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Good Online Sources for Free Books?

Posted by Cliff on Fri Apr 08, 2005 12:38 PM
from the literature-liberte dept.

hydopower asks: "I recently stumbled upon a collection of online libraries. This was fascinating to me, but too many of them cost money or offer Google Print-like limited functionality. I decided to put together a list of sites that offer free books in a format that would allow a person to actually read through them. As Slashdot readers are known for being well read and for enjoying free things, I figured I'd tap into the knowledge pool here. Any suggestions?"

+ -

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specific (Score:5, Informative)

by same_old_story (833424) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @12:39PM (#12178015)

a very specific item but, those learning python can use the excellent and free dive into python [diveintopython.org].
- the FreeBSD Handbook... (Score:2)
  
  by n0dez (657944) writes:
  
  ... is a great Unix book!
  http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/ [freebsd.org]
There's one (Score:5, Informative)

by prostoalex (308614) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @12:44PM (#12178067) Homepage Journal

http://www.techbooksforfree.com/ [techbooksforfree.com]
Obvious: Project Gutenberg (Score:5, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @12:44PM (#12178069)

Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.net]
Lots of literature. And most are just straight text so you can read them with anything.
Don't forget (Score:4, Informative)

by gus goose (306978) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @12:47PM (#12178093) Journal

Gutenburg

http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org]

gus
Baen Books (Score:4, Informative)

by AtariAmarok (451306) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @12:48PM (#12178109)

Try the Baen Free Library [baen.com]. You are out of luck here if you don't like "sci fi", and the selection is rather small, but the files are nice and unemcumbered and they do have some great ones like Fallen Angels [baen.com].
- Re:Baen Books (Score:4, Informative)
  
  by eht (8912) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @01:07PM (#12178307)
  
  In addition to the Baen free library, Baen has also put 7 freely distributable cds containg many books into some of their hardcover books, with the text "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold."
  
  This site [dnsalias.org] and this site [ghostwheel.com] both host the first 6 cds as web browsable books.
  
  This site [zlynx.org] contains torrents for all 7 cds.
  
  Parent
- Re:Baen Books (Score:1, Informative)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes:
  
  Additionally there webscriptions service is very nice. It is not $free$ like you requested but it is pretty cheap ($4-6 per book or $15 for a about 6 books published in 1 month). Also the book that are offered there are available in a number of convienent formats and are not encumbered by DRM. As a bonus you can purchase books and start reading them 3 months before the publication date.
  
  I think it is the next best thing to free as in beer and free as in speech, while still compensating the publisher and
Free programming and computer science books (Score:2, Informative)

by wrenhunt (704610) writes:

Tech books for free: ahref=http://www.techbooksforfree.com/ [slashdot.org]http://www.t echbooksforfree.com/>

Linux Device Drivers: ahref=http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/index.ht ml/ [slashdot.org]http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/index.html/ >

Also some for Samba, Subversion, CVS, etc.
- Re:Free programming and computer science books (Score:4, Funny)
  
  by GigsVT (208848) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @12:56PM (#12178208) Journal
  
  Do they have a book on basic use of HTML? :)
  
  Parent
- Re:Free programming and computer science books (Score:3, Funny)
  
  by bmsleight (710084) writes:
  
  Tech books for free
  Not using Preview - priceless
free books (Score:5, Informative)

by lagerbottom (704499) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @12:55PM (#12178188) Homepage Journal

O'reilly offers a few of their books under an open doc license: http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/ [oreilly.com]
- Re:free books (Score:1)
  
  by spoonyfork (23307) writes:
  
  Cool link, thanks for posting it.
  
  One of those lists makes me feel kinda weird though. I have four of those out-of-print books on my bookshelf. Time to update I guess.
Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)

by Skeezix (14602) writes: <jamin@pubcrawler.org> on Friday April 08 2005, @12:55PM (#12178192) Homepage

How about Creative Commons [creativecommons.org]?
Perseus Project (Score:4, Interesting)

by CyberVenom (697959) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @01:00PM (#12178237)

The Perseus project at Tufts is an excellent source of ancient literature, as well as some translations.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ [tufts.edu]

If true classics are your thing. ;)
- Re:Perseus Project (Score:2)
  
  by LeninZhiv (464864) * writes:
  
  I second the plug for the Perseus Project, which is also for language learners the best means of bridging the gap from beginner/intermediate to advanced in Latin or Ancient Greek.
  
