Reading is one of the best ways to expand your knowledge and continue your learning experience even outside of school. Even without formally sitting down and studying what you’re reading, it simply allows you to absorb a huge range of knowledge. Of course, local libraries offer a great free collection, but some people may find it difficult to get to libraries during open hours, and there can be some titles that they do not carry. In these cases a number of websites can take their place. These carry royalty-free ebooks for you to download in a range of formats, and read on your computer, tablet or e-reader. Many of them have had the copyright expire and have entered the public domain, however others are created specifically as free resources or have been put up by their author for free distribution.
Project Gutenburg. The largest collection of primarily classic and other expired texts. These are sorted by both genre and author, and includes a number of important historical works. These are offered in a wide range of formats for all kinds of e-readers. The emphasis is mainly on fiction, but there are also academic works as well.
Google Books. Google Books is a mixture of paid and free ebooks of both fiction and nonfiction, so it can be a little harder to navigate but is also great for finding more contemporary works. Often large sections of a work will be available online, but not the whole thing, so if you’re just looking for information on a specific topic it can be very useful.
The Free Library. Sometimes you don’t want to sit and read an entire book on a subject, but just get an overview or the main gist of things. In these cases reading articles can be a better way to go. Articles distil an author’s specific knowledge into a bite-sized form, and present it in a format that can be finished in one sitting. The Free Library offers a huge selection of these, along with full books for download as well.
Reading is an important activity for ongoing learning, and it’s a lot easier when you can simply download the texts you’re interested in off the internet. These can be read on your phone or tablet, making them easy to take on the go. There are many royalty-free options available that rival libraries in scope and availability.