Books
Search millions of books, browse shelves and find classics you can read free.
Data from Open Library.
What leaves your device
What you type into the book search, and the id of a book you open, go to the SmartTools server — in the body of the request, never its address — which asks Open Library and keeps the answer a day under a scrambled key, with nothing about who asked. Covers load straight from Open Library’s cover store, which sees your IP address as any image host does.
About this page
What it shows
Browse shelves of well-loved books — fantasy, science fiction, mystery, romance, children’s books, books set in India, history, biography and poetry — or search by title, author or subject. Open a book to see its cover, who wrote it, when it first appeared and what it is about, then go to Open Library to read, borrow or find an edition. Books marked “Free to read” can be read by anyone at no cost.
Where the books come from
Open Library, a project of the Internet Archive, a non-profit library. Its catalogue — millions of books, with titles, authors, subjects and descriptions written and corrected by volunteers — is released into the public domain, which is what lets a site like this show it. Covers come from Open Library’s own cover store; each belongs to the book’s publisher.
The SmartTools server builds the shelves once a day from Open Library’s subject lists, and asks Open Library for a search or a book only when someone wants one, keeping the answer so the same question is not asked twice. That keeps the page to a handful of requests and keeps us well inside the limits Open Library asks of other sites.
What “Free to read” means
It is Open Library’s own label for a book anyone can read online without borrowing — mostly older books whose copyright has ended, scanned by libraries. Many other books can be borrowed for free with an Open Library account; those are not marked here, because borrowing depends on your account and on how many copies are out.
SmartTools does not host or copy any book. “Read it free on Open Library” opens the book on Open Library’s site.
Why a description may be missing or odd
Descriptions are written by Open Library’s volunteers, and not every book has one. They arrive as plain text: links and formatting are removed, so nothing from another site can run on this page. If a description is wrong, it can be corrected on Open Library itself, and the change reaches this page within a month.
Questions
Can I read whole books here?
No — this page helps you find them. Books marked “Free to read” open on Open Library, where you can read them in your browser.
Why is a well-known book not on a shelf?
Shelves show the books Open Library lists first for each subject, which tend to be the ones with the most editions. Search finds everything else.
Is my search private?
Your search goes to our server, not to Open Library, and is kept for a day under a scrambled key, with nothing about who asked. The covers themselves load from Open Library’s image servers.
Are there books in Hindi and other Indian languages?
Yes, Open Library has many — search by title or author in any script. The “Set in India” shelf lists books about India in any language.