海角大神

A few years ago, I received a Kindle as a gift from my wife. It鈥檚 a pretty nifty little device, perfectly designed for reading the text of books.

The problem is that in order to read a lot of books, you have to buy them from the Kindle bookstore. Yes, there are other options out there 鈥� you can check out some e-books from your local library, for example 鈥� but the selection is often really limited.

Naturally, my frugal side wanted to find ways to really extract value from my Kindle. I wanted to find free books worth reading 鈥� and, it turns out, there are a聽lot聽of free books out there.

Many of them are trash.

However, there are a lot of diamonds mixed in with all of that charcoal. For example, virtually every work first published before 1920 is considered to be in the public domain and thus it鈥檚 pretty easy to find a free electronic version of almost every well-known book from that timeframe.

There are also writers who distribute some of their works for free, either for philosophical reasons or in the hopes that it will attract new followers to the other things they鈥檙e engaged in (public speaking, teaching, other books, etc.).

Over the past few years, I鈥檝e been digging through a lot of these resources and cataloguing the books I鈥檝e enjoyed. Here鈥檚 a list of 28 of them. Why 28? As I made the list, I kept the ones I really enjoyed and thought about and didn鈥檛 include the rest. Now seems like a perfectly good time to share this list.

For the most part, I鈥檝e simply linked to the Kindle-compatible version of the book. You can聽聽to easily read Kindle books on your screen, so you don鈥檛 actually need an e-reader to enjoy these. If you use another device for reading, like Sony鈥檚 e-reader or the Nook from Barnes and Noble, a quick Google search will lead you to the resources you need.

聽by Emily Bront毛
This is often known as a romance novel, but it鈥檚 actually a revenge story. The book tells the story of Heathcliff, a rather strange child who is adopted by a family and is later made to be their servant. Eventually, he runs away after being jilted by a lover, and when he returns, he鈥檚 obtained wealth and refinement, but also has a burning desire to destroy both of the families he believes has done wrong by him.

聽by Charles Dickens
This book tells the tale of Pip, an orphaned child who climbs up and down the social ladder of Georgian England. There are a lot of wonderful things going on here: family loyalty, coming of age, a few nice action scenes, and some really memorable characters (of which every Dickens novel has a few).

聽by Charles Dickens
This is a legal drama, believe it or not, that basically exposes how painfully the wheels of justice can turn and how some court cases can drastically affect the lives of many. It does delve a bit into specifics of how the law worked at the time in England, but get past that and you have an interesting novel with a lot of subplots that are all tied together by a painful and dramatic trial.

聽by Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau spent two years living in a self-made cabin on Walden Pond and during that time, he took down his thoughts on the value of solitude and self-reliance. This is a wonderfully thought-provoking book on what it means to be an independent and self-reliant person, mixed in with some great tales of independence and nature.

聽by Alexandre Dumas
This is just a really wonderful action story, with double crosses, fights, romance, and humor. There have been countless film adaptations of this and the various sequels to the story, and no wonder 鈥� it鈥檚 just a really fun adventure.

聽by Victor Hugo
I have never read a better story about a person growing, changing, maturing, and developing a strong sense of right and wrong than this one. The slow change in Jean Valjean from the beginning to the end of this book, along with his interactions of people of various moralities, is simply wonderful to read. There are about a dozen deeply memorable characters in this novel who will stick with you for a long time.

聽by Oscar Wilde
This is a horror story, but also a very timely commentary on the public face that people put out there while they sometimes hide darker things. Wilde can鈥檛 write a novel without incorporating some humor, but there is a lot of thoughtful darkness in this novel.

聽by Hermann Hesse
This tells the tale of Siddhartha, a man who simply wants to understand how life works. He starts off being an ascetic in that he gives up worldly possessions, but eventually he moves on from there through various stages and eventually reaches some powerful conclusions about life.

聽by Leo Tolstoy
In 2007,聽Time聽declared this to be the greatest novel ever written. Oprah picked it for her book club. Read it. You will be glad that you did.

聽by Walt Whitman
This is, hands down, my favorite collection of poetry. It includes my聽聽and countless other great poems, including the amazing聽. If you read a book of poetry in your life, make it this one.

聽by Joseph Conrad
This is an amazing story about an individual driven to madness by the darkness of the Congo wilderness and the darkness of the reality of European colonialism of Africa. Marlow鈥檚 discovery of Kurtz after a long ride up the river is just chilling. The book was re-made into the powerful film聽Apocalypse Now.

聽by Jane Austen
As my wife once said, 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 write romance novels this well any more.鈥� While there鈥檚 a romance going on, the book also looks at upbringing, morality, education, gender, and marriage in upper middle class England in the early 19th century. Austen had great observations and could also create some very strong characters.

