Free/Cheap/Easy Textbooks!
Amazon student - You will probably find the cheapest prices through this link. Simple to use, over a million text books from previous students or discount companies at the click of a button. They’re even offering free delivery on sign-up.
Chegg - Plants a tree every time you buy a book (I know, it’s a beautiful business plan). Their delivery is fast and on average people save about 450 dollars per order. Mostly everyone I know buys from here.
RentText - This one is possibly my favorite, it’s very independent and has a wonderful design and customer service. You can only rent or sell books on this one, but with high turn out.
BookByte - Extremely popular with sellers and also very great with purchasing, fast delivery. Super easy to use website.
Biblio.com. Seriously, they are the one purveyor I recommend most to everyone I know. Not only can you get rare and out-of-print books, but all the sellers are independent.
AddALL.com. Another great resource that gives you all kinds of great options, but mostly deals with the Big Wigs (Amazon, Half.com, B&N, etc).
BetterWorldBooks.com. These people are amazing. Not only do they do novels, they also do textbooks. Even better, they donate one book for every one you purchase.
SwapTree. Great little website where all you need to do is pay shipping.
BookMooch. Similar concept, but working with “points.”
And now for the free resources!
Project Gutenberg. Free online ebooks. Yeah, they might be dated, but you know what? Shut up. Free is free.
Librivox.com. If you’re of the audiobook persuasion. Great if you want to get your reading in and, say, do a lot of bouncy cardio at the same time.
The Online Books Page. Run by some Penn state peeps.
Open Culture. Not a large a selection, but high quality texts. If you just want to skim a book to brush up on a course you took in ninth grade, download one of these. I have yet to be disappointed.
Book Boon. Provides free college-level textbooks in a PDF format. Probably the widest range of subjects on the web. The site is also pretty.
Flat World Knowledge. The worlds largest publisher of free and open college textbooks. Humanitie texts are particularly difficult to come by, this site has a great selection in all disciplines.
Textbook Revolution. Some of the books are PDF files, others are viewable online as e-books, or some are simply web sites containing course or multimedia content.
Library Pirate. When this site opened a few months ago, I went a little overboard. After dropping two hundred large on a paperback spanish textbook, I downloaded the ebook version. It will be interesting to see how this site grows — they already have a great selection.
Bartleby - Bartleby has one of the best collections of literature, verse and reference books that can be accessed online for no charge.
Biblomania - A great collection of classic texts, reference books, articles and study guides.
Books-On-Line - A directory of more than 50,000 (mostly free) books that are posted on the Internet. Browse by author, subject or keyword.
Bookstacks - This site has nearly 100 free books from 36 different authors. The books can be read online or downloaded as a PDF.
Bookyards - Featuring more than 30,000 links to ebooks, this site also provides access to video, HTML books and online libaraies.
Bored.com - Read thousands of classic books and other ebooks online or transfer files to your computer. Special topics include music, games, cooking, science and travel.
Classic Book Library - A free online library containing historical fiction, romance, mysteries, science fiction and children’s literature.
Classic Bookshelf - Electronic library of classic books with a special Java eBook reading program for easy viewing.
Classic Reader - An expanding collection of classic fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s stories and plays - more than 4,000 works by hundreds of authors.
Ebook Lobby - Hundreds of free ebooks in categories that range from business and art to computing and education.
Fiction eBooks Online - Hundreds of plays, poems, short stories, picture books and classic novels.
Fiction Wise - Free works of fiction from the top independent ebook seller in the world.
Full Books - Thousands of full-text books sorted by title - both fiction and nonfiction.
Get Free Books - Thousands of free books on nearly every topic imaginable. All books are available for instant download.
Great Literature Online - Free, HTML formatted e-text from ClassicAuthors.net. A links page for each author makes this site a great resource for college students.
Hans Christian Andersen - A wonderful collection of stories and fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen (translated into English).
HorrorMasters - If you’re a big fan of spooky stories, this site, with hundreds of free .pdf format horror books, is a great resource.
Internet Public Library - Includes links to other online free book databases.
Literature of the Fantastic - Small collection of science fiction and fantasy books with links to discussions.
Literature Project - Free library of classic books, poems, speeches and plays with optional speech-to-text software.
Magic Keys - Free illustrated children’s stories for people of all ages.
Many Books - More than 20,000 free ebooks for your ebook reader, smartphone or iPod.
Page By Page Books - Hundreds of classic books that can be read in the Page By Page e-Library.
Project Gutenberg - More than 25,000 free books are available from Project Gutenberg. An additional 100,000 titles are accessible through Project Gutenberg’s partners and affiliates.
Public Literature - A huge collection of fine literature that showcases classic authors and modern works from around the world.
Read Print - Free online library with thousands of books, poems and plays for students and teachers.
Ref Desk - Free encyclopedias and other reference books from the best reference site on the Web.
The Complete Works of Shakespeare - Thanks to MIT, the complete works of the Bard of Avon are online.
The Online Books Page - A listing of over 30,000 free books on the Web from the University of Pennsylvania.
The Perseus Digital Library - An evolving digital library from Tufts University that features texts from the classical and Renaissance world.
FilesTube - FilesTube searches THE ENTIRE INTERNET for files uploaded to file-sharing websites such as Rapidshare, Mediafire, or WuUpload. Sometimes people will upload pdf files of your textbook. This is always an important first search.
Google Books - You usually won’t find your textbook on Google Books, but it’s always worth a look. Sometimes pages are missing because it’s only a preview of the book, but again - always worth a look.
Scribd - People upload documents to Scribd and by becoming a member (free!) or connecting through Facebook (if you’re lazy!), you can download whatever files you may find. This sometimes includes textbooks.
