E-BOOK CHRONICLES: Books For Free

Last Christmas, I got a Kindle as a gift. At the time, I mentioned here that it reportedly could hold “over 1,400 books.”  I’m not there yet. But I’ve made a lot more progress than even I thought I might.

As of this morning, I had what I’m guessing is a high number of books in the machine: 353 [If there’s anyone with more on his or her e-reader, I’d like to know. Please leave a message here or on our Facebook page]!

Now, I haven’t read all, or even most of them [For all I know, I may never get to most of them]. But, since I got most of them for free, I won’t feel bad if I don’t ever read them. Of course, I can’t get the latest bestseller for nothing. But there are quite a few books available at no cost that I’ve never read. And, if I’ve never read it, it’s new to me.

Free books fall into one of two categories; books in the public domain, and books whose authors choose to make them available at no cost [There are more of these than you’d think]. Good  sources for public domain books include the company that markets your e-book reader, as well as two independent web sites. Project Gutenberg has the ambitious goal of [eventually] making every book ever published available electronically. It’s not there yet, of course, but you can find many of the books you were supposed to have read in high school or college, for free. The Internet Archive is more interested in saving audio, video, and digital items, but has a very good collection of public domain books as well. Remember to get your e-book download in the correct format for your reader.

As for new books, the company that markets your reader probably has a web site that can hook you up with contemporary books on a variety of subjects, again, for free.

Gotta run: I’m looking up a few more freebies…