Finding FREE Books on the Internet: Besides Using “Project Gutenberg”, What Do You Do?

[GammaGlobulin]

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

I don’t exactly recall when I first began using Project Gutenberg to download FREE ebooks from the Internet, but it’s been quite a while since I first clicked on this site: https://gutenberg.org/

 

“Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."[2] It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library.[3] Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of books or individual stories in the public domain.” (Wikipedia.org)

 

I have enjoyed hours browsing through the many old books that are available on Project Gutenberg’s site. Years ago, I even found a great book written by a lady describing her travels around Japan at a time when, according to her, many of the coolies didn’t wear clothes. 

She writes:

 

“That which to some extent answers to an hotel is a yadoya, which provides sleeping accommodation and food as required.  The licenses are different.  Tea-houses are of all grades, from the three-storied erections, gay with flags and lanterns, in the great cities and at places of popular resort, down to the road-side tea-house, as represented in the engraving, with three or four lounges of dark-coloured wood under its eaves, usually occupied by naked coolies in all attitudes of easiness and repose.”  

 

She writes a lot about the nakedness of people she meets in Japan. I am sure some here might enjoy this woman’s account.

 

She writes, for example:

 

“The Aino houses are much smaller, poorer, and dirtier than those of Biratori.  I went into a number of them, and conversed with the people, many of whom understand Japanese.  Some of the houses looked like dens, and, as it was raining, husband, wife, and five or six naked children, all as dirty as they could be, with unkempt, elf-like locks, were huddled round the fires.”

 

 

 

 

 

This book is so fascinating that I have never forgotten her account.

 

Here is the link to her published letters on Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2184/pg2184-images.html#page20

 

 

Gutenberg.org is a good deal.

 

By comparison, reading an account written by the wife of a British ambassador to Japan, probably no more interesting, might set you back USD43.50, if purchased on Amazon:

 

"A Diplomatist's Wife in Japan - Vol. II is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1899."

https://www.amazon.com/A-Diplomatists-Wife-in-Japan/dp/3337167756

 

Gutenberg.org has plenty of books:

 

 

I haven’t yet read most of them.

 

So, Gutenberg.org is certainly one good option for finding a wide range of free ebooks for download.

 

What sources do you use?

 

Regards,

Gamma

 

Note: I hope this information, known by many, may yet be helpful to some who have never clicked on Gutenberg.org

 

 

 

[bignok]

Just google free book downloads.

[GammaGlobulin]

1 minute ago, bignok said:

Just google free book downloads.

Sure.

You could do that.

 

Or, you could use eMule.

What is your opinion about the ease of using eMule to download FREE books?

 

 

[John Drake]

There are also Project Gutenberg Canada and Project Gutenberg Australia. Also Roy Glashan's Library. These are all legal. Other sites have books, journals, and magazines, but they are illegal and require a TOR browser.

[bignok]

3 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Sure.

You could do that.

 

Or, you could use eMule.

What is your opinion about the ease of using eMule to download FREE books?

 

 

Never heard of them

[GammaGlobulin]

Just now, John Drake said:

There are also Project Gutenberg Canada and Project Gutenberg Australia. Also Roy Glashan's Library. These are all legal. Other sites have books, journals, and magazines, but they are illegal and require a TOR browser.

Yes!

I noticed that.

And even Gutenbergs in Africa, too!

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

Just now, bignok said:

Never heard of them

It's not a THEM.

eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing networking technology.

 

Very surprised you haven't used it.

Been around for ages.

 

Give it a try.

Or, maybe too difficult for you....

Easier to just type in the Google Search using Chrome, I guess....

 

 

[bignok]

1 minute ago, GammaGlobulin said:

It's not a THEM.

eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing networking technology.

 

Very surprised you haven't used it.

Been around for ages.

 

Give it a try.

Or, maybe too difficult for you....

Easier to just type in the Google Search using Chrome, I guess....

 

 

Searched for 2 famous authors not there

Site is no good

[bignok]

4 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Yes!

I noticed that.

And even Gutenbergs in Africa, too!

 

 

All rubbish is it?

[GammaGlobulin]

10 minutes ago, bignok said:

Searched for 2 famous authors not there

Site is no good

Please list the two famous authors, and I will search for you.

Maybe you aren't doing it right.

I am here to help, after all...

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

Just now, GammaGlobulin said:

Please list the two famous authors, and I will search for you.

Maybe you aren't doing it right.

I am here to help, after all...

 

 

eMule is NOT a "site", as I mentioned just a moment ago.

 

eMule is a p2p file transfer technology/software

 

 

[bignok]

Better to just google it.

[gregsmithy]

If you are after fiction just type New York Best Sellers into a torrent search (lime, hiddenbay etc) you will get all the latest, sometimes garbage, books in the charts. 

They also have non fiction top sellers as well. 

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

5 minutes ago, bignok said:

Better to just google it.

I agree that googling a book is easier and simpler.

However, many books available on the internet cannot be googled (for a one-click download) through google search, directly.

