We’re living in the dawn of the digital age. Long gone are the days when people buy their music on CDs and cassettes (downloadable music from legal stores is all the rage). We stream television series and movies instead of popping on the television, and we buy games online instead of nipping out to the local game shop. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then, that many people now buy their books online, too. There are several types of online libraries out there, and each one offers a very different range of books, some of which are free, and some cost money. Let’s take a peek at some of the top places where you can buy books online.
The Book Depository and Kindle Book Store
The Book Depository and the Kindle Store make up two of the most popular places for you to buy online books. Of course, it is ideal if you have an e-book reader (such as a Kindle) to get you started, but even if you don’t, you can still find ample e-books available in PDF format which you can read online at your computer or laptop.
The Book Depository contains millions of books and offers them in multiple formats. As well as having the best-sellers, they also carry plenty of free books, so you don’t necessarily have to fork out a fortune to read a good book.
The same is true of the Kindle Store. If you’ve got an Amazon Kindle, then the Kindle Store is the place to head to. This Amazon-owned e-book library has pretty much everything ever written and is easily the leading online library to head to if you want books. The drawback to the Kindle Store (and what makes The Book Depository stand out) is the fact that you often need a Kindle device to read Amazon books.
Project Gutenberg, Many Books and Bartleby
There are plenty of places which do not charge a penny for their books, too. The types of books you can find in these online libraries are often dated, classic pieces of literature, historical books and books from unpublished authors, some of which have created truly amazing work.
Project Gutenberg is arguably the most famous of these online libraries. Over 56,000 free e-books can be found there, including some of the most popular pieces of literature ever written. No registration or sign-up fee is required to download books from Project Gutenberg, although they do take donations.
Many Books has over 29,000 e-books for Kindle, iPad, Nook and other e-readers. These books cover everything from fantasy to sci-fi, crime, and horror. If there’s a book written by a famous author long since dead, or by an up and coming young writer, Many Books could be the online library for you.
If you fancy a taste of history, then Bartleby is a must visit online library. This e-book site offers free historical books, including essays, texts and analysis, as well as study books. For the history buff, Bartleby is the place to get all your dusty old manuscripts and beyond.