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I’ve read several reports in the news lately of a decrease in book sales in the US and European markets. Whether this is due to a dwindling interest in reading as a past time or simply because many people are turning to e-books and other digital means for their dose of literature remains to be seen. Personally, I’m still devoted to the old paperbacks but from time to time I like to sample some of the free publications available on the Net.

As many of us are approaching our summer holidays we’ll have more time on our hands to open a book or search online for something to read. I’ve scoured the 4 corners of the Internet to save you the trouble of searching. Below is a personal selection of over 30 great short stories, novellas and novels, both classic and contemporary, that are available for free download. So whether you have 15 minutes or 15 days to do a bit of reading this summer, at least you can’t say you couldn’t afford it! Let me know if you read anything from the list and let me know of any other ebooks I have overlooked. Help spread the word and digg this article. Thanks and enjoy!.

Short stories (source= The New Yorker Achives.)

• Still-Life by Don DeLillo: “Short story about a man who survives the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and moves back in with his estranged wife…”

• Suckers by V. S. Naipaul: “Short story about an English art dealer who takes a lower-class lover near his father’s house… I used to go down from London at weekends to see my ill father. One of my big worries was finding someone to look after his house. In old books, you notice that…”

• Mother’s Son by Tessa Hadley: “Short story about a mother finding out that her son is having the sort of affair that she once had with his father… Alan Armstrong was going to get married again. Christine didn’t think she cared. She was making notes for a lecture on women novelists and modernism. Just as…”

• The Rabbit Hole As Likely Explanation by Ann Beatie: “Short story about a woman who is taking care of her demented mother, only she’s not stable herself, nor is her brother… The woman’s mother claims she wasn’t invited to her first wedding, and that the woman is the product of a former family that her father had. The woman…”

• A Beneficiary by Nadine Gordimer: “Short story about a young woman who discovers a secret about her parents while sorting through her late mother’s possessions. Her mother had been cremated. There was no marble stone incised, “Laila de Morne, born, died, actress.” Her daughter, Charlotte, had her father’s surname and was as close to him…”

• Hanwell Senior by Zadie Smith: “Short story about a character named Hanwell, his father Hanwell Snr, and the father’s rare appearances in the son’s life. Hanwell Snr’s “feckless and slapdash” ways made him “worse … than a cruel man.” He came to Hanwell like a comet, at long intervals. When Hanwell was six, in the late…”

• The Stolen Pigeons by Marguerite Duras: “Short story about an old French woman’s relationship with her daughter-in-law. From Bugues, you could see the old Bousque woman’s head rising in the distance, above the hedge of trees that separated our land from that of her children. Her body was bent at the waist, thanks to…”

• Teaching by Roddy Doyle: “Short story about an alcoholic high-school teacher and his childhood experience as a victim of sexual abuse…”

• A Tranquil Star by Primo Levi: “Short story in two parts, the first part about the lifespan of a star, the second part about an astronomer and his family…Once upon a time, there lived a peaceful star. The star was very big and very hot, but use of these adjectives brings difficulties, for an elephant…”

• On Chesil Beach by Ian Mcewan: “Short story about a young couple’s wedding night in a Georgian inn in Dorset, England… They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. They were sitting down to supper in a…”

Classic Novels (Source=The Classic Bookshelf)

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: The fable of the scientist who creates a man-monster. The dire and terrifying consequences of giving it life are beyond his imagination, as the creature inflicts murder on the human race.

• Heat of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: In this tale of colonial exploitation, the narrator, Marlowe, journeys deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men.

• Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy: This is the second part of Tolstoy’s semiautobiographical trilogy which established his reputation in Russia as a major writer.

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Vain Dorian Gray has “sold himself to the devil for a pretty face.” While Dorian remains young, his portrait ages and reflects his hedonistic lifestyle, as he pursues a “madness of pleasure” with little regard for anyone else. Oscar Wilde’s controversial The Picture of Dorian Gray has become a classic commentary on narcissism, decadence, and the wages of sin — told in a thoroughly enjoyable novel full of suspense and surprise.

• Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: The theme of this novel is the contrast of a patient and generous love with unscrupulous passion. Bathsheba is courted by the brilliant Troy, the obsessive Boldwood and the faithful Gabriel Oak. The third is successful in his suit, but only after violence and murder have eliminated the other two.

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo. The novel presents a powerful conflict between good and evil, embodied in an epic saga that is complicated by the hero’s discomfort with the implications of his own actions.

