When it comes to ebooks, there are those who hate them, preferring the feel of paper, and those who are convinced and would not replace their Kindle or other e-reader for anything in the world. For my part, I am part of the second category… having never read as much in my life as since I got a Kindle in my pocket, thanks in particular to many sources of free ebooks.
The advantages of ebooks are numerous. You don't need to lug around a heavy and bulky book, you can take your entire library with you everywhere, you can read in the dark (for those who have backlit devices)... All on a device that works with electronic ink, almost perfectly imitating reading on paper with a negligible energy consumption (e-readers have autonomy of more than a month in general).
So, if you are a bibliovore you may want to save some money on your reading expenses. The first solution would be to subscribe to an unlimited reading service for a few euros per month ( Amazon, for example, offers this type of subscription).
The second solution is much more radical since it involves recovering ebooks available for free. (and legally). You'd be surprised how many ebooks (EPUB, MOBI, PDF) you can get without spending a single euro... and that goes for all types of books. Where can you find these free books? That's what we're going to see!
5 Legal Free Ebook Download Sites
Project Gutenberg, the reference
A true reference in the world of royalty-free ebooks, Project Gutenberg operates thanks to donations and is maintained by volunteers with the goal of sharing as many high-quality books as possible. Most of the books in the database are books that have fallen into the public domain, but not only that!
Project Gutenberg currently hosts several tens of thousands of ebooks (53 according to the English version of the site and 000 according to the French version...).
You can display the most popular books (most downloaded), display a random book or do more classic searches by author, title, language, etc.
Note that the search system is not very intuitive since you will have to use sorting operators directly in your search. For example, to display Shakespeare's books in French you will have to search for the following terms: " shakespeare l.french". Help is available on the right of the search field to explain all this to you!
Open Library
Open Library's ambitious goal is to create a web page for every book ever written. Behind Open Library is the Internet Archive initiative, which aims to serve as a digital museum for many things: books, films, video games, Music courses...
Open Library has a collaborative dimension that encourages you to help build this huge international library.
Operating like a library, some books can be borrowed for a limited period with online reading, but other books in the public domain can be downloaded to your e-reader.
With a free account Internet Archive you can even build your own library. In short, a great resource to explore!
Feedbooks
With a fairly successful ergonomics compared to its competitors, Feedbooks has a French version which references a very large library of ebooks which have fallen into the public domain (in parallel with an ebook store).
The ebooks are categorized and it is also possible to perform a basic search in the database. Finally, you can also view the most popular books and the latest releases.
Feedbooks
Google Play Books
You weren't expecting maybe not google in this list of sites and yet, the web giant offers a large number of free books on its platform.
There too, we finds most of the great classics fallen into the public domain, but not only that! Indeed, some more recent books are offered for free.
To download a free ebook in ePub or PDF format from Google Play:
- Go to your library
- Click on the 3 small dots under the book that interests you.
- Choose the “Export” option
- Select the desired export format (ePub or PDF)
The link below allows you to directly filter all the free ebooks on the platform.
ManyBooks
This last site is not my favorite, but it has a fairly rich database of more than 33 ebooks in all languages… and notably in French.
Once again you will find a large quantity of books that have fallen into the public domain and for a efficient search, it will be better to know what you are looking for (an author or a title)… However, the site offers a list of books by language, classified alphabetically by title.
To conclude on the search for free ebook
In short, if you are a big reader, you should have no trouble finding a free ebook for your e-reader... Well, of course, you won't find the latest trendy novel for free and legally, but you will be able to catch up on the great classics of literature or more intimate works by less fashionable writers! Long live the free ebook!
This selection is really great
The link to BookZZ does not work (or no longer?), do you have an update?
Hello,
Indeed BookZZ has changed its name and URL… it is now called B-OK. I have just updated the article.
Thank you
Nice work, a complete list.. as a literature fan I am a member of the EBG forum, unfortunately it is not in the list.
Good luck for the future.