I have been adjusting my lifestyle this past year to spend less and enjoy what I have more. As a result, I no longer purchase books.
Since I love to read I have been traveling to our local library to check out books. The problem is the books I loan sometimes have stains on them. Who has been handling these books? Where have they been reading them? Why are they eating messy foods while turning pages? That looks like spaghetti!
If it isn’t food stains, it is folded book page corners or written notes in the margins or items stashed between book pages. As someone who is on the germaphobe spectrum, I do not want to find a grocery list residing in a book that I have loaned. I am not that adventurous.
Luckily, my public library has made gigantic advances in digital book lending. I first used OverDrive to ‘check’ books out from the library. Loved this service. The waiting lists were sometimes long but hey, free books on my own devices. No fuss. No mess.
Then my library started offering a service called Freading.
Did you just hear music? Freading (Lalalalalala) Free books when I want them, like right now. Each week I receive 6 digital tokens from my library to check out books. Unlike OverDrive, when I find a book in Freading, I can check it out immediately.
To get these free books all you need is a valid library card from a library that has contracted the Freading eBook Service. That’s it. You can sit in your home and download books to your computer or mobile device. A wonderful germ free reading experience.
Check out www.freading.com and give a big thank you to public libraries for contracting for this service!
Next on my to do list is to check out Freegal. This is a free music lending service through libraries. Seriously.
Prairie Wisdom 
Great information! Thanks for sharing it with us.
Love the ease of finding books these days and the price.
I must confess… there are food stains on many pages of my books. I tell myself it is because I become so engrossed in my book I sometimes miss my mouth.
That definitely can happen.
Thank you for the tip! I don’t use the local library much these days, although I do get books for my Kindle. Did you know that many books are available to download free of charge for Kindle? And with one Kindle account, you can have a Kindle device, and also have Kindle downloaded on your computer, phone, iPad, etc., The devices will all sync when you read, so if you are reading from your Kindle and then switch to reading from your iPhone, you will pick up in the book where you left off on the first device you were using. Just another way to enjoy books! And free ones too! ~ Sheila
Great advice. I haven’t used the Kindle lending library yet but I will definitely have to give it a try. Thanks!
I had already signed up for my library’s digital lending service, but I didn’t know about Freegal.
I just recently heard about Freegal. I love the power of person to person communication and innovative uses of technology.
Great idea, THANK YOU. I bought a kindle fire for my eldest daughter, she will enjoy this; I am sure.
Enjoy your day; it’s a snowy one here.
Jess
We are cold and sunny here. Bet the snow looks beautiful.
The Kindle Fire accepts 3rd party apps (like Freading and OverDrive) but have your daughter go to this site to learn how to enable the Kindle fire to download these apps. http://www.freading.com/questions/index
Stay warm!