  For those who've already got their Latin down and want a quicker-loading experience, however, I recommend The Latin Library [thelatinlibrary.com].
I think that you'll like (Score:3, Informative)

by ADRA (37398) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @01:00PM (#12178240)

http://www.ibiblio.org./ [www.ibiblio.org]
OBI (Score:4, Informative)

by jmac880n (659699) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @01:00PM (#12178244)

Online Books Page [upenn.edu] From UPenn.

THE most complete listing I have seen.
Blackmask (Score:1)

by redtape (37014) writes:

www.blackmask.com has a large number of books (many that are also in gutenberg) in several formats:
HTML, PDF, Mobipocket, MS Reader, rocket eBook, iSilo, and EasyRead
library and irc (Score:1)

by L. VeGas (580015) writes:

There is, of course, a very active ebook scene on the p2p networks and irc. Some people collect them just like the warez kiddies. Personally, I don't have the patience or energy to mess with those folks, but if you're not concerned with (il)legality, irc is, by far, the most comprehensive resource for ebooks.

My local library has been expanding its ebook offerings, and I've read several on my pda. They use drm'ed mobipocket and pdf formats which allow you to check out books for three weeks, after which th
Random suggestions (Score:5, Informative)

by An Onerous Coward (222037) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @01:18PM (#12178432) Homepage

Cory Doctorow:

Eastern Standard Tribe [craphound.com] (CC)
A Place So Foreign (and eight more) [craphound.com] (CC)
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [craphound.com] (CC)

Lawrence Lessig:

Free Culture [free-culture.org]

Tech and science books:

Version Control with Subversion [red-bean.com] (CC)
An open source math book [caltech.edu]
Light and Matter [lightandmatter.com], a series of physics texts by Ben Crowell [slashdot.org]

Lists:
The Assayer [theassayer.org] is a place to find and review open books.
- Re:Random suggestions (Score:4, Informative)
  
  by HeelToe (615905) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @01:23PM (#12178485) Homepage
  
  Good suggestions - I'd add:
  
  The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect [kuro5hin.org]
  
  Parent
zerg (Score:2)

by Lord Omlette (124579) writes:

Perhaps you are interested in Bhargav's Book Archive [bhargav.com]?
BookRags (Score:1)

by urdine (775754) writes:

BookRags [bookrags.com] has all the Gutenberg etexts in html format among all their student products (study guides, essays etc).
Free books? (Score:3, Funny)

by Carik (205890) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @01:48PM (#12178793)

There's a great place a few buildings over from here. The registration process is a pain (you have to give them various bits of personal information), but the books you can get are almost unlimited -- they've had almost everything I've looked for, including some fairly obscure SF -- and it's free.

The real advantage is the books you get can be read with no special equipment. (Some people use special glasses, but I've never needed them)

It's called a library.

Or did you mean books you can keep, and only in electronic format?
Esoteric texts (Score:2, Interesting)

by tahuti (744415) writes:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm [sacred-texts.com] http://www.hermetic.com/ [hermetic.com] http://www.hermetics.org/library.html [hermetics.org]
Bruce Peren's Open Source Series (Score:2)

by geoff313 (718010) writes:

Another nice spot to bookmark (which is updated as new books in the series are released) is Bruce Peren's Open Source Series:
[informit.com]
http://www.informit.com/promotions/promotion.asp?p romo=1041&rl=1 [informit.com]

The books are published in print by Prentice Hall PTR, but are also released after a few months freely under the Open Publiction License (more about the license in the link below).

http://www.informit.com/content/downloads/perens/o pencontent_org.html [informit.com]

-geoff313
My university uses this (Score:1)

by karn096 (807073) writes:

If I need to research a topic, i'll sometimes use this www.netlibrary.com Its a great resource, has over 41 thousand books, and a lot of the books are new, and recently published on a myriad of subjects. The only downfall is that you have to be a college student. otherwise you can only acccess the books that have been released into public domain. Which isnt bad either. If your interested and in school, try logging in from your school library, and you can create a username and password, then once you get t
The Assayer (Score:5, Informative)

by bcrowell (177657) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @02:06PM (#12179002) Homepage

Try The Assayer [slashdot.org]. It's a catalog of free books, specializing in modern books that have been set free by their authors (not old public domain books, which you can get on Project Gutenberg). Users can also submit reviews. There are some links here [theassayer.org] that might also be of interest.
- Re:The Assayer (Score:1)
  
  by bcrowell (177657) writes:
  
  Whoops -- I botched the link in the parent post. The URL should have been theassayer.org [theassayer.org].
eserver.org (Score:2)

by Bravo_Two_Zero (516479) writes:

Eserver.org [eserver.org] has a fair amount of lit and other books/publications.
A few options (Score:3, Interesting)

by Xeo 024 (755161) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @03:00PM (#12179609)

Check out your local library and see if they're registered with NetLibrary [netlibrary.com], it's free if your library is registered with them. They have a decent collection of books.

