Free books for your iPad
Fill your iPad with free books so you always have something to read! The iPad is ideal for reading books and there are plenty of ways to do that for free. You will find all kinds of free books in Apple’s Book Store and you can also visit other legal websites and apps. It is not very complicated, but there are a number of facts. In this article we reveal the best places to find free books for the iPad and how to put them on the iPad.
- Free book formats
- Where to search?
- Library books
- Dutch books
- English books
Free books: PDF, ePub or app?
You can read different book formats on the iPad, with PDF and ePub being the most important. A book in PDF format has a nice, fixed layout per page. They are excellent to read on a large screen such as the iPad or a computer, but on the iPhone the letters become too small and you have to continuously scroll across the screen. PDFs can be found everywhere online. Via the computer you can transfer them to your iPad and you can then read them with apps such as GoodReader. Apple’s own Books app also supports PDFs. Some authors offer books in PDF format for free, as a warm-up for the rest of their oeuvre.
ePub books have no fixed layout, but adapt to any screen size. This makes them much more pleasant to read. The layout is often a bit simpler, with fewer illustrations. The ePub format is ideal for novels and other reading books, while a PDF is more suitable for textbooks with lots of illustrations. You can easily read books that are free of DRM via the iBooks app.
In addition, there is a third format for books, namely in the form of apps. We see this especially with children’s books and comic books. This has the advantage that the layout is much nicer, with drawings, music and animations. When the iPad was only just available, a lot of books were released, such as the impressive educational app De Elementen. Nowadays that rarely happens.
Free books: where can I find them?
One place to start your search is Apple’s Book Store itself. The app distinguishes between free and paid books. Among the free books you will mainly find classics such as Tom Sawyer or Jules Verne, but you will also come across books that offer authors for promotion. They also hope that after reading the ebook you will also buy the paper book.
Another place where you can find many good English books is at Amazon. These books can be read on your iPad via the Kindle app. An advantage is that your notes and bookmarks are kept online. If you don’t have the iPad with you, you can continue reading where you left off on the computer or on the iPhone. There are regularly authors who temporarily offer their books for free.
A third place to look for free books is the App Store. Some books are available for free as an app or can be read partially for free. This applies, for example, to all manuals for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and the like. You can also read the manuals of iOS versions online for free. In addition, Apple has more explanation about apps and its own products.
Free books on the iPad through the library
If you are a member of the public library, you can read ebooks for free. To do this, you install the official Library app, after which you have access to thousands of free e-books from the Library. From novels to thrillers, from non-fiction to youth and children’s books. You can read e-books on your iPhone, iPad or e-reader. And you can even read 10 free books at once. Each book stays in the app for three weeks and then automatically disappears. The library also has audio books that you can listen to. Ideal if you often sit in the car or can’t read well. This can also be useful for the elderly and visually impaired.
Websites with free Dutch books
Although it is impossible to name all websites with free books, we have quite a few tips with places where you can find interesting English and Dutch free books.
Short reads
If you are looking for short stories, take a look at Shortreads.nl. Every day you will find new, short stories there that you can read while waiting at the bus stop. This way you let yourself be transported to a completely different world. If you like a certain author, you can read all the other stories by the same author. You can immediately see how many minutes the story will take to read, for example 2 or 3 minutes. Mostly written by professional authors.
Project Gutenberg
At Project Gutenberg you will find almost 60,000 free books, which you can download for free on your iPad. Volunteers have digitized the books, where you can choose from large literary works. It mainly concerns classics whose rights have expired. You can download the books as ePub, Kindle, HTML or plain text without registering. From Joost van den Vondel to fairy tales by Andersen or medieval rhymes, you can find everything. Go to www.gutenberg.org/browse/languages/nl for the Dutch books.
Library for Dutch Literature
Overview with all kinds of free books, which can be read online. Nice source of information if you are looking for Dutch classics. Also take a look at the basic library, with 1000 key texts from Dutch cultural history. You will also find many interviews, reports, plays and lectures. Visit www.dbnl.nl.
eReaders.nl
The website eReaders.nl scoured the internet every month until 2021 in search of free ebooks. They tell you where to find the books and what you have to do to download for free (for example, by leaving your e-mail address). Here you will find the lists.
Harlequin
For lovers of castle and doctor novels, there is the Harlequin website, where you will also find a small selection of free ebooks. These are meant to introduce you to these romantic books. It seems that the iPad is very much used for romantic and sometimes somewhat erotic books.
Mustreads.nl
MustReads lists a number of books worth reading that you can download immediately. Think, for example, of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Or The Adventures of Pinkeltje, by Dick Laan. Or maybe you should read De Roos van Dekama by Jacob van Lennep for your book list. Most books are a bit older, but sometimes you can find a nice gem in between.
Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a place where you can find free textbooks and teaching materials, for example on cell biology, math, cooking, history or even bronze casting for sculptors.
Free books in English
If you also think it’s fine to read English books, then your choice suddenly becomes many times greater. Most providers of paid books (such as Amazon) also offer a few free books, but you can also find tips on books that are temporarily free on Twitter and on various collection sites. In addition, there are various websites that always have a nice selection of free books for your iPad. Below you will find a number of well-known ones.
Bookboon
If you are looking for educational books, you should check out Bookboon. They have all kinds of free books, thanks to sponsors. For business books you need an account, which you can try for free for the first period. Everything is included: learning a new language, programming or textbooks about marketing and law.
Google Books
You can find books in the Google ebookstore, some of which are free. You will find bestsellers and classics about, for example, Leonardo Da Vinci and Greek mythology, usually books that are no longer copyrighted. You can also search newer books through Google Books, if the publisher has given permission. These are pages from books, which you can find by entering a search term in the Google search box and then choosing Books under More. You usually can’t read a whole book this way, but if you want to know something about a specific topic, or need a quote for a paper, you can still refer to it without having to buy the whole book.
Kobo/Bol.com
Bol.com works together with Kobo for ebooks. On the websites of both companies you will find a selection of free books. Bol.com also has a list of books that cost less than a euro (from €0.10). Most of them are lesser-known authors.
Feed books
Check the public domain section of Feedbooks for the free books. Choose from fiction or non-fiction or check out the latest releases. If you don’t have much time and you still want a good book, there is a list of the most popular free books that others like to read.
Manybooks
On Manybooks you will find more than 30,000 free books in English. You browse by category, such as non-fiction, suspense, horror and more. Every day an author is put in the spotlight, so that you get to know books that you normally would not have discovered so quickly. For the frequent readers.
LibriVox
At LibriVox you will find free reading books and audio books. Sort through the tabs by author, genre, title or language. You can also help with the recording of the audiobooks yourself. Because this is voluntary work, the quality may not be as good as you are used to with paid audiobooks, which are produced with much larger budgets in professional studios.
PDF Books World
At PDF Books World you will find free books in PDF format. These are classics from the public domain, so slightly older books. For when you still haven’t been able to find that one classic from the other providers.
Open Library
At Open Library you can browse freely and download books for free. The collection already contains more than a million books, so you will find anything and everything. Just like with Wikipedia, you can contribute by adding books. Sometimes you will also find well-known names, such as Stephen King.
Internet Archives
If you are looking for a book that is no longer on the market, you should take a look at the Internet Archive. Millions of free, copyright-free titles. To help you on your way, there is a blog with news about the developments and latest acquisitions.
Free eBooks
No old junk, but books by new talents and independent writers can be found on Free eBooks. Here authors who have not yet broken through offer their fiction and non-fiction books. You will also find all kinds of audio books.
You can read more about reading books on your iPad and iPhone in our overview.
