Cheap/free books for Sony Reader

November 17, 2010 10:33 AM

I have a Sony Pocket Reader. My favorite thing about the internet is free stuff. My library checks out audio books to download and e-books for your computer but not devices. (fdr) if that means anything. I see free books for kindle on amazon. Will they work on my sony? The 100 year old books on Gutenberg work but I see getting old fast. I see NYC public library for $100/year. --tl;dr Help my find good stuff for my Pocket reader
posted by notned to Technology (8 answers total)

If the Sony can read PDFs like the Nook, there's tons of good material out there as torrents.
posted by mateuslee at 12:47 PM on November 17, 2010

I just noticed today that the free ebooks at borders.com include a lot of modern freebies (mostly sci-fi/fantasy, I think). I can't vouch for the quality, but they do have an epub format that will work with your reader.

You might want to check out academic libraries at state universities, too. It could be that, as a state tax payer, you'll be included in their lending community.
posted by yamel at 1:56 PM on November 17, 2010

Lists of sites that have loads of free books are common.

This list has loads of things you can get. This site has more free books. Here is another.

On Stack Overflow there was a question about all the free programming books available, just in case that is of interest.

To convert things for you device you will want to get the excellent, open source calibre software.

Also, as others have suggested there may books of questionable legality available on sharing sites.
posted by sien at 2:02 PM on November 17, 2010

Ebooks for your computer might still work (you are looking for epub format) although DRM can make this a frustrating exercise.

Baen books has an enormous amount of stuff available. Brandon Sanderson released one of his books as a free download.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 2:34 PM on November 17, 2010

Best answer: The Washington D.C. library does e-books. I live in Milwaukee and got a "temp" card number for the D.C. library that hasn't expired in over a year (YMMV). Also you must, must, must check out Mobileread, there are ton of resources there (the forums in particular).
posted by MikeMc at 5:12 PM on November 17, 2010

Best answer: Link for DC library application. I entered my real info and it still gave me a card number (I just logged into my account over a year after I got my temporary number/PIN).
posted by MikeMc at 5:40 PM on November 17, 2010

Best answer: Where do you live? It's worth checking out neighboring library systems. I've taken to dropping in library branches in every county/city that I pass through and getting a card if eligible... in many cases I've found the residency requirement is statewide. Now I have a bookmark folder of about 8 libraries that check out ePub files that I can put on my Sony Reader. The only frustration is not having a single source of data to find out which library might carry a book I'm looking for.
posted by everybody polka at 8:50 PM on November 17, 2010

Response by poster: I appreciated everyone's help very much. They were all great answers. MikeMc and everybody polka zeroed right in on what I was looking for so I marked their answers best. I hope to have a trip to San Jose and Sacramento soon to pick up those cards.
posted by notned at 12:21 PM on November 23, 2010