Adobe offers a few free ebooks, both fiction [adobe.com] and non-fiction [adobe.com]. However, let me warn you, they are DRM'd.

Then there is also the Gutenberg Project [gutenberg.org] as many others have already mentioned.

If you are using MS Reader, then Microsoft offers some free books [mslit.com] as well.
6 sources of some free ebooks and audiobooks (Score:3, Informative)

by waynegoode (758645) * writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @03:12PM (#12179741) Homepage

Fictionwise
Fictionwise [fictionwise.com] sells ebooks, but they also have free novels, short stories and audio books from time to time. Currently they have 26 items available for free, including a lot of sci-fi.
Audible
Audible sells audio books, but they have some free items also. There is a new free item every week or so for subscribers.
ereader
ereader [ereader.com] has a few free ebooks [ereader.com]. During December last year, they had a different free ebook each day for a few weeks.
Audio Books for Free
AudioBooksForFree has free audio books, but in a very compressed format. You have to pay to get better quality, but for $100 you can buy everything.
Baen Books
Baen Books has a free library [baen.com] with sci-fi books.
Project Gutenberg
This one has been pointed out a few times, but it is the biggest. It is here [gutenberg.org] and here [promo.net]. I think the first one is the official site.
manybooks.net (Score:2)

by DaoudaW (533025) writes:

Manybooks [slashdot.org] is a great website for downloading Project Gutenberg books. It provides a cleaner interface and dynamically generates 10 different formats to match your pda/application. It also recently got its RSS feed working so make a Live Bookmark in Firefox to see their recent additions.
Bookcrossing.com (Score:3, Interesting)

by mactov (131709) writes: on Friday April 08 2005, @04:01PM (#12180497) Homepage

There's a nice little online book trading co-op at http://www.bookcrossing.com./ [www.bookcrossing.com] People share books, trade books, and "release books into the wild" to track them. Kinda fun.
CCEL (Score:2)

by superyooser (100462) writes:

Christian Classics Ethereal Library [ccel.org]
Interestingly, the site converts books to various formats from a source version coded in Theological Markup Language [ccel.org].
The Internet Archive has free books (Score:2)

by TTK Ciar (698795) writes:

The Internet Archive's Texts [archive.org] collection has about 25,000 books online, and is working with many partners to get more.

I have a list of about 1300 interesting texts hosted by The Archive, here [archive.org], which has links to The Archive's details pages for those books.

Enjoy!

-- TTK
Images (Score:3, Interesting)

by Ankh (19084) * writes: on Saturday April 09 2005, @12:54AM (#12184875) Homepage

I've been working on scanning images from antiquarian books for a few years, and recently started opening the process up so others can help out. The current state is at Pictures from old books [holoweb.net]; the new collaborative site will be fromoldbooks.org [fromoldbooks.org] (since there are textual transcriptions as well as images), probably in a month or so.
Two Words: (Score:1)

by rookworm (822550) writes:

e-donkey. Incredible selection of math books in djvu format.
some tech/science books (Score:2)

by rakerman (409507) writes:
- The first edition of the classic Cheswick and Bellovin book Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker is available in its entirety for free online [wilyhacker.com].
- Black Box Voting [blackboxvoting.org] - Chapter 01 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 02 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 03 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 04 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 05 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 06 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 07 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 08 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 09 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 10 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 11 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 12 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 13 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 14 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 15 [blackboxvoting.org] Chapter 16 [blackboxvoting.org] d - Appendix [blackboxvoting.org] Footnotes [blackboxvoting.org] Index [blackboxvoting.org]
- http://www.physicsforfree.com/ [physicsforfree.com]
- http://www.dctech.com/physics/textbooks.php [dctech.com]
- http://www.nap.edu/books/NX005722/h [nap.edu]
not mentioned yet (Score:1)

by mister_jpeg (46354) writes:

http://www.bartleby.com/ [bartleby.com]
All sorts of reference, fiction, nonfiction, even poetry.
How about... (Score:2)

by Arthur Dent (76567) writes:

alt.binaries.e-!@#*%)_!@$+++
Darned RIAA. :)
Palm Pilot ebooks (Score:1)

by bbc (126005) writes:

