When I was a kid, I spent hours at the library. I read anything I could get my hands on, and there was no where I would rather be. Fast forward about twenty years, and I still love to read. But I don’t ever go to the library anymore. The combination of less time to read, plus buying so many books at the airport, plus using my Kindle for so many years, has led me to not visit a library in longer than I can remember. However (and I may be the last person in the world to know about this) I just found out that you can borrow ebooks from many libraries! It’s free—all you need is a library card. (Pictured: The old school Kindle with the ink display, starting right now at $69!)
I also recently learned that another way to get free books to read on my Kindle is to join Amazon Prime
There are also frequently ebooks available for free or significantly reduced price on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But I still think the best way to read books for free is the library. So I will be heading to my local branch this weekend to sign up. Then I will be able to download books to my Kindle any time of day, no matter where I am, for free. Of course I don’t get to keep them forever, but that’s okay. I’m just glad to be able to read a variety of books again!
Readers, have you found ways to get ebooks for super cheap or even free?
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Amazon Prime Membership is only $79 a YEAR. Big difference.
Good catch Lynn! I fixed it.
Yes- download the overdrive app and with a library card you can borrow books for free from your library and read it on your iphone (or other device).
I’m a huge library person, but I basically never use the library to get books on my nook. The selection is really, really bad, and the Overdrive site is super hard to search. I’ve gone in with a list of 25 books I was interested in and literally none of them were available as an ebook (lots of audiobooks though).
My experience with trying to get ebooks from my library is they have them but there is always a waiting list to download them:( So I normally go to BN and look for the selection of free books. I’ve found some really good ones that were available free.
I’m probably the only person between the ages of 16-40 who uses my local library but it’s fantastic! They recently changed their ebook service so there’s no wait and you can keep the ebook for 2 weeks with the option to renew. That’s such an improvement to their old system where there were waiting lists that were months long and you could only keep the book for 4 days.
Overdrive doesn’t have everything but if I get a few I’m happy and I put myself on a waitlist for others. There’s a 2 week max so the waitlist moves quickly. I read on planes and on the subway… I don’t find Amazon Prime useful because it won’t let me use the Kindle app for lending and I hate carrying two devices – I only read on my iphone 🙁
I use both our local library (via Overdrive) and the Prime lending library. The selection of books on overdrive isn’t that great though – only new titles at our library, and almost always a 3-4week waiting list.
If you have a library book you are quite desperate to finish, but haven’t made it in the 2 week mark, simply leave your wireless off. It will disappear when you turn it back on.
I use the library all the time. Yes, there is a wait frequently (I’ve been on a waiting list for Gone Girl for a while now–there were 300+ people ahead of me), but when I get the email that a book has become available, it’s like Christmas.