To say we live in a golden age for reading would be an understatement: a lot of the most important and entertaining books ever written—from ancient Greek philosophy to Russian novels, from romantic comedies to horror stories—are available completely free as ebooks. Whether you want to read them on your computer or on your phone, on a Kindle or just using the Kindle app, you can read hundred of books not just without breaking the bank, but without spending a cent.
Below we've highlighted some of the books available as free ebooks that have been recommended by experts on Five Books. If you want to read them on your e-reader or Kindle, here are a number of ways of finding them:
1. via Amazon. If you have a Kindle, Amazon make it very easy to read ebooks for free, especially if you already have Amazon Prime membership. Go to the Kindle store on your computer or phone, punch in the title of the book you want, and set the filter to 'price lowest to highest'. (You'll need to reset this filter every time you change the search term, unfortunately). You'll hopefully see the book you're looking for listed for $0.00.
One caveat: anyone can publish via Amazon, so it could be an edition riddled with strange typos. We've noticed that Amazon do an 'Amazon Classics' range of ebooks, free for Amazon Prime members, which seems to have some quality control in place (judging by the books we've looked at so far).
Note: you could search for the book on your Kindle directly, but it's not easy to filter by price, so hard to find that holy grail of 'Kindle Price: $0.00'
2. What happens if you cannot find your ebook for free on Amazon? Don't give up yet. If the book is in the public domain—which most books over a century year old are—the next place to search is Project Gutenberg. This is a wonderful initiative making ebooks freely available. You can read the books online, download them to your computer or device, or download them to your Kindle or other e-reader.
The first step is to go to Kindle's experimental browser. Use it to go to the Gutenberg.org site, search for your book, and download it in the format you want (e.g. Kindle (with images)). Note: this will also work for other e-readers, not just the Kindle.
“This is the novel that inaugurated time travel as a sub-genre. Wells picked up the up-to-date (in the 1890s) scientific speculation about time being a fourth dimension, and ran with it, imagining a machine that could take a man backwards and forwards through time….It is a short novel, almost a novella, but it is smoothly and evocatively written, and it manages to open a chink in the reader’s mind that gives a dizzying, thrilling glimpse down the vertiginous perspectives of long time.” Read more...
Adam Roberts, Novelist
“Like The Woman in White, it’s one of the more famous novels by Collins. It’s another with several characters, lots of perspectives, a great mystery at the middle of it. It’s the first novel that makes detection its whole business; it introduces Sergeant Cuff, a memorable literary detective…how do you keep your readers on the edge of their seats?” Read more...
The Best Books by Wilkie Collins
Jason Hall, Literary Scholar
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was published in 1847 and achieved immediate success. This essential classic book is still relevant in today's world. It is a successful mixture of romantic novel and gothic fiction.
“Lots and lots of people know the phrase, that ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ means a split personality: good on one side, evil on the other. They might even have seen one or two film adaptations of the book. But I think one of the things that would surprise folk who haven’t read the original book, first of all, is that it’s very short. It’s a novella, only about 150 pages long, yet it’s dealing with such amazingly deep themes.” Read more...
“London’s prose is passionate and evocative; it transports the reader to the brutal, beautiful wilds of Yukon and the lives and minds of the wolves, dogs, and men.” Read more...
Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel written in 1948. Often a standard text in school for teenagers, 1984 is many people's first introduction to totalitarianism. Ominously prescient in some ways, (such as the scope for surveillance to reach into our lives through the ubiquity of screens) and wide off the mark in others (Big Brother's omnipresent, unitary police state is not a reality we live with in the West), it makes fascinating reading.
Some of Orwell's inventions from 1984 entered the English language, like 'Thought Police,' 'Big Brother' 'Newspeak' and of course, the general concept of an 'Orwellian' society or future.
Frankenstein (Book)
by Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley started writing the Frankenstein story when she was 18, and it was published in London two years later. Her chilling tale of how Victor Frankenstein put together a creature by sewing together human parts is said to be the first true science fiction story. If you've never read it, or read it a long time ago, it's definitely worth picking up again, as the subtleties of the original book, entitled Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus, may have been displaced in your mind by the various cartoons and monster-movies connected to the original only by the name 'Frankenstein' (and some people, who haven't read the book, think Frankenstein is the name of the monster, rather than the name of the scientist who put the creature together).
