With the coming of the internet, access to books expanded from print and audio to include online and ebooks in several formats. Included are common formats such as Text, PDF, RTF, Word and several proprietary formats such as Microsoft Reader [.lit], Adobe Digital Editions, Sony®Reader, … .

Online books are also available across fiction, non-fiction, most genres and many languages.

Not all ebooks and online books are free. Proprietary formats often have books for purchase including recent editions.

A variety of sources for both types have been provided. There are also links to different readers, free and fee-based, and software to allow you to change formats or to read the different formats available.

If you prefer to read Books, use this link. Other book information, especially about new releases and popular sellers can be found through the Booksellers and Publishers pages.

eBooks

Free ebooks

Many sites have some free books. These supply only, or some, Free ebooks in a mix of formats.

• 100+ Sources for Free Books & Texts Online
  ‘The following list of over 100 sources offers everything from ancient classic texts to children’s books to books you can hear on your iPod’.
• 124 Sites For Free Children’s Books Online
  ‘This is a listing of 124 sites that legally offer Free ebooks for children to read. This page is geared towards younger children. I recently added a page of site listings for Free Teen and Young Adult Books Online for older children’.
• 390+ Places for Free Books Online
  ‘This is a listing of 390+ sites that legally offer Free books [eBooks] for download or for online viewing’. Linked site for Audio Books. From Gizmo’s Freeware.
• A Good Read
  Classics and modern with some limited to a range of chapters. Articles, ezine, product reviews, links.
• AKAMAC E-text Links
  Listed alphabetically by author, works listed on the individual’s page. Other search methods.
• Alex Catalogue - Electronic Texts
  Ebooks accessed via author, title, date or full catalogue. ‘Public domain and open access documents with a focus on American and English literature as well as Western philosophy’.
• Australian Studies
  “Full Text and Other Resources [SETIS]” Ebooks from Australia’s history, early culture.
• Authorama
  [Public Domain Books]
  ‘Free books from different authors, collected here for you to read online or offline. The books may have been published before, but not in this form, which I hope you find enjoyable to read and print’. Listed alphabetically.
• Bibliomania
  2 000+ texts, study guides, reference resources, more. Not all are free.
• Books On Line
  A wide range of books, some of them Free ebooks.
  You now need to be able to log in to access this site.
• Calibre Open Books
  ‘Open Books is a compilation non DRM e-books from various sources linked to enable readers to browse and download them’. Select by genre, tag, type, publisher or series.
• ClassicReader
  ‘Where you can read, search, annotate great works of literature by authors such as Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, others’.
• DailyLit
  ‘DailyLit sends books in instalments via e-mail or RSS feed. We currently offer classic and contemporary books available entirely for Free’.
• Diesel eBook Store
  ‘MS Reader Files Sorted By Title. Diesel eBooks presents the best works of 413 authors with 750+ titles’.
• DigitalBookIndex Subject Menu
  eBooks, eTexts, Documents, On Line Books. Most are free.
• Digital Library
  Connect to 10 000+ books you find by name or author. Links to libraries, reading rooms, archives.
• Digital Products Database
  ‘The largest collection of ebooks, audio books and more from self-published authors. Because of this most of “our” books are not available on other book sites’.
• eBooks
  ‘Ebooks for PCs, Macs, Sony Readers, mobile phones, more. A vast range of ebooks from the world’s leading academic, popular and professional publishers’.
• eBooks@Adelaide, Free Web Books, Online
  ‘More than 700 classic works of Literature, Philosophy, Science, History. Each work carefully formatted for maximum readability either on screen or when printed. Works can be read online, or downloaded for offline reading’.
• E-Books Directory
  ‘E-Books Directory is a daily growing list of freely downloadable ebooks, d ocuments and lecture notes found all over the internet’.
• eBooks Online Library
• eScholarship Editions
  ‘Includes almost 2 000 books from academic presses on a range of topics including art, science, history, music, religion, fiction. Over 500 titles available to the public’.
• Free-Book.co.uk
  Extensive listing in directories such as electronics, history, home, etc..
• Free Books
  Links to Australian, World, specialist sites that provide online or downloadable ebooks, e-documents.
• Free eBooks
  “Internet Marketing, Advertising, Business ebooks.”
• Free-eBooks.net
  ‘Free fiction, tutorial, marketing, business ebooks. Free ebook downloads, ebook resources, ebook authors’.
• Free Novels Online [Public Bookshelf]
  Mostly romantic ebooks. Read these online.
• FreeOnlineBookstore.org
  More than 10 000 books grouped in 35 categories. Includes online, ebooks, even online tutorials.
• Free Online Fiction
  Links to Free online fiction from short stories to novels.
• FullBooks.com
  ‘Thousands of Full-Text Free Books’. Online, grouped alphabetically, so you need to know the title. Some modern as well as classics.

