Free Free Free... Free?

One of my favorite hobbies is reading. I love it! I just hate buying books because they're not cheap, unless you're like me and raid Goodwill every now and then for a new book or two. Good investment at .50 cents a pop.

But if you have access to a computer, which you do, and if you like to read, which you do--blogs at least--, here is a great list of sites where you can read for free on the internet.

Project Gutenberg:This is the first stop on your tour. 100's of free ebooks from classical to modern works, best place to go to finish up that brit lit paper without running out to buy The Canterbury Tales.

Forgotten Books: 1736 titles encounting, nearly the same content as Project Gutenberg, but a more simplicistic layout to maximize your reading potential.

4share: Encyclopedias: From Card Tricks to Water Technology, this website provides downloadable “encyclopedias” on a wide array of topics. Make sure to have an unzip program installed and your antivirus updated just in case. (I haven’t checked the validity of every title yet and I’m unsure where they retrieve their content)

Free Classic Audio-Books: This is for those of us who can’t sit and read in front of a computer as long as we’d like to. Download these great audiobooks and pop them onto your ipod or mp3 player and away you go.

Fullbooks.com: Another great website for those that enjoy reading but if left to our own devises, would never stop. For layout purposes the books are typically divided into sections, allowing us to stop in a timely fashion on our own or continuing on to the next chapter.

BookMooch.com: A book Swap exchange website that allows you to trade or barter the books you already have for other books. A great alternative to get the books you want, but don’t forget to factor in the shipping costs!

All of these sites make me want to get started on my reading list for 2009. The primary goal will be to read books that I should have already read but do it for free. Here’s my list, feel free to join me:

Niffenegger, Audrey – The Time Traveler's Wife
Stoker, Bram – Dracula
Benderson, Bruce – The Romanian: Story of an Obsession
Lengyel, Olga - Five Chimneys
Lagnado, Lucette Matalon and Sheila Cohn Dekel - Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef
DuPrau, Jeanne - The People of Sparks
Scott, Michael - The Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
Keneally, Thomas - Schindler's List
Segal, Lore - Other People's Houses
Riordan, Rick - The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones
Stroud, Jonathan – The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book Three: Ptolemy's Gate
Black, Holly - Ironside
Barry, Dave and Ridley Pearson – Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
McEwan, Ian - Atonement
Blake, James – Breaking Back
Barrie, J.M. – Peter Pan
Haggard, H. Rider – King Solomon's Mines
Clarke, Susanna - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Larsen, Eric - Devil in the White City
Willig, Lauren - The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
Sparks, Nicholas - The Notebook
Berendt, John - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Austen, Jane - Sense and Sensibility
Gaiman, Neil - American Gods
Goldman, William - The Princess Bride
Pierce, Tamora - Trickster's Queen
Rice, Anne - Interview with the Vampire
Golden, Arthur - Memoirs of a Geisha
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Maguire, Gregory - Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Virgil - The Aeneid
Dumas, Alexandre - The Count of Monte Cristo
Japrisot, Sebastien - A Very Long Engagement
Carroll, Lewis - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
O'Neill, Jamie - At Swim Two Boys
Bray, Libba - A Great and Terrible Beauty
Gaiman, Neil – Neverwhere
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Good luck to me and good luck to you!
Krystal