It’s been around since 2000, but perhaps you’re like me and have never heard of it before. If that is the case, then allow me to fill you in on what we’ve missed.

BooksFree.com is set up in a manner that is familiar to past and present Netflix customers. The first step in getting started with them is to set up an account, select a plan, and add books to your list. There are a handful of plans you can choose from, whether you would like to have two books rented out to you at a time, four, six, and so on. You can keep the books as long as you like, there is no late charge, then you just simply return them in the postage paid mailer that is provided to you. When Booksfree receives them they will automatically ship out the next available titles on your list. You can read at your leisure and sample a wide variety of books with no commitment to buy.

But what if you come across a book that you absolutely must have? According to their FAQ’s page all you have to do is go to your account page and click on the “Keep a Book” link which is located under the account maintenance section. Just select the titles you’d like to keep and follow their prompts.

Now, my local library is a pain in the butt to browse. Half of the stuff that, according to their system, is there really isn’t. Things are never where they should be and they love to charge fees for the weirdest things. Say, someone making a fraudulent account with your old expired library card, checking out things and never returning them. For some odd reason that is completely your fault even though you reported the card stolen and it’s been voided for X amount of years. Yes, my library and I have some unresolved issues. Bookswapping is another good way to find books, but if the people who have the book are unwilling to part with it and others keep beating you to the available copies it can be a downright pain.

So if you’re a heavy reader this is definately a good way for you to sample books and keep the titles you actually want. I would strongly encourage any serious bookworms to browse over this sight and give it some serious consideration. If you do the math it’s easy to see that you’ll save quite a bit of money this way and have access to a broader range of books from a variety of genres than any brick and mortar library can offer.