Free, downloadable e-books

Nothing beats holding an actual book in your hand, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to download it and take it with you. Especially if it’s completely legal. Mashable.com (http://mashable.com/2007/11/12/public-domain-ebook-sources/) has put together this list of 20+ sources for e-books for your use.


AskSam.com/ebooks/ - A small selection of classic texts like Shakespeare, and assorted legal & governmental texts.
Baen Free Library - A small library of downloadable science fiction novels, mostly the first in an ongoing series to get you hungry for more.
BookRags.com - Small selection of free choices, and thousands more for premium members. Can be downloaded as PDF or Word documents.
Gutenberg.org - The first project for converting public domain works into a digital format; their selection now numbers over 5,000.
ManyBooks.net - A large selection of books to be read on your PDA, cellphone, iPod, iPhone and more.
Mary Jo’s E-Texts - Hasn’t been updated in several years, but links still work. The books are formatted for a doc reader on Palm. Includes classic literature, the Oz books, and even some fan fiction.
Mslit.com - Over 1,500 texts provided by Microsoft for their MS Reader.
NetLibrary.net - Only a small selection for free; however, annual membership, and access to over 500,000 works, is only $8.95 a year.
Oxford Text Archive - Over 2,000 classical texts you can download as ASCII or DOC files, some do require permission of the original uploader.
PlanetPDF eBooks - A decent sized collection of classic novels all in PDF format.
PocketPCbooks.net - Over 40 classic books specifically for your Windows Mobile Device. Come on, every one needs to carry Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War on their PDA.
The PDA Librarian - Run by an actual high school librarian, this site is specifically for Palm PDAs and features classic literature as well as books for teens and college bound individuals.
Bartleby.com - Harvard Classics and encyclopedias are included here in this easy to browse, HTML only site.
Berkeley Sunsite Classics - A small selection of true classics such as Jane Austen and Thoreau.
Bibliomania.com - Over 2,000 classic texts, study guides, biographies, and more.
Grtbooks.com - A large collection of free-to-read online texts dating back as far as 200 B.C.
Infomotions.com - A collection of over 14,000 documents from full novels to Western philosophy.
Internet Public Library - A large directory of online texts hosted at other sites.
The Perseus Digital Library - A large collection of classical texts broken down by the time period they were written in.
ReadEasily.com - A site with e-books specifically with the elderly and somewhat visually impaired in mind that allows you to change colors, fonts, and size to make it more legible.
The Online Books Page - A gigantic directory of e-books from all over the web.