search tool where you might find books by running a partial author or title search.
SlideShare
Good for presentations and infographics.
Also a resource for downloadable documents.
Lots of non-free content.
SlideShare is another site with both free and paid books.
It’s an online forum where anyone can upload a digital presentation on any subject.
Millions of people utilize SlideShare for research, sharing ideas, and learning about new technologies.
The site supports documents and PDF files, all available as free downloads.
You have to get in to download these books, but registration is free.
Everand
Everything from sheet music to magazines.
One of the largest sources of published content.
Free only for 30 days.
However, the site is only free for 30 days.
The membership grants you access to the site’s entire database.