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• Gutenberg Digital
  ‘The Göttingen Gutenberg Bible is Freely available on the Web. Due to the high quality images - it is possible that the download may take some time’. Other documents. You can also try an alternate link at the The British Library.
• International Children’s Digital Library
  ‘The mission is to excite and inspire the world’s children to become members of the global community - children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas - by making the best in children’s literature available online’. Registering is optional but appears worthwhile.
  Highly Recommended !
• ManyBooks
  Free eBooks for your PDA, iPod, or eBook Reader
  Multiple formats, multiple directories from Adventure to Young Readers.
  Well presented !
• MemoWare
  Thousands of Free ebooks and PDA Documents. Listing in formats for handhelds [some Microsoft ebook format].
• Microsoft Reader Catalogue of eBooks
  Some Free e-books to use with the Microsoft Reader, books you can purchase.
• MyFree-Ebooks.org
  ‘Here you can read unlimited amount of ebooks for Free, in many different formats. We have thousands of Free ebooks, in many different categories, and a lot of resell rights products and plr products. Become a Free member’.
• Online Library of Literature
  Classic works of English literature, classic scientific works.
• Page by Page Books
  ‘Hundreds of classic books you can read right now’. View listings by author, title.
• Planet PDF - Free PDF eBooks
  Part of a larger PDF site.
• Project Bartleby
  Literature, reference, verse - all with unlimited access.
• Project Gutenberg
  A huge range [1 000s] of books online.
• Project Gutenberg of Australia
  Books with an Australian background, others, other information, timelines, chronology of exploration, more.
• Read Print - Online Books
  ‘Thousands of Free books for students, teachers, the classic enthusiast’. Search by author.
• Scholar’s Lab
  50 000+ texts held at the University of Virginia with 5 000 accessible by the public. Now moved from a site previously called EText Centre.
• The Assayer
  ‘The Assayer is the web’s largest catalogue of books whose authors have made them available for Free. Users can also submit reviews’.
• The Author’s Den
  Access work by budding and lesser known authors. Free to read. Fee-based memberships for further services.
• The Book Depository - Free eBooks
  ‘The no risk approach to reading something new and trying ebooks for the first time’. More than 11 000 to choose from.
• The eBook Directory
  Claimed to be the biggest directory of ebooks online.
• The Internet Classics Archive
  Classic literature from M.I.T..
• The Literature Network, The
  ‘Searchable, online literature for the student, educator, enthusiast. To find work you’re looking for start by looking through the author index. We currently have over 1 900 full books, over 3 000 short stories and poems by over 250 authors’.
• The On-Line Books Page, Listings
  35 000+ listings. Search by author, title, subject, new listings. Or use the The Online Books Page, with 26 subject categories. Done using Library of Congress [US] catalogue system.
• The Oxford Text Archive
  ‘Works with members of the Arts and Humanities academic community to collect, catalogue, preserve high-quality electronic texts for research, teaching. Currently distributes more than 2 500 resources in over 25 different languages’. Some have restrictions.
• Turning the Pages
  The British Library. Material from the First Atlas of Europe to Jane Austen’s early work, the Lindisfarne Gospels, more. Multiple viewing options. A separate Virtual Books page also allows you to access these online.
  Brilliant !
• Wikisource
  ‘Wikisource is an online library of free content publications, collected and maintained by our community. We now have 142 778 texts in the English language library’.
• World eBook Library
  ‘The world’s largest digital archive of PDF eBooks, eDocuments. Our collection hosts more than 60 000 PDF eBooks and eDocuments’. Free and Pay For Access sections.

