PCWorld – August 2019

130 PCWorld AUGUST 2019

HERE’S HOW HOW TO GET FREE BOOKS ON KINDLE

DIGILIBRARIES

DigiLibraries (go.

pcworld.com/dlc) is an

online book catalog that

boasts around 30,000

ebooks in Kindle formats,

all of them free. Books are

sorted into dozens of

categories and sub-cate-

gories, and the selection

is predictably heavy on

public domain titles.

(You’ll find Pride and

Prejudice under Juvenile

Fiction, not Diary of a

Wimpy Kid.)

The site won’t win any design awards, but

everything is laid out clearly. You can select

from a list of genres in a left sidebar—most of

which open to sub-genre choices. Curated

selections of popular and new ebooks are

prominently displayed in the center of the

homepage with cover photos.

Each book record includes a text excerpt

and three download formats: ePub, PDF, and

Mobi. The site limits you to 50 downloads per

day, which should be plenty, I dare say.

BOOK LENDING

If you don’t have a library card or your library

doesn’t subscribe to Overdrive, Book Lending

(go.pcworld.com/ble) is a great alternative.

The site leverages Amazon’s Kindle lending

feature to match lenders with borrowers.

Using the site couldn’t be simpler. If you’re

looking for a book, press the big orange button

on the homepage and either search for a title or

browse available loans. If you want to loan a

book, press the giant green button and look up

a specific title or browse recent requests. In

either case, if the book is available for borrowing

or lending it will display a small orange or green

button, respectively, in its record. Just press the

appropriate one to complete the transaction.

Borrowers receive an email notification from

Amazon that allows them to download the

eBook to their Kindle, and they have seven days

to do it. Amazon’s lending rules apply here just

as if you were borrowing directly from the store.

Titles can be borrowed for 14 days, during

which they are unavailable to the lender, and are

automatically returned at the end of that period.

Also, a title can be loaned only once.

Book Lending matches Kindle ebook loaners with borrowers.