Reading Books Online
From LoveToKnow Online
If you're a book lover who spends a lot of time online, you'll be happy to know you can combine your two interests and read books online.
Where To Read Books Online
Project Gutenberg
One of the biggest sources for online books is Project Gutenberg. The site offers 18,000 free books, available because they're in the public domain. They're copyright-free, so they can be freely distributed, and Project Gutenberg has compiled them in one extensive catalog. You won't find the latest bestseller here, but you will find great works of literature. Just a few of the available titles include:
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Other Sites For The Classics
Many other sites have taken advantage of public domain works to create their own collections of classic literature.
- Page By Page Books offers hundreds of books. Browse by author or title.
- The Literature Page allows you to browse by category, so you can separate your Greek and Roman classics from more romantic fare.
- The Online Books Page offers features letting readers explore books centered around a common theme. Enjoy "A Celebration of Women Writers" or peruse a list of banned books.
Online Children's Books
While not as common as classic literature, you can still find sites devoted to children's books. Some provide scans of books, while others post stories created especially for a web audience with animation and sounds. One word of caution - if you come across a site offering scans of books, read the site's "About" page to make sure they have the right to do so, and aren't illegally sharing copyrighted material.
- The International Children's Digital Library offers fully-illustrated scans of children's books from around the world. Started through a University of Maryland research project, the site aims to provide an extensive collection of multicultural literature.
- Children's Storybooks Online provides illustrated stories for kids of all ages. Many stories also come with audio clips, so your child can hear the words on the page.
Modern Literature
While copyright concerns will prevent you from reading an entire recently-released book online, author websites and online bookstores are great places to find excerpts of larger works. Whether you want to try out a book before you buy it, or are just looking to read 10 or 15 pages to pass the time, these samples will do the trick. Authors will also occasionally post special content only available online on their sites. For instance, science-fiction author Orson Scott Card has posted the original "Ender's Game" short story on his personal website.
The Mechanics Of Online Reading
When you read books online, some sites break each book up into distinct web pages with forward and back navigation buttons at the bottom of each page. Others create a single text file with the contents of the entire book. The first method is typically easier to read since you are focusing on one segment at a time, and you can easily return to the point where you left off by simply following the correct link. The second method offers more flexibility, since you can store the file directly on your computer and read it at your leisure, whether you're connected to the Internet or not.
When deciding which site to choose to read books online, you should also consider the overall design of the website. Is the font style and size comfortable to you eyes? Does the site include any flashing ads or other distracting images to frame the book pages? The Literature Page offers a control panel at the bottom of each page allowing you to control the size of the font, switch between Arial and Times New Roman, and even change the background and text color for the best contrast. When numerous websites offer Sherlock Holmes stories, you might as well shop around until you find the presentation offering the best reading experience.
For most, reading words on a glowing computer screen will never replace settling down with a favorite book in bed or reading a paperback at the beach. Still, online books fill a need and can provide thousands of pages of reading material for entertainment and education.
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Comments
Thanks for your comment. The site design was created by the tech team at LoveToKnow.com, and it's the standard template for the entire network. I'll definitely check into ReadPrint.com and hopefully our readers will find it helpful, too.
-- Contributed by: Lorie WitkopHi,
I stumbled upon your site today and was quite impressed. I really liked the design. Did you make it yourself?
I wanted to let you know about ReadPrint.com -- a massive non-profit library similar to Bartleby -- except its far better organized and user friendly. We've been using it extensively in school nowadays -- it's great for doing research since you can search within the books.
-- Contributed by: JenniferThis page has been accessed 828 times. This page was last modified 18:20, 30 April 2006.
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