For tutors/teachers with learners advanced enough to read on their own (and for the tutors/teachers, too) Project Gutenberg Australia (http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html) has a large number of classics that can be read online or downloaded in ePub format. This will be the source of my summer reading list for a number of years.*
Project Gutenberg (not Australia) (https://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/) also has a large selection.
*As an FYI, I use a Kindle Reader because it lets me read offline, in sunlight, without the distraction of an Internet connection, and, most importantly, has integrated dictionaries that allow you to look up a definition by tabbing down to a word. Gutenberg Australia doesn’t have downloads in Kindle’s .mobi format, so I open the HTML version in Readability, download it from Readability in ePub format, convert it to .mobi with Calibre (free), and use Amazon’s Send to Kindle app to deliver it to my Kindle Reader. This sounds complicated, but it takes only about a minute, which is much less time than driving to the library, looking it up in the catalogue, finding it and checking it out (if it’s available) and returning or renewing it.
Comments
Super tidbits, Robert! I wonder if any of the books in Project Gutenberg Australia also have recorded/read aloud versions. Maybe others are familiar with the resource and can tell us more. The info on using Kindle Reader to look up terms is new to me. I'll have to look into that! Thanks! Leecy
Several years ago, when I was looking for my first eBook reader (which died from overuse a few days ago) I went with the Kindle Reader because it allowed me to purchase bilingual dictionaries that integrated with the text. It also came with free monolingual dictionaries in several languages. Other eBook readers didn’t offer this feature, and, as far as I know, still don’t.
As an added bonus, there are free cloud-based Kindle apps that run on PCs, tablets, and smart phones, as well as a browser-based version you can use on non-supported devices. As long as you’re connected to the Internet while reading, it keeps track of your progress, notes, bookmarks, and highlighting in the cloud, which allows you to pick up where you left off on another device. I find this very handy.
There is also the Send to Kindle app, which allows you to send documents from a PC to your devices.
When trying to read something in a language you are learning, there is a maximum number of words per page one is willing to look up before giving up from frustration. This is especially so if you have to keep picking up a dictionary, either print or electronic. The number of words per page I’m willing to look up increases dramatically when I have an integrated dictionary, and I am able to read more difficult and complex texts than I could with a non-integrated dictionary.
LibriVox (librivox.org) offers “free public domain audiobooks
Read by volunteers from around the world” that match some of the free eBooks on the two Gutenberg projects. Audible.com also has audiobooks, but they’re not free.