Where to Find Free E-Books During the Coronavirus Outage
Reading is a great way to spice up your daily routine that requires distancing, and also helps you slow down and completely immerse yourself in new ideas and worlds. Purchases of paper books may be temporarily suspended (although you can still order and should ideally contact an independent bookseller ). Fortunately, e-books are a safe and mostly decent alternative to real books.
Even if you’re totally against e-books, you might want to consider giving them a shot, and here’s why: Several digital retailers and e-book apps are giving away tons of free books right now. You can equip your phone, tablet, or even computer with a free digital library that will easily transport you to these turbulent times and how the world looks when we are on the other side.
Apple Books
Apple offers the Stay Home eBook catalog through its Apple Books service (via 9to5Mac ). The collection includes numerous famous novels, as well as many educational books “Sesame Street” and stories about Winnie the Pooh for children. You will find the collection highlighted on the home page of the Apple Books app .
Set on fire
The Kindle app offers many free books on the eBook store, but Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read even more books for free for $ 10 a month plus discounts on other books. Granted, it’s not technically “free” if you have to pay a monthly subscription, but it’s a lot cheaper than buying each book at full price – and if you’ve never used the service before, you can get 30 days for free, which should ( hopefully) be enough to get you through the current crisis. (Maybe? Hopefully?) You can read any book about the Kindle using the Kindle app on Android, iOS and PC .
Google games
Google also has several free ebook titles in the Play Store . While many of them are publicly available, you can find them anywhere, but they are an easy way to read the classics right on your Android device. However, there are plenty of modern offerings available, and Google is giving away many of the same Sesame Street educational books as Apple right now for free.
Libby, Hoopla and other library applications
Provided you already have a library card, you can use apps like Libby, OverDrive, Hoopla and others to virtually “check” e-books and other media right on your device.
Comics and Viz Media
More from graphic novel and manga? Most of the apps above have graphic novels and manga titles, but Comixology and Viz Media will be your top choices for finding free editions of your favorite comics and manga. Both apps have a selection of free editions from a wide variety of publishers / creators, but you can also unlock huge libraries of free games for just a few dollars a month. Comixology is available on Android, iOS and Kindle, while Viz Media is available on Android and iOS.