One of the great sources of enjoyment for present-day booklovers is the invention of modern electronic books (or e-books for short). These new media for the encapsulation of information and knowledge - both old and new - which are accessible through a computer or electronic reading gadget also come in various digital formats to suit the needs of today's readers. They could also be sent with lightning speed through the net for faster exchange of information. The cyberspace, through the internet, provides exciting sites from which to download a great variety of e-books.
Below are some of our favorite sites that offer free downloadable e-books. These are a great resource for those booklovers that are short on budget, and even for those that simply love and enjoy freebies. Gone were the days that if one has no money to buy books that one had no other resort but to borrow from friends or from public libraries. Stealing books (not advisable though in any way) was of course the other option for others that were desperate enough!
One advantage of the digital age, if one has Internet access, is the new option that it affords of being able to either read online or download free e-books from sites that offer them. Here are TOP TEN of our favorites with a short description of the sites.
- PROJECT GUTENBERG. This is one of the pioneer sites on e-docs making and distribution, and keeps one of the largest collection of free downloadable e-books (over 30,000 to date and counting). Michael Hart, who invented e-books in 1971, is the founder of Project Gutenberg. He and Project Gutenberg inspire all booklovers worldwide for opening a new avenue in the adventure of reading and information sharing through digital technology.
- BIBLIOMANIA. A description from the site itself reads: "Bibliomania has thousands of e-books, poems, articles, short stories and plays all of which are absolutely free. You can read the world's greatest fiction by authors such as Dickens and Joyce, Sherlock Holmes mysteries, all Shakespeare's plays, or just dip into some short stories by writers such as Mark Twain, Anton Chekov and Edgar Allan Poe." Each month they also add many books, new articles, and interviews by their dedicated literary teams.
- SCRIBD. This company, which was launched in March 2007 and has its headquarters in San Francisco, is not just a fast growing reading site but is also an increasingly popular social publishing web spot. Literally millions of documents and e-books, both for free and for sale, are deposited in this site. This is one of the revolutionary places in the web that combine both the excitement of knowledge exploration and social networking for all bibliophiles!
- GETFREEEBOOKS. The site owner describes the site as follows: "Getfreeebooks.com is a free ebooks site where you can download free books totally free. The ebooks which you find within this site are collected from all over the net or either personally compiled by me." The site also strives to keep that the thousands of e-books they offer are always, as to status, "legal downloadable free ebooks."
- BOOK-BOT. This is another free book reading site. It houses, according to the site's current report, 14571 e-books (and counting). The site offers the convenience of being browseable either by author or by title.
- PDFOO. This is not strictly speaking an e-library like the others above. But this is a specialized free search engine designed for those who look for specific e-book title/s in Portable Document Format (PDF). E-books in this format require a PDF Reader, which fortunately is also available for free download from the site for different Operating Systems.
- PLANETEBOOK. This is a site dedicated for the publication of the great classics in digital format. Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jules Verne, Leo Tolstoy, too name only a few, are all here to again tell their stories. Their masterpieces are also available for download, free of charge. The site's layout is also user friendly, and you can download right away unlimitedly without the need of registering!
- FREETECHBOOKS. This is the place for those who look for computer science, and engineering and programming books and textbooks, including technical monographs. Almost all of their thousands of collection are legally and freely available for viewing or for download through the site at no cost.
- CHRISTIAN CLASSICS ETHEREAL LIBRARY. This is one of the great sites on the net that you can freely visit and read online the writings of the old divines, mystics, theologians, preachers and reformers of the past. The option to download almost all of their available materials is also open without charge. The site's mission statement declares that CCEL "seeks to build up the church by making classic Christian literature widely available and promoting its use for edification and study by interested Christians, seekers and scholars."
- E-SWORD. The following is from the site introduction by Rick Meyers: " 'Freely you received, freely give.' (Matt.10:8) Jesus told us that since we've been blessed we should bless others. I am happy to provide blessing to others in the form of free Bible study software!" He then describes the free Bible study software as follows: "e-Sword is a fast and effective way to study the Bible. e-Sword is feature rich and user friendly with more capabilities than you would expect in a free software package. The fact that e-Sword is free is just one of the blessings and does not speak of the quality of the software. I make my living writing software and I believe I have put my best effort in this endeavor. The real work, however, was put in by the godly men and women who devoted countless years creating the texts that have been made available for our benefit."
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