Reading newspapers, websites and magazines all the time can get tedious or boring, especially if you prefer to read fiction or aren’t interested in current events. That’s where eBooks come in. One of the amazing advances of technology in this digital age is the fact that you can now walk around with a huge library on your mobile device.
For German learners, that means an unlimited opportunity to practice your German skills with German eBooks. It doesn’t matter what format you’re looking for — epub, Kindle, PDF, HTML or something else — there are books available online that you can read. Admittedly, many of the texts are classics that are no longer under copyright. But there are also some sites that have more modern books: self help, technology and other educational texts. If you’re looking for something a little different, check out Onleihe, which I recently featured. There’s something for everyone, you just may have to search.
- Project Gutenberg – This should probably be your first stop for classic German eBooks. Project Gutenberg is the original digitalized library. Many of the other websites just rehost their eBook files, which depending on the format you’re looking for, may be helpful.
- Der Spiegel’s Projekt Gutenberg-DE – German weekly Der Spiegel hosts some of the Projekt Gutenberg eBooks.
- ManyBooks.net – This site has a large selection of public domain books in German in a number of formats.
- MobileRead – an online community of people sharing eBooks in a number of languages, including German.
- Amazon.de Kindle
– If you’ve got the Kindle app on your mobile device or you’ve got a Kindle, check out Amazon.de’s selection of free German eBooks. They’ve also got German eBooks you can buy, if you’re looking for something in particular. And don’t forget, there’s no shipping cost on eBooks. - DigBib.org – Straight-forward with out any fanciness, DigBib.org offers HTML versions of public access German texts.
- Zulu Ebooks – another online community of people sharing eBooks.
– If you’ve got the Kindle app on your mobile device or you’ve got a Kindle, check out Amazon.de’s selection of free German eBooks. They’ve also got German eBooks you can buy, if you’re looking for something in particular. And don’t forget, there’s no shipping cost on eBooks.