General Sites

• Amazon eDocs
  ‘Shop over 1 000 000 articles, documents and books - then download them instantly’.
• Buy-Ebooks-Online.Com
  ‘Buy-Ebooks-Online offers downloadable ebooks or electronic books in Adobe PDF Format’.
• Cybereditions
  Online publisher of scholarly and non-fiction works plus ebooks. Fee-based.
• eBookMall
  Fee-based, but boasts 100 000+ books in multiple ebook formats.
• eBooks Search Engine
  Nearly 2 million books can be found on the database. Some sections listed as options.
• JustFreeBooks
  ‘Search Engine. Searches more than 700 web sites, including gutenberg.org, wikibooks.org and archive.org. Find public domain texts, open books, free audio books, ad-supported books, more’. List of sources provided as result, including format[s].
• Scribd
  ‘Creating technology that makes it easy to share documents online. Think of Scribd as a big online library where everyone can publish original content, including you !’ A really wide range of content, so be careful.
• SearcheBooks
  SearcheBooks is a search engine devoted exclusively to ebooks.
• Taylor & Francis
  ‘A quality collection of titles you can buy in the current popular formats. Prices listed are for individual purchasers only’. They sell books from linked publishers.
• The ebook King
  ‘Providing ebook publishing services, ebook software packages, ebook advertising services, ebook template packages, ebook researching services’. Worth a visit.
  There appear to be some problems with this site. It will be maintained only until the next update unless these are resolved.
• TumbleBookLibrary
  ‘An online collection of animated, talking picture books which teach young children the joys of reading in a format they’ll love’. Free Trial available.
• Zinepal
  ‘Zinepal creates eBooks in the PDF, ePub, Kindle and Mobipocket formats’. Be sure to check the Features page to ensure you know what is and isn’t Free. This is clearly displayed.

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Readers & Software

Ebook Readers

General Information

• Comparison of eBook Readers
  Commercially available devices, discontinued models, other mobile text viewers, references, external links. Comparison tables are quite detailed. From Wikipedia. A Further Comparison Table covering specific models can be found here.
• Things You Should Know About E-Readers
  March 2010 article from Educause.
• Top Ten Reviews 2010
  eBook Readers. Extensive information, technical details, even reader reviews

Readers

• Barnes & Noble Nook
  Features, accessories, FAQ, support, blog, reviews, more.
• BEBook Neo
  ‘The new BeBook ebook reader offers a convenient solution for both avid and occasional book readers’. Find information about specific models or the system from this site.
• Elonex
  News and reviews, multiple models, support, technical information.
• iPad
  Can also be used as an eReader. Features, design, guided tours, technical specifications, more.
• iRiver Story
  Features, specifications, system requirements, software, package content.
• Kindle
  Find all details from Amazon. Includes machines and PC software. Books for the Kindle can be found here.
• Kobo eReader
  ‘Wireless eReader’.
• Kogan Reader
  Overview, specifications, warranty, 1 500 free ebooks.
• Pocketbook
  Overview, reviews, more.
• Sony Readers
  Multiple versions of the Sony Reader. Reads multiple formats. Find all details here. Further Information can be found at this site, while Books for the Sony Reader can be found here.

Ebook Reader Formats

There are many formats, each best served by a reader for that type. Links to a number of these given below.

• Adobe Digital Editions
  ‘An engaging new way to read and manage eBooks and other digital publications. It is built from the ground up as a lightweight rich Internet application. Adobe Digital Editions works online and offline and supports PDF- and XHTML-based content as well as Adobe Flash® SWF for rich interactivity’. There is a small Library of books for Free.
• Adobe Reader
  An ebook reader for use on your PC.
• Barnes & Noble eReader
  Available Free from this site.
• Book Reader [Rudenko]
  ‘Can import books from text files. Offers a unique way of reformatting text documents to represent them on your screen according to your preferences. The program can scroll text automatically. It remembers the reading position for each book from your personal library’.
• FBReader
  ‘FBReader is an ebook reader for various platforms’. Supports several formats.
• Freda
  ‘Freda is a free program for reading electronic books [ebooks] on Windows Mobile devices. It is compatible with Windows Mobile versions 6, 5 and 2003. Reads ePub [DRM-free], HTML and TXT format books’.
• Microsoft Reader
  Another reader available for ebooks.
• MobiPocket Reader
  For use with handhelds. Mobipocket eBooks can be found here.
• Ybook
  Read text and HTML formats in book form. Change font size, have pages turn and more.

Software

• ABC Amber Lit Converter
  ‘An advanced utility which converts your LIT [Microsoft Reader] files to any format you wish [PDF, HTML, CHM, RTF, HLP, DOC, more] easily and quickly’.
• BookDB2
  ‘Enter all your books with author, category, publisher etc., print them out in a variety of formats. BookDB also has lending library features. With them, you can add borrowers, loan out books, add multiple copies and so on’. A huge capacity.
• eBooks Compiler
  ‘eBooks Compiler only takes 7 steps to create an ebook. That’s right. You can create an ebook in less than 2 minutes’. Lots of assistance. Fee-based.
• Microsoft Reader Add-In
  Create Microsoft Reader ebooks from within MS Word.
• YBook Reader
  Freeware PDB, PRC, ePub, text, HTML and RTF ebook reader software. Appears as a side-by-side or single pages book with multi-sizing of fonts, more.

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