When I bought my Palm Zire, I had the same question, but had trouble finding gratis ebooks. Most Google searches seemed to lead to commercial publishers who offered one free ebook as a teaser, often a public domain work they had probably plucked off of Project Gutenberg.

So I created a webpage, Free Palm ebooks [xs4all.nl], that tells owners of Palm Pilots where to find the free ebooks in native Palm formats, the reader software, and more.
- Re:Money well spent on books (Score:2, Insightful)
  
  by redtape (37014) writes:
  
  I can't speak for others, but I buy books, hard cover, paperback and electronic. I have no problem paying for the books I read, but I also appreciate the ability to download the older, public domain, books. I bought my PDA mainly for the purpose of reading books.
  Its amazing how some people, who won't even post in the open, are willing to flame people that they don't even know who are attempting to learn.
  - Re:Money well spent on books (Score:1)
    
    by dead nancy (239321) writes:
    
    Agreed. It's not always about money anyway.
    
    Sometimes books aren't practical. Reading a hardcover on the subway, with sharp corners on the book and sharp turns in the track, is an exercise in arousing hatred. My Clie lets me keep one hand on the pole at all times. No falling down while flipping pages! It also takes up much less space during rush hour.
    
    DN
- Re:Money well spent on books (Score:1)
  
  by bbc (126005) writes:
  
  "I love how geeks at this site are almost proud of the amount of money they waste on PDAs, cell phones, the newest videocard, high-end speakers, and other geek toys (not to mention donating to put Enterprise on for another season) but when it comes to spending money on something serious that facilitates learning, such as books, all of the sudden they feel the need to do whatever they can to get things for free. Here's a radical suggestion: cut down on buying electronic beeping gadgets (and using them when y
- Re:While you're at it (Score:1)
  
  by TTK Ciar (698795) writes:
  
  The Hun is a free online portal to sources of free porn:
  
  The Hun's Thumbs-Up [thumbs-up.net]
  
  The Hun's Yellow Pages [thehun.net]
  
  Happy Hunning!
  
  -- TTK

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specific (Score:5, Informative)

the FreeBSD Handbook... (Score:2)

There's one (Score:5, Informative)

Obvious: Project Gutenberg (Score:5, Informative)

Don't forget (Score:4, Informative)

Baen Books (Score:4, Informative)

Re:Baen Books (Score:4, Informative)

Re:Baen Books (Score:1, Informative)

Free programming and computer science books (Score:2, Informative)

Re:Free programming and computer science books (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Free programming and computer science books (Score:3, Funny)

free books (Score:5, Informative)

Re:free books (Score:1)

Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)

Perseus Project (Score:4, Interesting)

Re:Perseus Project (Score:2)

I think that you'll like (Score:3, Informative)

OBI (Score:4, Informative)

Blackmask (Score:1)

library and irc (Score:1)

Random suggestions (Score:5, Informative)

Re:Random suggestions (Score:4, Informative)

zerg (Score:2)

BookRags (Score:1)

Free books? (Score:3, Funny)

Esoteric texts (Score:2, Interesting)

Bruce Peren's Open Source Series (Score:2)

My university uses this (Score:1)

The Assayer (Score:5, Informative)

Re:The Assayer (Score:1)

eserver.org (Score:2)

A few options (Score:3, Interesting)

6 sources of some free ebooks and audiobooks (Score:3, Informative)

manybooks.net (Score:2)

Bookcrossing.com (Score:3, Interesting)

CCEL (Score:2)

The Internet Archive has free books (Score:2)

Images (Score:3, Interesting)

Two Words: (Score:1)

some tech/science books (Score:2)

not mentioned yet (Score:1)

How about... (Score:2)

Palm Pilot ebooks (Score:1)

Re:Money well spent on books (Score:2, Insightful)

Re:Money well spent on books (Score:1)

Re:Money well spent on books (Score:1)

Re:While you're at it (Score:1)

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