I've always been a voracious reader, since I was very young. My parents encouraged my siblings and me to read as much as we could, as its "good for the brain". For many years, reading was my number one hobby; I loved escaping from the monotony or stress of day to day life by curling up with a good book. I've been known to stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning reading.I had a special relationship with the librarians at my local public library. They learned my preferences in books quite fast and always had more suggestions what books I should read next. Their suggestions led to some of my very favorite books; reading them gave me very fond memories. I miss those librarians I grew up with.
Today though, no longer living in the US, I don't have access to public libraries filled with neatly indexed English books, especially not with the inter library loan system we had in the library growing up. Instead, if I want to get books to read, I have to either borrow from a friend or buy second hand from a used book store (and the books there are not so cheap, unfortunately).
I missed reading.
That is, until I discovered that there are so many free e-books available to download from the Kindle store. You may think that this doesn't help you at all because you don't have a Kindle, but if you have a smart phone, there is a free Kindle app for smartphones to download, which you can use to read any Kindle book. Even if you don't have a smartphone, you can download a kindle reader onto your computer, with which you can read all these downloaded books.
Amazon Kindle has a list of top 100 free books you can download which is constantly being updated. I don't just download all the books on that list though, because I have no interest in downloading Danielle-Steele-esque sex filled romance novels, or shoddily written amateur novels or novellas.
Weeding through what is offered to actually find books worth downloading is easier said than done. On top of that, I haven't been able to find a list of all the free Kindle books on Amazon though, which would make thing a lot easier to find.
I decided to share with you what free books I downloaded onto my Kindle App on my phone, so that you, too, can benefit from these free books.
Keep in mind two things:
1) Some books are free temporarily but go back to costing money. I'm only mentioning what I downloaded free, its possible that some of what is listed is no longer free.
2) Books that are over 100 years old no longer have a copyright, and are therefore are typically available to download for free. If you want an old book that I haven't listed, feel free to search for it in the kindle store- it'll likely be there.
So, here's what books I have downloaded, divided by category: This is Part 1. Part 2 will be tomorrow.
Pardon me if I put something in the wrong category- I have only read the ones marked with an asterix.
Cookbooks and Frugality
Some of these are new books, some are old, but they're all terrific.
*The Everything Food Allergy Cookbook: Prepare easy-to-make meals--without nuts, milk, wheat, eggs, fish or soy by Linda Larsen
America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams by Annette Economides
Composting Inside & Out: The comprehensive guide to reusing trash, saving money and enjoying the benefits of organic gardening by Stephanie Davies
The 2012 Book Blogger's Cookbook by Christy Dorrity
*The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Francis Child
Classics for Kids
These are either for young children or older preteens, or books that you can read aloud to a family.
Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
*Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Aesop's Fables
*Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen
American Fairy Tales by L Frank Baum
*The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know by Hamilton Wright Mabie
*Wizard of Oz series by L Frank Baum
Dot and Tot of Merriland by L Frank Baum
Jungle Book, Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
Chronicles of Avonlea by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
The Bobbsey Twins series by Laura Lee Hope
*Five Little Peppers Series by Margaret Sidney
*Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
Grimm's Fairy Stories by Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm
*Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
*Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Classics for Adults
These are books that is probably only good for high school and older.
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Emma, *Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
To get any of these books, copy and paste the title and the author into the search bar in the Kindle Store. Only download the ones labeled $0.00.
Do you have a kindle or a kindle reader app on your phone, ipod, or computer? Do you think you'd download any of these books? Have you already downloaded any of them?
If you've read any of these books, which ones did you like, dislike, recommend to others, etc?