List of 63 More Great Books You Can Read for Free

A list, in no particular order, of 64 notable books you can borrow free from the Internet Archive. Fiction titles are in brown. The books on this list are in addition to the individual books featured in our Books to Read Free posts and in our Gallery of More Notable Books You Can Read for Free and in our List of 158 More Good Books You Can Read for Free. See further notes re borrowing at bottom of page. *As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

These books are different from those on our other lists (and on the site overall) in that most of them can’t be downloaded as an epub file — they can only be read online in the Internet Archive (or, sometimes, downloaded as a pdf). Usually, they’re available to borrow by the hour, rather than by the fortnight. At first, I thought that was ridiculous, but soon realized it works really well. As long as no one is on the waitlist (and usually no one is), you can borrow a book as many times in a row as you like. And you can choose from a huge number of books that are not available to borrow for download but that can be borrowed to read online by the hour.

Note 9-15-24: The Internet Archive recently lost a lawsuit brought against it by major publishers, and thus had to remove hundreds of thousands of books from its library. Some of these links thus may not work. We’ll update the page as soon as we can.

1. 1. The power of starting something stupid : how to crush fear, make dreams happen, and live without regret, by Richie Norton Borrow • Buy*
   2. Transformations of myth through time, by Joseph Campbell Borrow • Buy*
   3. The bottom of your heart : inferno for commissario Ricciardi, by Maurizio de Giovanni Borrow • Buy*
   4. The Talented Mr. Ripley; Ripley Under Ground; Ripley’s Game, by Patricia Highsmith Borrow • Buy*
   5. The history of the book in 100 books : the complete story, from Egypt to e-book, by Roderick Cave Borrow • Buy*
   6. 1001 cartoon-style illustrations, by J.I. Biegeleisen Borrow • Buy*
   7. The comedians : drunks, thieves, scoundrels, and the history of American comedy, by Kliph Nesteroff Borrow • Buy*
   8. And Here’s the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers—The New Unexpurgated Version!, by Mike Sacks Borrow • Buy*
   9. The time machine did it: By the author of 59 Episodes of The Simpsons, by John Swartzwelder Borrow • Buy*
   10. Spacious body: explorations in somatic ontology [Rolfing], by Jeffrey Maitland Borrow • Buy*
   11. Superfoods : 150 superfood recipes to inspire health & happiness, Borrow • Buy*
   12. Ingredient : unveiling the essential elements of food, by Ali Bouzari Borrow • Buy*
   13. 10,000 things you need to know : the big book of lists, Borrow • Buy*
   14. My family & other animals, by Gerald Durrell Borrow • Buy*
   15. Faithfull : an autobiography, by Marianne Faithfull Borrow • Buy*
   16. Charcoal drawing, by Henry Pitz Borrow • Buy*
   17. A liar’s autobiography , by Graham Chapman Borrow • Buy*
   18. The custard stops at Hatfield, by Kenny Everett Borrow • Buy*
   19. The Penguin dictionary of modern humorous quotations, by Fred Metcalf Borrow • Buy*
   20. Pith & vinegar; an anthology of short humorous poetry, by William Cole Borrow • Buy*
   21. The Cornbread Book, by Jeremy Jackson Borrow • Buy*
   22. Conversations with Susan Sontag, by Susan Sontag Borrow • Buy*
   23. The most stupendous atlas of the whole wide world, by Simon Adams Borrow • Buy*
   24. 101 word games : a wide variety of games for puzzlers who love a challenge, by Mayme Allen Borrow • Buy*
   25. Fred Flintstone’s adventures with screws : righty-tighty, lefty-loosey (Flintstones Explain Simple Machines), by Mark Weakland Borrow • Buy*
   26. The naked cartoonist, by Robert Mankoff Borrow • Buy*
   27. How the world works: an Oxfam guide, by David Thorpe Borrow
   28. How to survive anything : a visual guide to laughing in the face of adversity, Borrow • Buy*
   29. What I eat : around the world in 80 diets, by Peter Menzel Borrow • Buy*
   30. Man hua tu de zi sha = Cartoon Rabbit, by Youshou Borrow
   31. The Laws of Cat Physics, by G. Mendenhall Borrow • Buy*
   32. The wild life of dogs : a Rubes cartoon book, by Leigh Ruben Borrow • Buy*
   33. Forty years a gambler on the Mississippi, by George H. Devol Borrow • Buy*
   34. I hope they serve beer in Hell, by Tucker Max Borrow • Buy*
   35. Your true home : the everyday wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, by Thích Nhất Hạnh Borrow • Buy*
   36. How to relax, by Thích Nhất Hạnh Borrow • Buy*
   37. When cats talk back : cat cartoons with attitude, Borrow • Buy*
   38. Handmade prints : an introduction to creative printmaking without a press, by Anne Desmet Borrow • Buy*
   39. How I became a famous novelist, by Steve Hely Borrow • Buy*
   40. The Mamur Zapt and the spoils of Egypt , by Michael Pearce Borrow • Buy*
   41. A nice derangement of epitaphs, by Ellis Peters Borrow • Buy*
   42. Game art : art from 40 video games and interviews with their creators, by Matt Sainsbury Borrow • Buy*
   43. Withering heights , by Dorothy Cannell Borrow • Buy*
   44. Anathema! Medieval Scribes And The History Of Book Curses, by Marc Drogin Borrow • Buy*
   45. Miss Pettigrew lives for a day, by Winifred Watson Borrow • Buy*
   46. Nobody’s Perfect, by Donald Westlake Borrow • Buy*
   47. Make your own small launchers, by Rob Ives Borrow • Buy*
   48. When bunnies go bad, by Clea Simon Borrow • Buy*
   49. Giving up the ghost, by Max McCoy Borrow • Buy*
   50. How to talk to anyone : 92 little tricks for big success in relationships, by Leil Lowndes Borrow • Buy*
   51. Long time no see, by Susan Isaacs Borrow • Buy*
   52. What if? : serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions, by Randall Munroe Borrow • Buy*
   53. The secret universe of names : the dynamic interplay of names and destiny , by Roy Feinson Borrow • Buy*
   54. Road kill : a Dido Hoare mystery, by Marianne Macdonald Borrow • Buy*
   55. The barefoot architect : a handbook for green building, by Johan van Lengen Borrow Buy*
   56. Maigret and the yellow dog, by Georges Simenon Borrow • Buy*
   57. Understanding power : the indispensable Chomsky, by Noam Chomsky Borrow • Buy*
   58. Unnatural habits : a Phryne Fisher mystery, by Kerry Greenwood Borrow • Buy*
   59. Street food, by Rose Grant Borrow • Buy*
   60. Gus was a Mexican ghost, by Jane Thayer Borrow • Buy*
   61. The crooks who conned millions : true stories of fraudsters and charlatans, by Linda Stratmann Borrow • Buy*
   62. Encyclopedia of things that never were : creatures, places, and people, by Michael F. Page Borrow • Buy*
   63. Poirot investigates, by Agatha Christie Borrow • Buy*

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

There may be multiple copies of a book available in the Internet Archive, so if the link we provide takes you to a copy that is currently checked out, you may want to search the Internet Archive for additional copies.

If the book is only available to borrow by the hour, you can usually borrow it as many times as you need to. You may want to search the Internet Archive to see if any copies are available for 14-day borrow (we try to link to those if we can find them), which will allow you to download it.

For detailed info on how to borrow books from the Internet Archive, see their guide.