Where to find books
Book Reader reads plain .epub files. Two kinds of places give you those: libraries of books whose copyright has run out, free to download, and shops that sell books without copy protection. Both are below, with the languages they cover.
Free classics, in the language you are learning
Any language
- Project Gutenberg, about 79,000 books, one click to the .epub. Shelves by language: French, German, Portuguese, Chinese and more.
- Wikisource, volunteer-transcribed texts in more than 80 languages, “Download as EPUB” on every work.
- Internet Archive, scanned books in every language; most have an epub in the download panel.
- Standard Ebooks, beautifully re-set English classics.
- Global Grey, curated English classics, no account needed.
German
- Projekt Gutenberg-DE, German classics, each with an epub button.
- Zeno.org, a large library of German literature.
French
- Ebooks libres et gratuits, French classics in epub.
- Bibebook, French classics.
- Wikisource en français
- Gallica, the national library's scans; some items come as epub.
Spanish
- Elejandría, no registration needed.
- textos.info, a large open library.
- Wikisource en español
- Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
Portuguese
- Wikisource em português
- Project Gutenberg, Portuguese shelf, Machado de Assis, Eça de Queirós, Camões.
Japanese
- Aozora Bunko 青空文庫 holds the Japanese classics, as text rather than epub.
How to get an epub from Aozora Bunko
The easiest way is BOOK☆WALKER's free Aozora Bunko label: the whole catalogue as free epubs, a free account needed. Or convert a text yourself with AozoraEpub3: download the work's zip from Aozora Bunko, drop it on the converter, and it writes an epub with the furigana kept.
More languages
- Italian: Liber Liber
- Russian: lib.ru · Wikisource на русском
- Dutch: DBNL, epub on part of the collection.
Shops that sell books without copy protection
A book without copy protection is a plain .epub you keep and open anywhere, including here.
- Kobo, many titles. On a book's page, “Download options” says either “Adobe DRM” (locked) or lists open formats (plain). There is also a DRM-free browse page.
- Google Play Books, a book page saying “You can read on devices and apps that support open EPUB” is a plain epub; most others are locked.
- ebooks.com, a DRM-free section and a search filter.
- Thalia (Germany), most titles carry a watermark only, which is fine here; the product page says “Kopierschutz: ja/nein”.
- Smashwords and Draft2Digital, independent authors, everything sold as plain epub.
- Leanpub, mostly non-fiction, plain epub.
- Baen, science fiction and fantasy, with a free library.
- Weightless Books, small-press fiction, plain epub.
- Humble Bundle, pay-what-you-want book bundles, plain epub.
Not usable here: Amazon Kindle (its own format, never epub) and Apple Books (locked).
How to tell a plain epub from a locked one
A plain epub opens at once, here or in any reader. A locked purchase gives you an .acsm file (an Adobe voucher) or a Kindle file instead.
Checking a file with Calibre
Open the file in Calibre, the free desktop library. A clean book opens and converts normally; a locked one is reported as protected and refuses to convert.
Book Reader cannot open .acsm files, Kindle files, or a locked epub.