Websites for Bibliophiles

bib·lio·phile

noun \ˈbi-blē-ə-ˌfī(-ə)l\

: a lover of books especially for qualities of format; also : a book collector 
(via: merriam-webster.com)

I love books. I love reading. I love talking about books I'm reading and have read. I love buying books (a little too much).

If you love books, you should check out these websites made for bibliophiles like you and me.


Communities for book lovers:

Goodreads.com

The best way I can describe GoodReads is by calling it a Facebook for readers. You fill your virtual shelves with books you have read, are reading, or want to read. You can update what page you are on with the book you're currently reading while writing page-by-page reviews, read other people's reviews, follow and connect with your favorite authors, and add friends and follow their reviews. It's pretty addictive, trust me. You can also enter to win a number of their giveaways where authors on GoodReads regularly give away prereleased books. Check it out! Here's my account!
 

BookCrossing.com

Have you ever heard of geocaching? Well, Book Crossing is a lot like that. You register a book online by giving it it's own special code, "release" it into the wild for someone to find, and once it's found they will go in Book Crossing, enter the code, and say that they've found it. It's a lot like Where's George? On the side bars you'll be kept up-to-date on recently released and recently caught books. You can even search for books released in a specific city.

Book Crossing also has it's own forum where readers can go and talk about reading, writing, releasing, where you can find first edition Hemmingways, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

I have an account here too! My favorite places to release books are in coffee shops and in different locations around my university.

PaperBackSwap.com

It's not just for paperbacks! Register with Paper Back Swap and you automatically have access to every other user's library. If there's a book you want, you can search for it. If someone else has it, you can request it and they will ship it to you for free! There is one catch, though. For every book you request you use a "credit". List ten of your own books after signing up to get two free credits. Every time someone requests a book on your self and you ship it to them, you get another credit. You can also buy credits. Credits and shipping may cost some money, but you can actually get quite a few books for much less than the deals you would get in bookstore.

Paper Back Swap also allows you to build shelves of books you are currently reading, your favorite books, and books on your wishlist. If you are signed up for email notifications, Paper Book Swap will alert you if a book on your wishlist becomes available. It's pretty handy. Click to see my account!

Looking to buy books? Here are some of my favorite places to buy good books on the cheap online:

AbeBooks.com

You can search for books new or used and it lists a multitude of sellers side-by-side so you will always get the best price. With AbeBooks you can quite literally buy books with the change in your pocket. It's great for buying textbooks as well. You can also sell back your books or become a professional seller through Abe Books. It even has it's own forums!

BookDepository.com

Taken from their website, "The Book Depository is the UK's largest dedicated online bookseller, offering the largest range of titles in the world, available for dispatch within 48 hours. Founded in 2004 to make 'All Books To All' we focus on selling 'less of more' rather than 'more of less', differentiating ourselves from other retailers who increasingly focus on bestsellers."

Did I mention they offer free shipping to over 100 different countries?

BetterWorldBooks.com

This is definitely my favorite site for buying books. For every book bought on Better World Books a book is donated to someone in need. Profits from your book purchases will also go toward their literacy programs and non-profit partners, including as Books for Africa and Room to Read.

There are frequent sales throughout the year, so you can always buy books here on the cheap, or you can shop through there bargain bin and find books in good condition for only a few dollars.

Shipping is always free, but there is an optional charge to offset your carbon emissions. It's usually always under a dollar, no matter how large your order is.

Better World Books is also great for buying and selling textbooks. You can sell other books back to Better World books also, and if they aren't buying the books you're looking to get rid of, you can donate them and they'll pay for the shipping!

Where you can read and download free ebooks and audiobooks:

Gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg offers over 36,000 free ebooks to download to your PC, Kindle, Android, iOS or other portable device. Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.
We carry high quality ebooks: All our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers. We digitized and diligently proofed them with the help of thousands of volunteers.
No fee or registration is required.

Audible.com

You may have seen it's commercials or online ads. Audible is a website offering audiobooks for your downloading pleasure. You can download an audiobookto listen to on your computer, mp3 player, or burn to a CD.

Audible is not a free service, though. It's a subscription-based website where you much pay a minimum of $14.95 a month for one credit. You can download one audiobook per credit.

I ended up scoring two free books from Audible, though. Through a special offer, I received two free credits when I signed up. They asked for my payment information before I could download anything. I downloaded The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. As soon as they were done downloading, I canceled my membership and got to keep my free audiobooks.

books.google.com

Google has a whole online library of ebooks that you can access for free, from textbooks to bestsellers. With a Google account you can save books my adding them to your library.

Google also has an ebookstore. Check out their best of the free section for free ebooks you can read online or download to your computer.

Other book sites to keep in mind:

WhatShouldIReadNext.com

Type the title of your favorite books, the book you last read, or your favorite author and What Should I Read Next? will give you a list of recommendations.

PosterText.com

Posters containing chapters of your favorite literary classics! Gaps in the words of the poster create well-known scenes from each book. Posters may contain one or two chapters to as much as the entire text!

Have fun exploring the world wide library! Is there a good book site you've come across? Share it below in the comments!