Read below why it's one of the books most frequently recommended by the experts we've interviewed—on subjects as diverse as fear of death, women and society, and transhumanism.
“The only autobiography by a major Italian Renaissance artist. We don’t have Leonardo’s, or Michelangelo’s, or anybody else’s memoirs. But we do have Cellini’s, and they are absolutely astonishing. It’s a completely thrilling book, and anybody who loves Italy and Italian art has to read it. I more often than not take it with me when I’m in Florence or Rome, to read passages of it. If a few hundred readers discover this book then we will have done something very, very worthwhile. We’ll have enriched their lives.” Read more...
“This is a famous book. It was quite famous when it was first written, in the late 18th century, but it has had a renaissance from the 1960s onwards. The crucial thing about this book—and this is why I’ve listed it first—is that it gives you the lived experience of enslavement and it neatly pieces together pretty much every chapter in the story of the rise and fall of slavery, and it also covers the geography of the slave trade. “ Read more...
“You’ve got to have Jane Austen. She’s the first serious novelist. She is treating the novel in a way that we understand and creating an art form. I chose Emma. It would have been easier to choose Pride and Prejudice because it’s everyone’s favourite—it tops polls regularly. But if you want something a little bit more considered… It’s the most mature of the seven” Read more...
Robert McCrum, Journalist
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
The novel Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, was first published under the pen name Ellis Bell in 1847, just a year before Emily's death in 1848. Below, in our interviews with literary critics and journalists, you'll see why many people still view it as one of the greatest novels ever written in English. Also worth looking at are the contemporary reviews, some of which were found in Emily's desk after her death. These are available on the web (see links below), but are also included in the Norton Critical Edition of Wuthering Heights.
Pride and Prejudice (Book)
by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice was published more than 200 years ago, in 1813, but the book still speaks to us across the centuries. Written by Jane Austen when she was only 20, its original title was First Impressions. Like many great books, it was initially rejected by publishers and did not appear till years later, now under the title we know it by, Pride and Prejudice. By then, Austen had already had commercial success with Sense and Sensibility, a novel that also compares and contrasts two characters with the qualities (flaws) signalled in the title of the book.
Pride and Prejudice was a trailblazing book, not least because it has served as the template for every romance novel and Mills & Boon written since. The countless book and screen adaptations of Pride and Prejudice speak to a story that has universal appeal, its characters and plotline appearing in everything from Bridget Jones's Diary to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
But Pride and Prejudice is more than just a happily-ever-after story. Philosophers and literary scholars are just some of the experts we've interviewed who have chosen Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as essential reading on their topic. Along with many other people, it is Austen scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks's favourite Austen book. As she explains below, it's also a serious work. Exploring that theme, she produced Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition, published by Harvard University Press, which includes over 2,000 annotations to the text.
You can read all our interviews featuring Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice—and browse some of the original reviews and 19th century commentary on the book—below.
“Hemingway said that all American fiction comes from Huckleberry Finn. That’s true, in the sense that Twain invented a way of looking at the American experience and putting it into fiction. I think almost every American writer has to acknowledge that.” Read more...
Robert McCrum, Journalist
“This is Plato’s version of Socrates’ court speech. It’s very short, yet it gives us all sorts of extraordinary things. On first reading it is a brilliant piece of forensic oratory…This is so much more sophisticated as writing than most philosophy written today. It’s amazing that 2,500 years ago there were writers around who were better at writing about ideas than just about anyone alive today, even though there are many more philosophers in our era.” Read more...
M M McCabe, Philosopher
” I can barely read these stories myself. It’s the only literature that gives me nightmares. This collection was read to me by a teacher at school when I was eight years old, on dark autumnal Friday afternoons. I re-read them as an undergraduate, and was absolutely terrified once again.” Read more...
Nick Groom, Literary Scholar
“I first came across it when I was nine years old. I still remember this cartoon which had the raven in it. It really affected me because the raven was so sinister and nasty. It really scared me. It was so close to things to do with death and the supernatural. What I was looking at was a cartoon version of Poe’s The Raven. I was so taken by the story I asked my mother to track down the original for me.” Read more...
