Or alternatively, Free books for someone who dislikes reading?
I’m kind of person who dislikes reading fiction, finds it boring, and would rather watch TV or read nonfiction. But I wanna get into fiction. I’m aware that there can actually be entertaining, fun, addicting stories in the medium of literature. But I get bored too easily, so I don’t wanna risk spending money on something I might find boring or end up not enjoying, so for now, I wish to read something for free to help me discover my tastes, what I might like or dislike before jumping to spend money on a book.
I’m aware that there are sites to read free books legally such as Gutenberg. But most of the titles I keep coming across on legal sites are old classics, which I can’t stand. I’ve bad memories of being forced to read them when I was young. I find them stuffy. I detest that the language is either old-fashioned, needlessly complex, ornate, or hard to understand. I know they’re public domain, but I still couldn’t force myself to read them for long. I wish I could read something published in at least the late 20th century to the present day. There might be some out there, but it’s time-consuming having to scroll/plough through pages & lists of those very old titles first before coming across something that might be a bit modern.
Happen to come across any relatively recent titles that are enjoyable? That are focused more on plot & action than on fancy, complex, obscure, hard to understand language? I’ll try any genre, maybe even trashy “guilty pleasure” or “junk food” books? Something that’ll keep me reading for hours or days?
Thanks for reading and thanks so much for any help I could get!
by LaughingIn3DLanguage
11 Comments
Do you have a library card? You can borrow e-books through the Libby app.
See if your local library offers ebooks—you’ll find better quality and more options that way than public domain. My library supports the Libby app and there’s a lot to choose from there.
As others have said, get a library card!
You can also get a subscription to something like kindle unlimited or the basic audible plan, with which you can read/listen to a pretty wide selection of books without spending additional money.
The Sci-fi publisher Baen has a [Free Library](https://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/free-library/id/2012) to introduce you to their authors.
Hopefully you can find one or two that appeal
As other comments have mentioned, library card + Libby or Hoopla is a great way of getting free ebooks and audiobooks.
If you don’t want that, then sometimes authors would give promotional ebooks for free. Brandon Sanderson has a few free ebooks that you could get. Warbreaker is a good fantasy story
Keep an eye on publisher websites. Sometimes [Tor.com](https://Tor.com) or Orbit do free giveaway for a limited time
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. You can download it for free on his website.
I know of a lot of legally available free ebooks, and a lot of books good for beginning readers, but there’s basically no overlap between the two. For better recommendations of books you may like, what do you watch on TV? What are your favourite things to watch or to read about in nonfiction? Do you have other hobbies?
Free ebooks. I will include links in a reply because *something* I post keeps getting my comments spam filtered and I’m not able to determine what:
* The author Peter Watts has some of his books and all of his short fiction available on his website. Be warned that he writes hard sci fi, so there’s TONS of rich worldbuilding based on real science, but the reader is expected to be aware of common tropes in sci fi in order to follow everything.
* Brandon Sanderson has a couple of free novels on his website. He’s written a *mountain* of novels so if you end up liking what he writes, there’s plenty where that came from.
* If you are between the ages of 13 and 26 and live in the US, you can sign up for The Seattle Public Library “Books Unbanned” program.
* The [Animorphs series](https://www.reddit.com/r/Animorphs/comments/3litxl/reformatted_ebook_editions_download_links/) of sci fi children’s novels are available as fanmade free ebooks. The authors have endorsed this project.
* The publisher Baen Books has a bunch of free sci fi, fantasy, and short stories available on their website.
* The science magazine Nature has some short sci fi stories available free under the “futures” category.
* The Lightspeed Magazine has free short sci fi and fantasy. I find the quality of these to vary a lot.
* The Clarkesworld Magazine has free short sci fi.
* The Escape Artists, Inc. network of podcasts has a variety of genres of short fiction available free in both audio and text format.
I recently found West With Giraffes for free, and it was a 10/10 read that wasn’t high brow or really out there!!
have you gone to your local library?
Vera Nazarian’s Qualify is free on Amazon. It is book 1 in a series. Thematically it is similar to the Hunger Games and written for YA audience so a pretty easy read with lots of action.
* r/freeebooks
Library is your best option as many here recommended, but there are a lot of other ways to get free books, check out projects like Little Free Library, Bookmooch and similar swap sites.