 

Many of the available books are not viewable by the google search engine, and therefore will not show up in the search results.

 

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

One of several reasons I posted this OP is because, quite recently, I have noticed that the site "PDF Drive" is no longer working properly, or this seems to be the case.

 

For example, if you go to the PDF Drive site, the entire site is up and running.

 

However, when you find the book you would like to download, the "download" button no longer functions.

 

Why this is the case, I am not sure.

 

I have seen on various blogs that others have noticed the same problem.

 

Therefore, until this site is fully functional, what might an alternative to PDF Drive be?

 

Anybody have a suggestion?

 

 

[bignok]

Pdf site something wrong with it. 

[GammaGlobulin]

7 minutes ago, bignok said:

Pdf site something wrong with it. 

Yes.

And it seems that the PDF site has been sort of out of commission for about two months, as far as I can tell from the comments on blogs that I have seen.

 

The beauty of the PDF site is that it has a huge collection of academic books useful to students with very limited resources, such as students on scholarship studying at local high schools, or local universities, from neighboring countries.  They have about zero resources and their scholarships do not pay for any extras.

 

If the PDF site does stays broken, then what might the alternative be, for example?

 

[GammaGlobulin]

I have found that, in many cases, when I am unable to find an academic textbook, or academic publication, on a torrent site, then I am sometimes able to locate the book using eMule.

[GammaGlobulin]

For science journal articles, and the like, which are often inaccessible unless one has university affiliation, then it is always possible to use the SCI-HUB site.

SCI-HUB seems to almost never fail, no matter the article you wish to download and read.

 

 

[Lacessit]

Thousands of free books on Amazon, just input "Kindle free books" into the search function. Some are absolute garbage, I can usually pick those in a few pages.

Some authors will make their first book or two free, presumably to entice readers to purchase more of their books to follow the characters and storylines. That strategy has worked with me a few times.

What's odd is how Amazon will have a free classic, and the same classic with a price tag on it.

 

[Keep Right]

Interesting site and I will certainly look into downloading some books on this site. For many years now I have been subscribing to Kindle Unlimited from Amazon. Last year alone I read over 250 books on my Kindle. At this point I would like to expand my selection as it seems I have read many entries that Unlimited has to offer that interest me.

[thaitom]

internet archive     https://archive.org/

[John Drake]

22 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

For science journal articles, and the like, which are often inaccessible unless one has university affiliation, then it is always possible to use the SCI-HUB site.

SCI-HUB seems to almost never fail, no matter the article you wish to download and read.

 

 

Jstor has been allowing users to access most of its holdings 100 times per month. But it is read only. No downloading.

[TimBKK]

https://libgen.rs/
 

[John Drake]

1 minute ago, TimBKK said:

https://libgen.rs/
 

Not sure that one is legal. It's like, but inferior to, zlibrary, which is illegal.

[GammaGlobulin]

20 minutes ago, thaitom said:

internet archive     https://archive.org/

Yes.

Internet Archive has a TON of titles.

The problem that I have found is that, at least for me, even if I have registered an account with Internet Archive, I am unable to download the book that I have found.

From my experience, they require that I "borrow" the book, and then read the book on the site's "viewer".

What fun is that?

They give you "One Hour" to read what you can, and then they time you to the second.

Also, the viewer, and the quality of the image, stinks.

I will never again try to read a book on Internet Archive.

 

Internet Archive has been useful in the past for finding some out of print films that you cannot find on torrent sites, however.

 

(I may be mistaken. But this was my experience using the site two or three times.)

 

[GammaGlobulin]

13 minutes ago, TimBKK said:

https://libgen.rs/
 

Thank you for this link.

I had not seen this link before.

I will save it in Google Keep.

 

[billd766]

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be given 1.6 tB of books and I have been given another couple of downloads since.

 

They are in many formats and I am slowly converting them to MOBI.

 

So far up to December 31st 2022 I have converted 5954 Authors at this date, but how many books I would take a guess at 30,xxx plus as some authors have only written 1 book and some have written 40 plus books.

 

I spend about 1 hour most evenings converting 10 or more authors to MOBI.

 

I have spent about 70 hours this year converting books, so I must have IRO 6,1xx authors done.

[GammaGlobulin]

7 minutes ago, billd766 said:

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be given 1.6 tB of books and I have been given another couple of downloads since.

 

They are in many formats and I am slowly converting them to MOBI.

 

So far up to December 31st 2022 I have converted 5954 Authors at this date, but how many books I would take a guess at 30,xxx plus as some authors have only written 1 book and some have written 40 plus books.

 

I spend about 1 hour most evenings converting 10 or more authors to MOBI.

 

I have spent about 70 hours this year converting books, so I must have IRO 6,1xx authors done.

Great Work! 

When can we expect the torrent link to your MEGA BOOK TORENT file? 

 

 

 

[Purdey]

See https://archive.org/

Some are for download, some for borrowing.

The site allows you to browse for websites that no longer exist but are archived for your use.