The 10 best book websites
On the internet, you can download page after page of free material, post your work online and even catch a publisher’s eye
by Mike Peake
Literature is thriving on the web. It’s not just for sale on mega-sites such as Amazon either, but being swapped, analysed and recommended by fellow bookworms. You can download page after page of free material, post your work online and — dare we say it — even catch the eye of a publisher.
Fancy a daily dose of literature? Just sign up, select a book (the emphasis is on out-of-copyright classics, and most are free), then set aside a few minutes a day to read the pages the site e-mails to you at whatever time you choose. The text is readable on a computer and most mobile devices.
Described as a “social network for people who love books”, this site consists of a lot of people cataloguing the books they have on their shelves then indulging in some lively literary banter. For a similar proposition, check out LibraryThing.com.
You’ll probably never get your hands on a first-edition Shakespeare, but this is the next-best thing: 400 priceless literary treasures scanned in ultra high-resolution, now yours to peruse online.