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To enjoy reading books, you don’t need a tablet or e-reader. You can read entire books online, completely legally, in an internet browser on your computer. The most popular sites are listed below.
You are reading: Can i read books online
The internet is the best tool to find the answers and the elements we need. With the vast majority of products available in online stores, you don’t have to leave home to get everything on your wish list, including books, movies, games, or audiobooks.
The best part is that you don’t have to wait for delivery. most of the books are digitized and that means you can start enjoying them in a matter of seconds. it’s just a matter of finding the most convenient and totally legal online source of books to read.
The world’s most beloved classics are available online for free. They are called public domain books. they are free because their intellectual property rights have expired, and everyone has the right not only to download and read them, but also to remix and share them.
institutions such as project gutenberg or the internet archive digitize public domain books and make them freely available through their online catalogues.
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Unless you’re determined to build a staggeringly large personal collection of eBooks, you don’t have to deal with copying and converting files. you can read books the moment you find them at one of the sites listed below.
but what exactly does “read books online” mean? means you won’t need any of these:
- a dedicated device, such as a kindle e-reader
- a tablet with a book reader app installed
- an ebook reader app on your computer
- an extension for your internet browser
all you need is a computer connected to the internet and the internet browser of your choice, such as chrome, safari or firefox.
The sites listed below are the ones where you can read books online from the first to the last page. In the detailed descriptions, we have included a selection of titles and tips on how to improve the reading experience.
A big disadvantage of reading books in the web browser is that you have to be connected to the web. what if you want to read books offline? One way is to download web pages to your computer and open them from a downloaded file directly in a browser.
A much better way is to download an e-book file and use an e-reader, such as a kindle, or one of the many book-reading apps available for ipad > , iphone, android smartphones and tablets, and just about any other mobile device.
Most of the sites listed below offer an option to download files in various formats. all you have to remember is the correct format. be sure to download:
- mobi file: if you have a kindle or amazon fire tablet.
- epub file: if you have an ipad, iphone, kobo, nook, or android device.
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read full books online: here are 12 best sites
1. project gutenberg
project gutenberg is the mother of all ebook sites. It started in 1971, when Michael s created the world’s first electronic book. deer. it was “declaration of independence of the united states of america” and you can read it immediately in the next tab of your internet browser.
many sites that offer free public domain e-books use the titles created and uploaded to project gutenberg.
Currently, there are over 60,000 public domain books in the catalog. if you are looking for great classic books, the gutenberg project is the best destination to explore.
To read the book in your browser, simply click the “read this book online: html” option in the list of available formats.
The option to read the book online displays all elements of a book. You will be able to see the original cover of the book, as well as illustrations inside. You can also navigate the book easily using the table of content or click on hyperlinks inside the file.
There is one more benefit of an html file open in a browser. this file can be searched. you can use your browser’s search tool to search for words within the book.
You can start exploring the gutenberg project from the list of most popular ebook downloads. the world’s most loved and adored books are here: pride and prejudice by jane austen, dracula by bram stoker, frankenstein by mary shelley, works of edgar allan poe, a tale of two cities by mark twain, little women by louisa may alcott, the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, or Jane Eyre’s by Charlotte Brontë. And it’s just the beginning!
⇢ project gutenberg
2. internet archive
internet archive, founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that offers free access to digital or digitized content: books, images, videos or audio files.
The catalog includes more than 25,000,000 books and other fully accessible text files. From here, you can also start exploring a collection of 1.3 million contemporary e-books that you can borrow for free once you sign up for an account. the e-book section can be accessed at: archive.org/details/texts.
Use the search box in the upper right corner to find the book. by default, the results list shows the collection of popular libraries. you can sort the results by relevance, views, title, and the date the item was added to the catalog.
You can use the tools on the left side to narrow down the list of results by collection, media type, availability (free or borrowed), language, or creator.
To start reading, simply click on the arrows in the bottom bar of the open book image. you can enter full screen by clicking the full screen switch at the bottom right.
The online viewer presents the scanned pages of the book, what brings an extra flavor to reading. There are many ways to go through the content of the book, including one-page view, and zooming.