• Notes From The Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky: The apology and confession of a minor mid-19th century Russian official, “Notes From Underground”, is a half-desperate, half-mocking political critique and a powerful, at times absurdly comical, account of man’s breakaway from society and descent ‘underground’.

• Dracula by Bram Stoker: Arriving at Castle Dracula, the vast ruined home of a Transylvanian nobleman, a young English visitor finds himself thrust into a realm of sensation and horror beyond his most nightmarish dreams. His experiences give rise to an urgent campaign to destroy the vampire count, to eliminate Dracula’s cult of the living dead, and to triumph over a centuries-old evil. Bram Stoker’s masterpiece is a thriller of such hypnotic intensity that it has captured millions of readers around the world and inspired its own literature and mythology of the supernatural.

• Walden: Or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau: “‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation’ In 1845 Henry David Thoreau left his home town of Concord, Massachusetts to begin a new life alone, in a rough hut he built himself a mile and a half away on the north-west shore of Walden Pond. Walden is Thoreau’s classic autobiographical account of this experiment in solitary living, his refusal to play by the rules of hard work and the accumulation of wealth and above all the freedom it gave him to adapt his living to the natural world around him.

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo: The story of Quasimodo, the hunchback bellringer of Notre-Dame cathedral and his devotion to the beautiful gypsy dancer Esmeralda. When the demented archdeacon Frollo sets out to abduct Esmeralda, he uses Quasimodo to do the evil deed on his behalf. However, Quasimodo turns from captor to saviour.

20th Century Novels (Source=miscellaneous)

• Metamorphosis (1915) by Franz Kafka: Gregor Samsa awakes one morning in his family’s apartment to find himself transformed overnight into a gigantic insect.

• The Home and the World (1915) by Rabindranath Tagore: Set on a Bengali noble’s estate in 1908, this is both a love story and a novel of political awakening. The central character, Bimala, is torn between the duties owed to her husband, Nikhil, and the demands made on her by the radical leader, Sandip. Her attempts to resolve the irreconciliable pressures of the home and world reflect the conflict in India itself, and the tragic outcome foreshadows the unrest that accompanied Partition in 1947.

• Hunger (1920) by Knut Hamsun: Set in Oslo, this is a compelling trip into the mind of a young writer, driven by starvation to extremes of euphoria and despair. Whilst never quite falling into the abyss of suicide, Hamsun’s narrator is forever on the verge of losing it.

• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922): Siddhartha is a Brahmin on a quest for self-discovery through suffering trials of temptation of luxury, wealth and sensuality, and adventures. The novella draws on elements of Hesse’s own life.

• The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy(1926): The book begins: “The young man who, at the end of September, 1924, dismounted from a taxicab in South Square, Westminister, was so unobtrusively American that his driver had some hesitation in asking for double his fare. The young man had no hesitation in refusing it.”

• Time Regained by Marcel Proust (1931 trans): In this, the final volume of Remembrance of Things Past, as the various threads which have emerged through the vast novel are brought together, and sometimes resolved, Marcel considers the nature of time and its effect on himself and the people has has known.

• Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald (1934): The story of Dick and Nicole Divers, rich Americans holding court in their villa on the French Riviera during the 1920s. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is instantly attracted to them, but understands little of the dark secrets and hidden corruption that bind them.

• A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev (1934): Although loved and admired by both her husband, Islaev, and her friend of long standing, Rakitin, Natalya Petrovna falls in love with the young tutor, Belyaev, who has been engaged to teach her son. Bewildered by her own emotions, she is nevertheless quick enough to take advantage of the offer of a husband for her ward Verochka, who she realizes is a rival for Belyaev’s affections. Unwittingly a catalyst, Belyaev does not understand until it is already too late how disturbing a presence he has been in the stuffy, isolated world of the Islaev country house.

• The Shape of Things to Come by H. G. Wells (1935): When Dr Philip Raven, an intellectual working for the League of Nations, dies in 1930 he leaves behind a powerful legacy an unpublished dream book’. Inspired by visions he has experienced for many years, it appears to be a book written far into the future: a history of humanity from the date of his death up to 2105.

• Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce (1939): Forget trying to sum this novel up!

• Animal Farm by George Orwell (1946): Having got rid of their human master, the animals in this political fable look forward to a life of freedom and plenty. But as a clever, ruthless elite takes control, the other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared in the same old way.

Visitor Recommendations (ongoing list, please contribute)

• The Whore of Mensa by Woody Allen (suggestion by Nostrich)

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 8:32 am and is filed under Books. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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