The best books on Swedish Crime Writing
Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström, Thriller and Crime Writer
The Daodejing
by Laozi
The Daodejing or 道德經 is one of the classics of Chinese philosophy. In English editions, it's sometimes still called the Tao Te Ching, which is an older system of romanizing the same Chinese characters. 'Dao' can be roughly translated as 'the Way,' 'De' tends to mean virtue in modern Chinese, but probably meant something more like 'power' in old Chinese. 'Jing' denotes that this book, which is around two-and-a-half millennia old, is one of the classics.
On the Origin of Species
by Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species is Charles Darwin's book on evolution that changed our understanding of the world, and our place in it, irrevocably. It is one of Five Books' most recommended books.
“One of the aims of my little book On Conan Doyle is to urge people to explore Conan Doyle’s many wonderful non-Sherlockian works. Certainly the one that most people should start with is The Lost World. It introduces Professor George Edward Challenger, a self-important but wonderfully funny and committed scientist who discovers a plateau in a South American jungle where dinosaurs still roam the earth. This is based on some actual historical explorations that were going on at the time. The novel obviously inspired Jurassic Park. It is one of the great classic versions of a lost civilisation.” Read more...
The best books on Sherlock Holmes
Michael Dirda, Journalist
“Marx and Engels’s historical analysis is breathtakingly, brilliantly simple. I think it’s wrong but, again, you’ve just got to admire its genius. Obviously, without understanding the historical basis of Marx’s thought you can’t understand anything else in Marxism.” Read more...
Dracula
by Bram Stoker
Dracula by Bram Stoker is the classic 1897 Gothic horror story. The most famous vampire story, Dracula has underlying themes of race, religion, superstition, science, and sexuality. Find out why Dracula is one of Five Books' most recommended books. Also worth looking at are Bram Stokers Notes for Dracula which contains Stoker's research notes.
The Histories
by Herodotus
***We recommend the Landmark edition of Herodotus's Histories***
Herotodus's Histories, which dates from around 425BC, is the earliest continuous Greek text in prose to survive, according to Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus at Oxford University, Christopher Pelling. It's a book that changed the meaning of 'history' forever, because in ancient Greek the word historie suggested ‘enquiry.’ Herodotus was investigating the wonders of the world, rather than writing a history as such. Find out more in our interviews with historians below.
Ulysses
by James Joyce
Ulysses is challenging, learned, filthy, and hilarious. In it, Joyce pushes the boundaries of language and the novel form.
Stephanie Kelley, Literary Editor at Five Books, gives us some tips on companion reading and advice on the best edition of Ulysses to read.
War and Peace (book)
by Leo Tolstoy
Which translation of the book War and Peace is best? What kind of reviews did Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece get when it was published? Why has the book War and Peace been chosen by philosophers, historians and novelists as one of the most important ever written? Find out more about one of our most recommended books by reading the expert commentary about War and Peace below.
“Crime and Punishment is probably Dostoevsky’s most conventional novel. It’s effectively a sort of literary crime novel, and is in some ways quite typical of its time. It’s got a fascinating structure, where a full 80% of the novel comes after he’s committed the crime but before he reaches the punishment. So for the majority novel, you are in suspense and, despite the title, a part of you genuinely believes he might get away with it.” Read more...
“With Vasari, we begin thinking that artistic biography might matter. As much as we may want to resist the notion that biography is central to understanding art, it seems as though it is just inevitable – the life of the artist is an inevitable element in considering the art itself, as Vasari realised early on.” Read more...
Republic
by Plato
In Ancient Greek, Plato's famous dialogue was known as Politeia. The Romans called it Res Publica, the title we now use. Below, philosophers and political scientists recommend which edition of Plato's Republic to read and explain, in detail, why it remains a work of such significance:
“This edition is really good at showing both the constructed-ness of the original Analects and the vast exegetical machine that has driven the Chinese philosophical tradition through the centuries.” Read more...
“Newton’s a genius whose most obvious contribution to science was to formulate the laws of motion and of gravity and to come up with breakthrough theories about light, colour, vision and so on. But in the Queries to the Opticks he treats these questions as philosophical problems as much as scientific problems. He sees his work not simply as changing the way that scientific inquiry is going to happen for the next 300 years, but also the way that people think about what it means to be human.” Read more...
“Thucydides is the single best treatment of international relations, foreign policy and military affairs that exists. It is the best description of what life in a multipolar world is like, what politics and war are like for the units involved, of the basic realities of international relations. It has no single line.” Read more...
The best books on US Foreign Policy
Gideon Rose, International Relation
