Free books: 100 legal sites to download literature
The Classics
Browse works by Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and other famous authors here.
- Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
- The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
- Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.
- Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
- Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
- Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
- Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
- Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
- The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
- Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
- Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
- Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
- Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
- Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.
Textbooks
If you don’t absolutely need to pay for your textbooks, save yourself a few hundred dollars by reviewing these sites.
- Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.
- Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
- KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
- Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
- Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
- MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
- Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
- Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
- Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
- eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.
Math and Science
Turn to this list to find books about math, science, engineering and technology.
- FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
- Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
- Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks like Elementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
- Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
- FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
- Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.
Children’s Books
Even children’s books are now available online. Find illustrated books, chapter books and more.
- byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
- Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
- International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
- Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.
Philosophy and Religion
For books about philosophy and religion, check out these websites.
- Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
- Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
- Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
- The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
- Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.
Plays
From Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw to more contemporary playwrights, visit these sites.
- ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
- Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
- Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
- ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
Modern Fiction, Fantasy and Romance
These websites boast collections of graphic novels, romance novels, fantasy books and more.
- Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
- The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
- Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
- Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
- Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
- The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
- Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
- John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
- SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights, Aesop’s Fables and more.
- Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.
Foreign Language
For books in a foreign language like French, Spanish and even Romanian, look here.
- Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
- ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
- Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
- Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
- Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
- KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
- Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
- Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
- Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
- Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
- Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
- Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
- Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
- CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
- Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.
History and Culture
Refresh your memory of world history, the classics and U.S. history here.
- LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
- The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
- Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
- Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
- Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.
Rare Books
Look for rare books online here.
- Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.
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Arts and Entertainment
This list features books about celebrities, movies, fashion and more.
- Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
- Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
- Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
- 2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
- Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
- Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
- Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
- Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.
Mystery
Here you can find mystery books from Sherlock Holmes to more contemporary authors.
- MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
- TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
- Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.
Poetry
These poetry sites have works by Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
- The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
- Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
- Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
- Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
- Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, from The Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
- QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
- CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
- PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.
Miscellaneous
For even more free book sites, check out this list.
- Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
- World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
- DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the more recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
- A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
- Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
- ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
- Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
- Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.
Source
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The Smell of Books
Discussing the e-readers and their lack of the craved smell of books… freshly-pressed-books-smell junkies, here it comes:
The rumor started last year: Chanel guru Karl Lagerfeld was believed to develop a new fragance in cooperation with other book lovers. Apparently the designer has a love for books, besides his love for fashion. His own tremendous bookshelves inspired Karl to actually develop the fragrance, which is – surprisingly – named Paper Passion.
What do we smell? Easy: the smell of fresh printed books. “The best smell in the world”, according to Karl.
Photo’s via: Rts
Reality changes words…
…far more than the words can ever change reality.
A short lesson in political speaking
Geroff Kindle!
And by Kindle, I mean all types of e-readers.
And by geroff I mean, for authors’ sake, just let it be.
Every week I pick up a handful of posts by some moaning, whining and pouring buckets of anger bloggers who despise the very existence or even the idea of an electronic book. Cry me a river, then. Ok.
No, wait. What?! Come again? Are you serious? You are mad, because… let me think. Because someone is in love with the contents of a book, not with its binding, smell of glue, or of vanillin paper, or with the sound of rustling pages. Really? Is this the reason you buy books for? Kind of fetish? It’s fine by me. But.
I don’t like reading on computer or phone because it strains my eyes. I don’t like reading on a tablet either, for the very same reason. Yet I don’t write despicable posts to tell the world how I die to ban reading on anything but a soft off-white paper with 11pt Georgia font. I just don’t use what does not seem to suit me well. I also happen to dislike gumbo but I don’t deny your right to have some once in a while.
Now you let the people who actually care about worlds of words and heroes have it their way and that is whichever the way possible. Computer, e-reader, tissue paper, wall, sand, stone…never mind. Why? Because it does not matter what you think of the medium/device/bearer of the information. It’s the story that’s important. And certainly not your personal taste.
No fancy binding could divert me of satisfy my needs for READING.
Now have it your way, or other way but do not become a paper book-nazi. We have had enough.
I don’t care that much about the form,
Quote of the day: creativity
Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.
