The boom that digital reading has experienced in recent years has resulted in more and more e-readers being sold and more digital books being consumed. It has also boosted the search and download of free e-books on the Internet. There are many sites where you can find books, both free and paid, in a completely legal way. In this post we will talk about what they are best online book websites to enjoy access to knowledge and many hours of entertainment.
Reading books online means not making any downloads, whether legal or illegal. In this blog we have already discussed where to download free books legally and even where to find audiobooks. What we are talking about here is an excellent alternative for many book lovers.
The book is not downloaded, but is available to be read or consulted online. It must be said that this forces the reader to read directly from the screen of the computer, tablet or mobile. It is not ideal for the health of our eyesight, in the opinion of ophthalmologists, but interesting for those who do not have an electronic book reader at home.
It is also true that some of the options that we show you below offer both possibilities: reading online and downloading (to be able to read them later on the e-reader without risk to your eyes).
Before reading on, it should be noted that all the proposals on the following list are within the law, since these are platforms that respect the copyright of shared works. That said, these are the best online book websites that we have at our disposal:
24symbols
This is a platform created in Spain that makes a huge number of books available to us. All you have to do is subscribe to 24symbols, either by email or via Facebook, and access its immense offer. The complete catalog without advertising, for online reading and downloading, is within our reach for a monthly payment of €8,99.
But 24symbols also has a section exclusively dedicated to free books, with a very interesting and varied offer.
Link: 24symbols
Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
This very complete bibliographic collection was created at the initiative of the Spanish government in 1999 and named in honor of the most famous author of Spanish literature in all of history. Its physical headquarters are located in the city of Alicante. Their website is clean, organized and very easy to use.
La Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes It offers us more than 5.000 complete works of classic authors, both Spanish and Latin American. All the works can be read directly online, so we have to include it with all the law in our list of best online book websites.
Link: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
Public domain
This website collects almost all the works published by classical authors listed as public domain, hence its name. In Spain, a work enters the public domain after 80 years have passed since the death of the author. In Europe the margin is even lower.
It must be said that the design of the Public Domain website is not visually very attractive, although in this case what matters to us is the content, not the container. Its use is very simple and includes a search engine and an alphabetical list to search for the author's surnames.
As for the reading options, we also find the two possibilities: download or read directly from the screen.
Link: Public Domain
The Whole Book
Here is another interesting initiative: The Whole Book, a digital library to be able to read electronic books via streaming (here there is no option to download them) from any mobile device. The content that we will find here is fundamentally classic works free of copyright.
Although it is a completely free website, it can be very practical to register. In this way, from our own user profile, we will be able to keep track of our readings, make notes, make book lists and much more.
Link: The Whole Book
eBiblio
Another public initiative developed by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 2013, taking as an example an idea already implemented in the United States. The service you provide us eBiblio is the loan of digital content to all users with a public library card. To use it, you must be a member of a public library in any Spanish town and have the online access codes.
Like the other options on this list, the books are available for online reading through compatible devices (tablets, computers, mobile phones...). There is also an eBiblio app for smartphones, iOS and Android. All the treasures of our libraries in our hands.
Link: eBiblio
Gutemberg project
El Gutemberg project was born in 1971 as a voluntary effort to digitize and archive all kinds of cultural works and to promote the creation and distribution of electronic books. Nothing more accurate than the name of the inventor of the printing press to baptize this great idea.
Today, the repository of Project Gutenberg It has more than 60.000 books, of which approximately half are in English. All books hosted on this website are in the public domain. They can be read on the same screen or downloaded. It also has a practical search tool to find the titles we are looking for.
Link: Gutemberg project
Texts.info
We close our list with a website that presents itself as an open, legal and free digital library. In texts.info We will find a wide variety of texts and books in electronic format to read online or to download in the most used formats: PDF, ePub, Mobi...
In addition to this, texto.info also serves as a free publishing platform for authors and publishers. A good site for new authors to present their creations, although without any compensation. For the rest, the website is very easy to use, with the possibility of carrying out searches, writing evaluations of the works and downloading them without registering.
Link: Texts.info