Read Books Online -- for Free

You may have heard that Google Books has been scanning book titles for online viewing (in accordance with copyright laws). I last looked at the titles quite some time ago, and they seemed to be confined to classics.

I saw a post on Lifehacker about embedding Google Books as I went through my reader today. The article pointed to a post by Google detailing how to do it. You are probably less interested in embedding books than you are in reading them. But, that is where the good new lies.

I checked out the current books on Google and was pleasantly surprised to see that books my some of my favorite authors are now available! Here are a few of the authors (this is in no way a comprehensive list of who I read, nor does the list order have anything to do with a personal ranking):

• David Baldacci
• Stuart Woods
• Michael Connelley
• JD Robb
• Nora Roberts
• Debbie Macomber
• Fern Michaels
• Janet Evanovich
• Charlotte Hughes
• Catherine Anderson
• Tess Gerritsen
• Philip R. Craig
• Jeffery Deaver
• Iris Johansen
• Susan Wiggs
• Lisa Kleypas
• Jodi Picoult
• Chris Bohjalian
• John Sandford
• Lisa Gardner
• Anita Shreve

Most of the books are found are "limited preview." which I believe means you can read them online, but not print them. (see red notation at bottom for update) See the example below, of Beverly Hills Dead, by Stuart Woods.

I don't think this would be my favorite way to read a book, but it is readily available and does not require a trip to the library.

Have a happy day!

Update: I played with this a bit more and found that "limited preview" means that not all the pages of the book are scanned. For example, in the book Last Man Standing (David Baldacci) -- 656 pages -- page 632 and 633 are missing. Pages seem to be omitted randomly throughout the book. Maybe Google Books isn't really such a hot thing...