Free books?

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Reading is one of my passions, but being frugal, I don't like to spend money on books, magazines or even a newspaper. I can catch the news on the computer and read plenty of articles and magazine-like content online, but nothing is quite like stretching out on the couch with a good book, or tucking one in my purse to read while in the doctor's waiting room.

One way I've found to get good, free reading material is to trade with others. All of my kids love to read and two of them are here in town, so we trade books now and then. Although we don't always read the same kind of material, we now and then find one that we all enjoy.

How else to get free reading material? How about checking with a local Freecycle? Another way is to take some of your books to a used book store that will give you credit toward other books.

Yes, you can print books from online sources, but ink and paper are not free. There are a few places where you can trade books online, but postage is not free, either. I'm open to any ideas that anyone has on how to get more free reading material.

ebooks

Sorting through some old files, I came across a small ebook I'd downloaded from the Gutenberg Project called "The Simple Life" by Charles Wagner. Skimming through it, this phrase caught my eye: "It is not the woman with one dress who asks most insistently how she shall be clothed, nor is it those reduced to the strictly necessary who make most question of what they shall eat to-morrow."

Food for thought, isn't it?

If you want to download Gutenberg Project's books, it's fast to do in text form - you don't need a reader or a browser. If you can't read it all at one setting in a text editor, make your own bookmark simply by typing a few characters that you'll remember, then finding them next time by using the built in find function. I use ?!? because it's quick, easy to type and you hardly ever find it in the text of a book otherwise.

There are other free sources of books online - notably the Internet Public Library. IPL has links to some very good reading, well organized so you can find your interests quickly.

While reading on a monitor can be tiresome, it's the next best thing to a trip to the library. If you haven't looked for free books online, you'l be pleasantly surprised at the quantity and variety available.

You just can't get much more frugal than free.