I’m not going to lie … being told to stay home until further notice and not go to work does sound a bit like an introvert’s dream come true.

I’ve always said that I wanted to get paid to read books. For me, unfortunately, it’s not the case. I still have to go to work. But hey, for all those out there who do find themselves with a bit of extra reading time … this is for you.

With libraries closing and not all of them offering curbside service (mine opted not to, as well), it might be necessary to find other sources to sustain your reading habit.

By which I don’t mean your physical TBR, obviously. I mean, okay, sure, those books are there to be read … eventually. But if you read all those books, then you’re out of books to read entirely, and then what happens? Chaos! Madness! No, that’s your emergency stash, when all other sources fail.

So today, I’ve compiled a few online resources that you can turn to in order to find new books, all from the comfort and relative safety of your own house.

Overdrive

Price: Free

If you haven’t heard of it yet, libraries offer e-book and audiobook copies that can be borrowed through a service called Overdrive. Each library will be a part of a different Overdrive service, so you’ll have to look and see what your local library’s Overdrive is, but this is an easy, accessible way to continue to borrow books from the library while staying home. Best of all, it’s free with your library card.

Don’t have a library card? No worries. With libraries being closed, it might be difficult to get a new card, but Overdrive has a function where you can enter your mobile number to prove you live in the region, and they’ll issue you a digital library card. I have not tested this feature, so I have no idea how it works, and it may not be available everywhere, but it’s certainly something to look into as an option.

Books borrowed from Overdrive can be read either in the Kindle app, on a computer, or in Libby. Libby is an app developed specifically for use with Overdrive, and it works both as an e-book reader and an audiobook player, and also an easy reader for graphic novels, too. So there are options as far as how you want to read the book.

If your library has a tiny selection (like mine does), and you want a bigger selection, there’s also an option to purchase out-of-state library cards through bigger libraries, such as Brooklyn Public Library (which is where I got mine), though other libraries also have this service. With libraries shutting down, there may be a delay in availability of cards. You’ll just have to sort of do a little research about whether library staff is still on site working or if they’ve closed entirely. Out-of-state library cards generally come with some sort of yearly fee, like for Brooklyn, it’s $50 per year, so it’s definitely a bigger investment to get access to Overdrive. However, I’ve found that the wait times are so much more manageable versus my local library, and their selection is so much more vast.

Kindle Unlimited

Price: $9.99/month (deals may be available)

Amazon offers Kindle Unlimited, which has a rather large selection of books. There are some really good books available, and you can peruse the entire KU collection easily on Amazon’s website.

You can read KU books in three different ways. One, on a Kindle if you have one. Two, on your smartphone with the Kindle app. Three, directly on your computer. Basically, if you have access to a computer, you can read any Kindle books.

With this, you might have to gauge the selection versus what you want to read, because the selection may be a bit limited in what you’re interested in. Quality is also obviously going to vary, since anyone can publish a book and put it on Kindle Unlimited. There are some fabulous books available through here, though. Not sure where to start? There are some wonderful Goodreads lists that have grouped KU books by genre, specific features, etc. They’re certainly not exhaustive, and likely not completely up to date, but they’ll give you some good ideas for what to read.

Scrib’d

Price: $8.99/month

If you’re not big on supporting Amazon, in general, there’s always the option of one of their big competitors: Scrib’d. It works much the same. Have access to a large curation of e-books for a monthly fee … with the handy addition of having access to audiobooks, as well. The Scrib’d app is free to download, and there’s a free 30-day trial if you’re interested in a test run before deciding on purchasing anything.

Audible

Price: $14.95/month

Audible is on the pricier side, but also comes with the perks of actually “owning” (as much as you can, I suppose) the audiobooks, rather than just renting them. There is a 30-day free trial before the monthly fee, and what you get is the choice of one audiobook and the Audible Originals each month.

Podcasts

Price: Free

Since we’re already talking about audio options, this seems like a good place to bring up podcasts! Podcasts tend to be more about discussions and reviews, but there are definitely some that involve works being read. This might involve just some looking around for what’s out there, but for children, who are home during this time, Storynory is a cute option, which features a children’s story read every week.

For adults, there are a lot of horror story podcasts, especially around Creepypasta, like The NoSleep Podcast, or scary stories in general, like Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. Not quite bookish, per se, but if you’re into true crime, you might get your fix through true crime podcasts such as Casefile. For fairy tales (with a darker bent, like they’re intended), one might try Tales.

This is also not technically a podcast (okay, not at all a podcast) and also not technically bookish (what, wow, are you the technicality police today or something?!), but if you’re into more more of the D&D, RPG style books and want an audio option online … check out Critical Role. It’s a streamed D&D campaign with professional voice actors, so it’s lively and entertaining and, honestly, just as good as listening to a book.

And here, I’m going to take the time to plug for the first time, but certainly not the last, LeVar Burton Reads. Because let’s be honest … we can all use some more LeVar Burton in our lives.

Kindle e-books

Price: Free, $0.99 and up

Don’t want to pay for Kindle Unlimited or don’t like the selection available? You can always outright purchase e-books off of Amazon. If you look through Amazon deals or browse the Kindle e-book offerings, there’s almost always a sale on interesting e-books, where you can get them for $0.99, $1.99, or $2.99, which is a pretty significant discount.