One thing to note is that the book’s content is fully searchable, don’t let the scan fool you. use the search bar in the upper right corner to find a word. all instances found will be marked in the progress bar at the bottom.
One of the most amazing things in the internet archive is the text-to-speech feature. you can activate it by clicking the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the book viewer.
what is worth noting is that the internet archive hosts a large number of books in foreign languages. there are more than 20 languages with the number of published text works exceeding 1000 each.
⇢ internet archive
3. open library
open library is a separate project from internet archive, focused on collecting library records. Your goal is to create a web page for each published book. on one page of a single book, you will find all its documented editions.
compared to the internet archive, with its extensive catalog and advanced search capabilities, the open library website is simpler and easier to use, and you can find the books you need much faster.
When you go to the classic books section, you’ll find over 3 million books that are “accessible,” meaning they can be read online or downloaded for free.
See Also: 13 Best Composting Books You Need to Read
Once you find the book, you’ll know right away if you can read it online or not. just look for the big blue “read” button. when you hover over the headphone icon, you’ll be able to hear the audio version.
click the reader icon and you will be redirected to a full screen online reader on the internet archive website.
In the top right corner of the viewer, you will see an option to download the book, usually in either epub or pdf format.
the open library is more than a catalog of free classic books. it also displays contemporary books that are free to read if you decide to borrow them. To do that, you may need to register with open library or find the book at your local library using worldcat or library link. each book in the library is marked with a “borrow” button instead of “read”.
⇢ open library
4. google books
A large collection of books that have been scanned and converted into viewable files by Google is available at Google Books.
The google books home page at books.google.com is nothing more than a search box. To start exploring this vast library of digitized books, you need to type something, like the name of your favorite classic author or the title of a book.
Not all books online can be fully previewed, but you can narrow your search results to those that are.
To do this, on the top bar, click “any view”. From a drop-down list, select “Google Free eBooks” to view only books that can be read online from cover to cover.
Google Books gives also a chance to preview free samples of books that are not available in the public domain. To see a list of these books, select “Preview available” option from the “Any books” drop-down menu.
the free preview of a copyrighted title listed on google books does not have to be the first part of the book.
Suppose a publisher sets a free preview for 20% of a book. you can select a chapter in the middle and read 20% from now. or jump from one page to another, if you want.
You will be able to preview the book until you reach a publisher’s free page limit.
⇢ google books
5. crush words
smashwords is a leading online platform for e-books from independent authors and publishers. there are currently more than 500,000 from over 100,000 self-published authors.
Thousands of books are available for free download and online viewing. the total number is changing, but usually around 100,000 titles are available for free viewing.
smashwords authors have the option to set the length of a free preview. many writers choose to let readers preview the entire book online.
To see which books are free to read in your internet browser, go to the smashwords free ebook catalog. then change the way the entries are displayed, from stacks to list. do so by clicking the bullet list icon in the top right.
In the list view, look for the “online reader” button displayed at the bottom of an entry, next to the blue buttons with e-book formats.
There are several customization options to choose from. You can select a size (4 levels to choose from), and font face (Arial, Courier, Times, Verdana, Georgia). You can also personalize colors by setting up your own font and background.
Frankly, the reading interface offered by smashwords is not the strongest part of this great site. there is no full screen view, for example. It would help a lot, since the book content window is very narrow.
⇢ crushing words
6. many books
manybooks offers free books in a clean and friendly interface. the site is ad supported, but these ads are usually displayed at the bottom of the browser window and are not too annoying.
Most of the books come from the gutenberg project and from sites that offer books under a creative commons license.
In total, there are over 50,000 books available, all with beautifully designed covers. Plus, each book is available in multiple file formats—much more than you can find elsewhere.
Most importantly, every title in the manybooks catalog can be read in your internet browser.
after you find the book you want to read, go to this book’s detail page and click the big “read online” button.
The reading interface is very clean and nicely designed, although it takes some time to load it, especially when it comes with a book cover.
you can change the font size (4 levels), plus the site works well on mobile devices, so you can also read books in a browser on your tablet.
