Another one for the Goths! If you're a fan of our undead friends, it's worth experiencing one of the books that started it all. The story is terrific for those after a good, suspenseful gothic horror. It's easy to think that Dracula must be another hard-to-read classic, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The writing holds up really well (after over 100 years, that's quite a feat) and it's genuinely spooky in parts.
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We know what you're thinking: Wouldn't Jane Austen just be a more wordy and boring Bridgerton? What are they saying? What is even happening? And yes, Jane Austen books can feel very daunting and almost bland when you look at them through a modern lens. Reading Austen books, however, is like a cheeky window into the past: They parody Regency society and poke fun at how ridiculous some social mores were at the time. If you're wanting to get started on Austen, we recommend going with Pride and Prejudice or Emma first.
Let us state straight up that including this isn't an endorsement of communism. With that out of the way, The Communist Manifesto is among the most influential pieces of writing in the last few centuries. Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it inspired a movement and philosophy that would ultimately take over half of Europe within a century of its 1848 publish date. It's also much easier to read than Marx's significantly more thorough work Capital, but that's also available for free if you're up to reading thousands of pages of 19th century economics.
There are several books that are known as "the great American novel" -- Catcher in the Rye, Moby Dick and To Kill a Mockingbird among them. But perhaps the novel with greatest claim to the title is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain is regarded as America's greatest humorist and he's one of its most celebrated authors ever. Huckleberry Finn is the book he's most known for and it's a must-read for anyone wanting to familiarize themselves with American literature.
To be sure, Huck Finn isn't the only great American novel you can read for free. Moby Dick gave the world the term "white whale," as well as one of the most famous opening sentences. The book is 170 years old, but it remains a staple of "books you should read" lists everywhere.
We've saved the biggest for last. War and Peace is a monster, so much so that its name has become a signal used to describe intimidatingly large pieces of work. And make no mistake, War and Peace is a lot to get through. But doing so will be to familiarize yourself with "the lion of Russian literature," as the book has been called. If you're up to the challenge, it's free on Apple Books.
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However, smart seniors also recognize that there are multiple sources of free or inexpensive books. These collections may not have the latest book available today but if you are patient or flexible, great books can be found.
The quality of online books is going to vary. However, like with any online buying experience, reviews are useful to help you sort the good from the not-so-good. Tap on a books with Starts indicating reviews. The reviews can be read on the Reviews tab.
Project Gutenberg is a top site to download free classics into the iBooks app. Currently there are almost 54,000 public domain books in the catalog which is very searchable. No fee or even registration is required to download books.
The EPUB files can be downloaded and opened in iBooks. You will often see two EPUB files: with or without images. This refers to images, diagrams or pictures that might be included in the book. The file without images takes less storage space on your device and will download faster. But you lose any pictures or graphics that might be included in the book. Consider that most classic fiction books likely have few pictures or images.
If you're a bookworm, you're likely aware that getting free books is a double-edged sword. Free books sound like a great thing, right? The problem is that books you get for free sometimes aren't the best, hence why they're free. But getting good books -- no, great books -- for free is actually possible on a Kindle, and there are several ways to do it.
A simple search of "free books" on Amazon will result in all the available free books for your Kindle e-reader. They're the ones that show up as 100% off, with a price of $0.00. It may take a bit of scrolling to find a title you're interested in, but it's free and can be well worth it.
If you don't have a library card already, I recommend you get one. Check with your local library on the requirements to get a library card as well as what their virtual library offerings entail. A library card can give you access to potentially millions of e-books to download on your Kindle or another e-reader or tablet.
Once you have a library card, you can log into your library's website with your credentials, then search through the site to see what platform it uses for its virtual catalog. OverDrive is a platform used by many public libraries in the US that features millions of e-books and audiobooks and is available through participating library websites.
A Prime membership has some pretty far-reaching perks that not everyone takes advantage of. Once you get Amazon Prime, which comes with a 30-day free trial, you'll also have access to an unlimited catalog of e-books that is in constant rotation, also known as Prime reading.
The best part about using your Prime membership for the benefit of your Kindle is that you have your choice of one free pre-release e-book every month from editors' picks. I've been known to eagerly wait two weeks for next month's picks to choose from, so it's a pretty attractive perk for me.
Aside from the options above to get free books or books for less, you can shop for the cheapest Kindle books on Amazon's deals. You can sign up for a newsletter exclusive to Kindle Book Deals. You also can shop Kindle daily, monthly, and exclusive deals, and browse the best deals in different categories.
Unfortunately, not all books are included with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. KU members have access to a catalog of over 2 million titles to choose from and they can borrow up to 10 titles at a time.
We've already shown you how to buy Kindle e-books on your iPhone or iPad, but did you know that there's a whole library of free e-books available for anyone who knows how to find them? There are literally thousands of books to read, in e-book form, and audiobooks as well, if you know where to download them. Come along, bookworm, and we'll reveal the reading apps that offer more free books to read than you can get through in a lifetime.
These are actually three separate apps, but they're all public-library based. Your local library system, unless you live in an extremely rural area, will support one of these apps and offer thousands of free e-books, audiobooks, and even streaming video content to library cardholders. All you need to do is peruse your library website or visit the library to find out which e-book app your library system uses. Make sure your library card is up to date, download the app, then borrow, read, and return e-books, straight from your iPhone or iPad!
If you're working your way through the classics, this app is for you! Over 500,000 e-book titles are on offer, and over 100,000 of those are absolutely free. The variety of classic texts and novels to choose from is truly astonishing; Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many, many more. Readers can switch between day and night mode, change the font, font size, background color, and brightness to cut down on eye strain. The downside is that the interface is a bit primitive. However, if you're headed somewhere with spotty internet access, this app can download up to 100 books to keep you busy on your adventure.
This app was the most recommended by members of our Facebook group, and after checking it out, I'm a fan as well. Once you sign up for your free account, there's a brief survey to find which categories of e-book suit you best. I chose Historical Mysteries, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Biographies and Memoirs, History, Science, and Humor. There are many more categories to choose from! If you want, BookBub will send you Notifications about reduced-price and free e-books from your selected categories. Even if you don't find free e-books that you'd like to read, the recommendations from your categories can help you find new titles to borrow from other free book apps, like Libby or Overdrive.
As with many of the apps featured in this roundup, Kobo Books offers both paid and free audio and e-books. The interface is beautifully designed, functional, and smooth. There are over a thousand free e-books to choose from, and users can share favorite quotes and notes from their selections on social media.
This app was a bit confusing at first; I certainly wouldn't call the interface intuitive. Despite that, I'd recommend tiReader for the sheer volume and variety of available content; there are over a million free e-books to choose from! To actually find e-books, comics, and audiobooks:
The free version of this app allows users to download five titles at once. To download more, you'll need to get the paid version. Of course, you can delete titles and get new ones, so unless you're trying to create a massive library on your iPhone or iPad, this app will suit you just fine.
I'll categorize the Kindle app as "free-ish" because you do need an Amazon Prime membership to access over 1,000 free e-books, audiobooks, and e-comics in the Prime Reading category. Membership isn't cheap; $119 a year, or $59 a year for students, but includes free shipping, streaming video content, commercial-free music, and discounts from Amazon affiliates. In case you're wondering, I'm not endorsing Amazon, but I do want readers to know about the massive amount of free content included in their Prime subscriptions. If you find yourself struggling to get your free Kindle e-books on your iPhone or iPad, we'll show you how. 2ff7e9595c
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