One great benefit of Amazon is that there’s also a large selection of e-books that are free to read. It’ll take a little more searching in the market, but there are some great books out there offered for free. Usually, they’re the first in series as a way to entice people to read the series, but not always, and they’re a safe way to potentially find some new authors you might love.

Shonen Jump

Price: $1.99/month

You manga readers out there, I see you. I haven’t forgotten. There’s obviously the more questionable practice of reading scanlation sites, which has always been an option that I’m sure you’re all aware of (like MangaLife), albeit one of dubious legal status. But for those who want a more legal and financially supportive way to read manga, Shonen Jump has an app that gives you access to their vault for just $1.99 a month. There is, however, a seven-day free trial to test it out first.

If you’re hopelessly behind on reading older manga, like I am, this is a great opportunity to catch up, and it’s comparatively one of the less expensive things you can do. The only hitch is that you can only read 100 chapters per day with the app, which might be a bit of a hindrance if you tend to consume large quantities at once.

There are also apps like Manga Plus, which offer the newest released chapters for free (and are not scanlation, but an official source).

Project Gutenberg

Price: Free

Wanting to catch up on some classics, while the world is chaos outside? Pretty sure some of these books actually warned us of this. Now’s a good chance to find out what they said. Project Gutenberg is a free resource that has gathered over 60,000 books now in the public domain that can be read free of charge. This includes a lot of classics, as you might expect. You can read them on your computer or on a smartphone or e-reader. If older books are your thing, they have a massive, easily searchable selection.

Short Stories Online

Price: Free

This one might require a bit more research on your part, but there is a plethora of short stories, including award-winning ones, online available to be read absolutely free. Book Riot’s post about where to find free short stories online is a great place to start.

There are some really obvious places that are going to be a little more nice, like if you’re looking for fantasy and sci-fi, try Tor.com’s selection. Used to audiobooks and need an audio option? Do you happen to remember The Reading Rainbow? If the answer to the second is no, that’s fine, because you’ll soon find out what you’re missing. LeVar Burton hosts LeVar Burton Reads, where LeVar Burton does … well, just that. And he has a freaking lovely voice, in case you were wondering.

Author-Posted Stories

Price: Free

Similar to reading short stories online, there are websites dedicated to authors posting their own work online to be read. What you’re going to find here is a mixed bag, really, but there are some wonderful stories here, some that start on these sites and go on to be traditionally published, too.

A couple really common sites for this are Wattpad and Inkitt, though I’m sure there are probably others out there if you look. Those just happen to be the two I know that I tend to visit.

Fanfiction

Price: Free

Haven’t dabbled in reading fanfiction yet, but have been curious about it? What better time to check it out. Regular reader of fanfiction? Well, just … continue on course. What better way to revisit some of your favorite works than to read some stories that attempt to answer some “what-if” questions about it? The quality is obviously going to be mixed, but there are some wonderful stories available on sites like Fanfiction.net or Archive of Our Own for free.

Poetry

Price: Free

There are a lot of places you can read poetry for free online, so it might be wise to just do a Google search if you’re interested. One of my favorite places to go for poetry, though, is Poetry Foundation, which even includes poetry from some famous but more obscure authors and an easily searchable site, if you just want to stumble across something new. Another good source is poets.org, especially if you’re just looking to discover something different.

If you’re more the audio sort of person, I might recommend something like Button Poetry on YouTube, which are short clips of authors reading their poetry. I’ve discovered some awesome poems through there!

Twitter

Price: Free

I kid you not, all that browsing you’re already doing on Twitter can totally count as reading during this time … but not quite in the way you think. There are actual poems and microstories on Twitter, and some of them are really interesting and fun to check out! Who would’ve thought you could say so much in just 280 characters?

There are quite a few poets who share their poetry on Twitter, which I absolutely love! One of my favorites is Brian Bilston, who tends to have quirky, funny, yet still thoughtful work (and especially word plays, which I love so much). However, there are plenty of others, if you’re inclined to look for them, and there’s even a hashtag, #micropoetry, for it.

There are also hashtags for short story prompts/writers that people participate in, and some of these stories are just … phew. One hashtag that I like to keep an eye on, in particular, is #vss365, and one of my favorite authors of is @MicroFlashFic.

Scary Stories

Price: Free

This is so niche, but that’s because I absolutely love these and, therefore, you should, too. Because if the world is going to resemble a dystopian wasteland, you might as well read something that gets your blood pumping and makes the shadows move in your periphery, right?

There are sooo many places to go on Reddit for scary stories, and that’s always one of my first stops when I’m in the mood. Particularly good are nosleep, Creepypasta, and Let’s Not Meet. There are for sure other subreddits, but those are my favorites.

For the more audio inclined among us, YouTube has a plethora of users reading scary stories. Seriously, just search it. You can even find whichever niche you prefer, whether it’s true scary stories, true crime, paranormal, legends and folklore, spooky mysteries, etc. Some of my favorite scary story readers, though, are B. Busta, Let’s Read, Corpse Husband, and Darkness Prevails.

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