⇢ lots of books
7. bookrix
bookrix is a platform that offers books by self-published authors combined with free public domain books.
A catalog of free e-books is an essential part of the website. At the top of a list, you’ll find the most popular categories, including literary fiction, fantasy, romance, thriller, and young adult fiction.
When you enter any category, you’ll see the books sorted by popularity. At the top, you’ll see free books offered by contemporary authors.
Many classic titles from the public domain are also included in the BookRix directory of free ebooks. You will find them in the Fiction category.
When you find the book you want to read, click on its cover or title to enter the book’s detail page. To open an online viewer, look for the “read book” button located next to the cover.
⇢ bookrix
8. autorama
if you are looking for a site that loads fast even when you have a slow connection, you should visit authorama.
See Also: 21 Best Sound Books For Babies And Toddlers – Mommy Baby Play
Created and maintained by Philipp Lenssen, this extremely simple website includes several dozen popular Project Gutenberg books. You can find here books by Mary Shelley, Francis Bacon, Charles Dickens, Jerome K. jerome (yes, three men in a boat!), or robert louis stevenson.
The front page is at the same time a simple table of content, sorted by the name of an author.
clicking on a book title link will open a simple html viewer. the content of each book is divided into several parts so that the data loads as quickly as possible.
This site can also be viewed in a browser on a mobile phone.
⇢ autorama
9. bookboon
bookboon is an online platform focused on providing free and paid textbooks for students and businesses.
The site offers textbooks written by professors from the best universities in the world. There are over 1,000 books that are free to download, but to do so, you need to register. when you visit the site for the first time, choose “sign up for free e-books”. you can use your google, facebook, linkedin credentials to quickly access the book catalog.
You can find on bookboon several interesting books from the following categories: engineering, IT & programming, economics & finance, career & study of advice, marketing, strategy & administration, or languages.
Each book can be downloaded in pdf format, but you can also open an online reading interface by clicking “Start Reading” button.
If you’re a free member, you’ll see ads in the content of the books you read. the company claims that ads take up no more than 15% of the content.
It is worth noting that bookboon has the best online reading interface. it’s clean, nicely designed, and uses 100% of the web browser window without going full screen.
⇢ bookboon
10. wattpad
wattpad is one of the world’s most popular e-reading websites. connects more than 80 million readers and writers who spend more than 23 billion minutes per month reading original stories published directly on the platform.
the site offers and promotes paid stories, but the vast majority of the content is free, but only for registered users, so you must register to gain access.
Use the “explore” tab next to the logo on the left to find your favorite genres. you can choose between adventure, fan fiction, lgbt+, new adult, romance, stories, urban or werewolf.
After you select the book from a list of results and click on its cover, a pop-up window will appear. Click on an orange button saying “Read” to start enjoying the story.
Please note that the site is ad supported and the reader interface also displays ads.
⇢ wattpad
11. library of congress
Did you know you can read the world’s most beloved children’s classics on the Library of Congress website?
The digital collection of classic books includes “only” about 60 titles, but they are the ones you won’t find anywhere else.
This catalog seems like a great idea to spend some time with your children reading the books together in their original appearance. the books scan and digitize beautifully and the interface looks beautiful!
To start reading, simply click on a link “Read This Book Now” that’s located next to the book’s cover.
what would you like to start with? how about humpty dumpty, with extraordinary illustrations by w. w. dense? or the original edition of the jungle book? you can read peter rabbit, peter newell’s rocket book, or one of the best hans christian andersen stories – the snow queen. enjoy!
⇢ library of congress
12. hathitrust library
hathitrust library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from academic and research libraries, aggregating millions of books and texts from google books, internet archive or library of congress.
hathitrust is like google books but much easier to use. the main page includes a search box with advanced options. Be sure to check the “full text” and “full view only” options to see only books that are ready to open in an online reading interface.
A surprisingly enjoyable way of exploring available books is to use Collections (you can choose this option in the top navigation bar).
when you find the book you want to read, just click the “full view” link and the viewer will open immediately. you can dismiss the left sidebar to enter full screen mode. If you don’t see the “full view” link, that means the book isn’t available for reading online.
⇢ hathitrust library
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