聽by Daniel Defoe
A man survives for twenty eight years on a tropical island, surviving cannibals and attacks by mutineers while also building some semblance of a life for himself. It鈥檚 a powerful novel of self-reliance and adventure.

聽by Mark Twain
There鈥檚 a wonderful adventure story here, but what makes聽Huck Finn聽stand out is the stark pictures of prejudices and education at the time is how Huck Finn largely ignores society鈥檚 ideas of right and wrong to do what he thinks is the right thing. He does this over and over again, which causes him endless problems with polite society.

聽by Benjamin Franklin
This is a wonderful telling of the story of a truly amazing life. Not only is it a great record of an absolutely vital early American, it鈥檚 also quite fun to read. Franklin is one of those people with such a varied and impressive life that you can鈥檛 help but be amazed with all of the things he achieved.

聽by Upton Sinclair
This is a harrowing story about workers in a meat-packing plant around the turn of the twentieth century. The descriptions of the work that they do will really shock you and make you want to investigate where your food comes from. The novel ended up having an enormous impact on the food industry in the early twentieth century.

聽by Mark Twain
I can鈥檛 tell you how many times I鈥檝e read this novel. It鈥檚 just a lot of fun. What happens if you take a very intelligent modern man and drop him into King Arthur鈥檚 world? That鈥檚 the premise here, and Twain tells it with humor and thoughtfulness.

聽by H. G. Wells
What sort of evil things might you do if you were invisible? And what does that say about the person that you actually are? Those are the real questions asked in this great science fiction novel.

聽by Jules Verne
This is somewhat a sequel to聽20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but this one is better and you don鈥檛 really need to have read the first novel to enjoy it. Several people become shipwrecked on a strange island where things don鈥檛 always happen as you might expect them to.

聽by Jules Verne
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, as it is a very entertaining fictionalization of what people in the late 19th century believed that travel to the moon would actually be like. Mostly, this novel is a 鈥渟pace race鈥� of sorts, with an individual overcoming all kinds of obstacles to develop and build a device to launch a man to the moon. The sequel聽Around the Moon听颈蝉 also entertaining, but more fanciful.

聽by H. G. Wells
What鈥檚 the line between science fiction and horror? This novel rides that fine line. Doctor Moreau lives on a strange island where he creates sentient beings by combining the parts of various animals. The novel dwells quite a lot on the issues of pain in the name of progress and animal cruelty, while telling a strong story.

聽by William Makepeace Thackeray
I found聽Vanity Fair聽to be incredibly funny. It makes fun of society as a whole, particularly the hypocrisy of people and how they鈥檒l willingly step on someone鈥檚 neck to reach a few inches higher. It ends up with an intriguing murder mystery, one that I used to frequently argue about with an old friend.

聽by Mark Twain
On a rather different note,聽Roughing It听颈蝉 Mark Twain鈥檚 memoirs of his years spent in the wild West. Twain鈥檚 humor is evident here, but it鈥檚 also a great adventure story that reveals quite a lot about the nature of the old West.

聽by Sir Walter Scott
If you鈥檙e interested in knights, chivalry, and Robin Hood, you鈥檒l enjoy聽Ivanhoe. It鈥檚 as simple as that. It鈥檚 a very fun adventure story, vibrant and yet realistic, though the language is just a touch dated in places.

聽by Friedrich Nietzsche
This is a very powerful look at what morality is and how we can internally and externally determine right and wrong based on objective truth, not on the ideas of the society around us. More often than not, they overlap, but a sense of what鈥檚 right based on what we objectively know to be true is a much more powerful guide than just following what others tell us.

聽by James Fenimore Cooper
This is a wonderful adventure story set during the French-Indian War of the 1750s. Be careful when reading Cooper, though; if you鈥檝e read one book by him, you鈥檒l get a feeling that you鈥檙e just re-reading the same book if you read more. One is聽very聽well worth reading, though, and I suggest this one.

聽by Charles Stross
Accelerando听颈蝉 a 2005 science fiction novel that Stross has released as a free e-book for anyone to read. It鈥檚 actually a series of nine somewhat interconnected short stories telling the story of a family before, during, and after a technological singularity 鈥� in other words, a merging of man and machine for a level of superintelligence that neither could achieve on their own. It鈥檚 a very enjoyable read with lots of thought-provoking ideas.

聽by Cory Doctorow
Little Brother听颈蝉 a 2007 novel by Cory Doctorow that describes how four teenagers respond to a terrorist attack in San Francisco. During the aftermath of that attack, the Department of Homeland Security tries to crack down on civil rights in the area, and the main characters fight back against it in various ways, often utilizing technology in a clever way. Much like聽Accelerando, this one is a great new novel that鈥檚 free for anyone to read.

Hopefully, you now have plenty to read without exploding your pocketbook.