Mary Lou Cook
The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:
By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:
By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:
With a bachelor’s degree, you gain a specialty:
A master’s degree deepens that specialty:
Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:
Once you’re at the boundary, you focus:
You push at the boundary for a few years:
Until one day, the boundary gives way:
And, that dent you’ve made is called a Ph.D.:
Of course, the world looks different to you now:
So, don’t forget the bigger picture:
Keep pushing.
Five Ways to Break Through Writers Block
Bottom line is there are two types of writers: those who believe in writers block and those who don’t. Neither will deny the magic and energy that possesses an author when inspiration rears its mysterious head, but where their approach to writing differs is how the time is spent between those moments of inspiration.
Picture a blank page and what do you see? A canvas waiting to be filled with your words and your voice? Or a taunting emptiness that has you despairing over your first line?
When you are daunted by the incessant cursor winking at you from the shoreless white sea on your computer, one of the biggest mistakes a writer can make is succumbing to doubt.
Here are five practical tips that will snap you out of your daze and dissolve your writers block so that you can get back to the book you’re dying to write.
1) Just write!
Remember that nothing is perfect the first go-around, and if you let a blank sheet of paper intimidate you, you’re doomed from the beginning.
A book doesn’t write itself after all.
Take a walk and clear you head. Put on some music and brew some coffee. Then crack your knuckles, sit down in front of your computer and type out ideas, images – whatever pops into your head. Perhaps transcribe a dialogue between two friends, or something you overheard in line at the grocery store; before you know it, you’ll have painted an entire scene.
Maybe the language and tone aren’t your best ever, maybe the flow is all wrong and a section or two jumps into a completely different dimension, but now you have something real, something to work with and mold to your liking.
Even if out of an hour’s worth of work you keep only two or three sentences, you now have direction.
At the very least you now know what to avoid the next time you write.
2) Make an outline
Think about the beginning, middle and end of your project. Where are you starting, where are you headed and where would you like to end?
Jot down general ideas and details you plan to mention. Find a rhythm and progression to the entire project.
Reestablish your authority and realize that you can speak confidently on the subject you’ve chosen.
Once you have your bearings and a firm grip on your subject, you’ll move ahead with greater clarity and less stress.
3) Exercise
Writing exercises are another great way of dodging writers block. Sometimes all a writer needs is a little push in the right direction, and exercises can be just the ticket.
In addition to sharpening your writing skills and developing your own voice, exercises also get your creative juices flowing.
Take a few minutes, step away from the project that has you sweating, and write something for fun. These exercises can range anywhere from using a word randomly selected to detailing the dream you had the previous evening to the quirky how-did-this-green-umbrella-get-in-this-room explanations.
Long story short, you can’t write if you’re not enjoying yourself. Remember the reason you’re writing at all. Exercises can help you laugh, learn and realize your passion for writing all over again.
4) Practice makes perfect
Inspiration comes in spurts, but, like sleeping, you can regulate your cycle.
Set aside a specific hour or two each day devoted strictly to writing. Say you prefer writing in the morning. Then wake up an hour early, brew some coffee, and pull a chair up to your computer.
Before the end of the week, you’ll have a writing schedule ingrained in your daily routine, and you’ll discover that your creative groove makes its appearance at the time you’ve established.
5) Who’s listening?
Don’t forget that you’re writing for an audience – one that targets your writing for its authority and knowledge on a given subject.
Like you, your audience wants the whole story. They want the facts and scenes delivered to them without hesitation, without vagueness, but most importantly, without dilly-dallying. The last thing your audience wants is to be bored.
Writers block can be a good indication that you’re simply bored with what you’ve written, and you can safely deduce that your audience will be as well when they open your future book.
Go back and read what you’ve written. Where did the energy fizzle out and the tone take a nosedive? What was the most interesting part and what made it so invigorated? Your readers are smart people, not unlike yourself, and the flaws as well as the virtues you notice in your own writing will be the same ones your audience sees as well.
Some authors envision a single person to whom they are telling their story in order to give their audience a face, a listening ear and a doubtful expression.
For example, Kurt Vonnegut pictured himself writing to his sister when he started a book. For him, she acted as the devil’s advocate, frowning when a sentence sounded sour, laughing when a scene tickled her.
Don’t get bogged down by the incomprehensible size of your audience. Take a page from the Vonnegut book on writing and picture a friend, a family member, anyone you trust, and let them be your guide!
AWARDS
Just English 