Books Online
Easily Read Books Online
While internet bookstores are starting to offer low-price, used books online, there are plenty of ways to read your favorite classics and new releases online. Book scanning and data storage technology have given a tech-savvy reader ways to read books online without paying a dime! Why buy books online when you can read books online free? Libraries now offer patrons the opportunity to “check out” a book online from any internet connection, while user-driven organizations like ProjectGutenberg have been offering complete free books online for years.
Many public and college libraries have been subscribing to academic databases for years, which allows students and researchers to access hard-to-find information from the comfort of a library desk. Recently, this market has expanded into eBook databases, which hold electronic copies of thousands or even millions of books, allowing readers to access them from any internet connection. Any individual can subscribe to these services, but public libraries often subscribe to some of the best, meaning that membership is free with a local library card. Simply type in the titles of your favorite fiction books, and start reading your free book online right now!
Or, if you are looking for good Children’s books, you can look to sites like MagicKeys.com and ChildrensBooksOnline.org. MagicKeys is great for younger children, as the storybooks offered come in full color illustrations with one or two lines of text per page. This site allows children, with the help of their parents, to learn to navigate simple web-pages by using the arrows to turn the book’s “pages,” while also giving the classic storybook feel. ChildrensBooksOnline gives older children something different, as the Rosetta Project has painstakingly copied and translated many older children’s books into a simple, online format.
ProjectGutenberg.org has been transcribing books in public domain for several years, and it now offers an extended library of more than 30,000 books. Public domain works are generally those published before 1923, and those published afterward whose owners have not renewed the copyright. While the second group is very sparse, plenty of classic works were published before the 20th century, meaning that ProjectGutenberg can give a reader access to the works of Shakespeare, Byron and Dante. For students of other languages, the Project has texts in almost 60 languages, including Chinese, Spanish and Korean. This amazing resource is free even without library card!
With so many free books available online, buying books may soon become a thing of the past!
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