How to Read Almost Any Book For Free
You already know how much I advocate for piracy. I don't want to get into discussing the ethics or reasoning for piracy again; instead, I want to talk about reading in the information age. E-readers have transformed the way many people, well, read. No longer do people have to physically acquire a book to obtain its knowledge. Digital copies can be purchased (although they really shouldn't be) and downloaded onto an electronic device to be immediately opened and read. I will not deny that being able to smell the paper and flip the pages can be integral to the experience of reading a book, but it can also not be denied that e-books provide a far more efficient way to distribute knowledge. For that reason, I want to teach you how to participate in this new way to read.
E-books, in my opinion, are abhorrently expensive. There's a simple solution: don't buy them. I mentioned a website in my previous post about piracy called Anna's Archive. This website is the largest collection of books on the internet. They come in a variety of file types, including .epub, .azw3, and .pdf. These e-books can easily be downloaded onto any device and transferred to an e-reader. How they are transferred is quite easy. But first, you need an e-reader.
My e-reader is a Kindle Oasis. I bought it used on eBay for $121.25. Normally, it would have cost around $200 for a new one at the time. There's lots of other cheaper options for older versions of the Kindle that cost in between $40-$80. I just wanted the page-turn buttons. I don't want to smear the screen of my e-reader with my skin oils. So, I encourage you to purchase the cheaper Kindles if you don't care about something like that.
I want to more heavily encourage you to not buy a Kindle at all, even if it is used. I had to spend an extra $20 to remove ads from my Kindle. I usually try to remove things like that myself, but it's an e-reader, not a mobile phone running Android. It's way more locked-down than a more computationally powerful device is. If you buy, say, a used Kobo, you will not have to deal with ads at all. There's plenty of other interesting e-reader brands that likely offer a much better experience for those who choose to partake in the liberated online archives.
Here's a list of some e-reader brands other than Kindle that I was able to find:
The most interesting one out of all of these brands, to me, is the BOOX Palma. It's shaped like a mobile phone, and actually features an 8-core CPU and 128 GB of storage. You probably won't be able to find it used, but if you're on the go a lot, it could be useful.
Now that you will have chosen an e-reader to purchase, you're going to need one extra thing. Most e-readers don't come with a browser to download books directly from the internet (you'll have to pay money for that sort of service). Instead, you'll need some type of USB cable to connect your e-reader to your computer, where you download the books from Anna's Archive. If you have a Kindle, it's likely that you'll need to make sure you download the correct file type for your e-reader. For example, my Kindle Oasis can only open .azw3 files. You can use an online converter, such as CloudConvert, to convert .epub files (or any other file type) to .azw3.
If you're using an older, used model of an e-reader, it's most likely that it uses a micro-USB port. This type of USB port is highly uncommon nowadays (because it sucks). You can easily find cables on Amazon that have a male USB-A or USB-C end and a male micro-USB end, which will enable you to directly connect your e-reader to your computer. Here are a few links to what I suggest to use if you find yourself in this situation:
Now you have all the tools you need to read any e-book! Plug your e-reader into your computer, head to Anna's Archive, and start downloading. It depends on your e-book's file structure, but it should be as simple as dragging and dropping the e-book files into a folder like ~/documents on the e-reader. Hopefully, this will help you engage more with the hobby of reading stories. It's one of the most nourishing habits for your brain!