BookBoon - website specifically for finding pdf versions of textbooks
Curriki - free open source materials
Flat World Knowledge - free business, humanities, and science textbooks
California Learning Resource Network
Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources
TorrentScan - textbooks are also uploaded to torrent sites in some cases - you may as well check.
If push comes to shove, you can try variations of googling “textbook name torrent” or “textbook name download” or “textbook name download free.” Sometimes things pop up and I never would have known about them.
LibraryPirate is a torrent search site specifically for textbooks. (Added 10 October 2011)
AMAZING Reddit post (Added 2 November 2011)
JenkThat - I haven’t tried this out yet, but I’ve heard good things from others. It’s also a good place to find other ebooks that aren’t textbooks. (Added 29 December 2011)
Bookfi - I just briefly looked at this site and searched for a few common terms and it looks great! Download links are provided straight from the search results. Definitely useful! (Added 1 August 2012)
Ink eBook - Recommended by a few. Seems to just be a general eBook search site! (Added 12 January 2013)
Ebookee - This one had a few textbooks on the recently viewed section when I visited it, so it looks promising! (Added 12 January 2013)
This subreddit (Added 31 March 2013)
Textbook Revolution (Added 31 March 2013)
GaTech Math Textbooks (Added 31 March 2013)
Freebookspot (Added 31 March 2013)
Free-ebooks (Added 31 March 2013)
Get Free eBooks (Added 31 March 2013)
Oerconsortium (Added 31 March 2013)
Project Gutenberg - Always a classic. Can’t believe I haven’t added it until now. (Added 31 March 2013)
Met Museum Art History Books (Added 20 June 2013)
Online Textbooks for Free
160 Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection | Open Culture
Boundless - Free Textbooks
Touch Textbooks | Download FREE College Textbooks To Your iPad, iPhone, Android, Tablet Or e-Reader. - Touch Textbooks (Pay a joining fee of $49.90)
mobibookz | ebooks in .mobi format (I doubt it’s fore textbooks)
Free ebooks - Project Gutenberg (not very useful)
ManyBooks.net - Ad-free eBooks for your iPad, Kindle, or eBook reader
Welcome to Open Library (Open Library) (Not too sure how this is working, you probably want to check the search under ebook option)
Bartleby.com: Great Books Online — Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and hundreds more (it directs me to amazon???)
Online Textbooks, eTextbooks @Flat_World Knowledge | Read and Remix
Free Books - Books to download for free | LibrosPDF.net
Neotake: Your ebook search engine
375 Free eBooks: Download to Kindle, iPad/iPhone & Nook | Open Culture
Free eBooks at Planet eBook - Classic Novels and Literature
eBooks@Adelaide: Free Web Books, Online
E-Books Directory - Categorized Books, Short Reviews, Free Downloads
Book:Lists/Subjects - TextbookRevolution
FreeBookSpot | Download e-books for free
Download Free Ebooks, Legally
Free-eBooks.net | Download free Fiction, Health, Romance and many more ebooks
#1 in Textbook Rental. Rent or Buy Your Books Now | Chegg.com
Electronic library. Download books free. Finding boooks
Open Textbooks « Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources
Book Nova Free Text Book Torrents
Ebookee: Free Download eBooks Search Engine!
Online Textbooks, eTextbooks @Flat_World Knowledge | Read and Remix
Digital Textbook Initiative
http://textbookrevolution.org/index.php/Main_Pagehttp://textbookrevolution.org/index.php/Book:Lists/Subjects
http://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/hrgmv/tracker_with_pdfsebooks_of_college_textbooks/c1xrq44
http://jenkthat.com/ (not quite sure if this one is working for me)
ePub Bud - Publish, Convert, Store, and Download free children’s ebooks online for the iPad and nook color!
A reddit post that has a few more links http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1aw7zb/til_the_cost_of_college_textbooks_in_the_us_has/c91fxb1
A good tumblr post that also has advice on how to find your books http://rainydaypaperback.tumblr.com/post/84161611092/shadesofmauve-songscloset-nihilisme
Free books: 100 legal sites to download literature
Browse works by Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and other famous authors here.
Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.
Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.
If you don’t absolutely need to pay for your textbooks, save yourself a few hundred dollars by reviewing these sites.
Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.
Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.
Turn to this list to find books about math, science, engineering and technology.
FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.
Even children’s books are now available online. Find illustrated books, chapter books and more.
byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.
For books about philosophy and religion, check out these websites.
Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.
From Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw to more contemporary playwrights, visit these sites.
ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.
Modern Fiction, Fantasy and Romance
These websites boast collections of graphic novels, romance novels, fantasy books and more.
Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.
Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.
For books in a foreign language like French, Spanish and even Romanian, look here.
Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.
Refresh your memory of world history, the classics and U.S. history here.
LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.
Look for rare books online here.
Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.
JR’s Rare Books and Commentary: Check this site for PDF versions of some rare books.
This list features books about celebrities, movies, fashion and more.
Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.
Here you can find mystery books from Sherlock Holmes to more contemporary authors.
MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.
These poetry sites have works by Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.
For even more free book sites, check out this list.
Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the more recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.
http://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/hrgmv/tracker_with_pdfsebooks_of_college_textbooks/c1xrq44
http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1aw7zb/til_the_cost_of_college_textbooks_in_the_us_has/c91fxb1
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/179yg4/what_was_your_biggest_holy_shit_why_havent_i_done/c83sbdr
CHECK:
- norris bookstore
- chegg etc., other websites
- Beck’s
- facebook group
- bookstore extension on norris website
- wildcatbooks
- ILL and other library options
EDIT: holy shit this has exploded! i compiled this for myself for the start of college, but i’m glad other can profit from it too (literally) because wow college textbooks are more expensive than i could have ever imagined
gummygunk
2087
prguitarman
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
areudirty
