Sites Where You Can Read/Download FREE Books and Short Stories

As we keep our hands glued to our phones, tirelessly scrolling through our news feed, waiting for the next big thing, not knowing what to do during this enhanced community quarantine. It can get really boring.

Well, if we’re going to waste our time, might as well do something that our brains can benefit from, right? Bookworm or not, these sites will help you cure your boredom while learning a thing or two!

Project Gutenburg 10

Project Gutenburg gives you access to more than 60,000 collections of all timeless classics and top hits, featuring all the important books ever published in history. You name it. Books from Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), and many more are all up for grabs here. What’s awesome about this is that you can download eBooks in various formats or you can also read directly from the site.

Scribd

Scribd is an e-book and audiobook subscription service that has recently announced that it will be making its digital library free to access for 30 days. Yep, you will get full access to Scribd’s library including millions of its ebooks, audiobooks, magazine articles, and many more. There is no credit card or commitment required to access the digital library.

Paulo Coelho

Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, who is famous for his novel The Alchemist, has posted some free ebooks of his own works, including Manual of the Warrior of Light, Manuscript Found in Accra, and The Way of the Bow. Apart from that, you may also read his daily stories which are basically short stories about life, love, and spirituality.

Neil Gaiman

Familiar with the book and series “American Gods“? Well, the man behind that awesome story is none other than English author Neil Gaiman. His essays, short stories, audiobook excerpts, and video interviews have been made available for free on his website under the Cool Stuff section. You can also read his David Bowie fanfiction, The Return of the Thin White Duke!

Haruki Murakami

Best known for his novels such as the Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Sputnik Sweetheart and many more, Japanese author Haruki Murakami‘s short stories, both fiction and nonfiction, are available for reading online through The New Yorker’s website. Prepare your mind as Haruki’s works are oftentimes eccentric, surreal, and would really make you think about your existence.

And there you go, soon to be readers! Let’s all make good use of this quarantine to be more productive and to enhance our skills while we can. If you have more sites that you would like to recommend, leave a comment down below.