Resources for expanding your reading

DrCris Reads

The 20 Most Downloaded Ebooks of 2009

February 2, 2009 9:00 am DrCris Finding books, What to Read

I have started reading more downloadable ebooks. Now there are more available to purchase, but there are also many that can be downloaded free.

Some of my favourite download sites are Manybooks, Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks. To emphasize how many great books there are out there that are royalty free and easy to download, I have compiled a list of the 20 most downloaded ebooks this year.

How I compiled the list

Manybooks and Project Gutenberg publish their download totals for the last 30 days. Feedbooks compiles an ordered list of total downloads for the year. Unfortunately, they only provided numbers for total downloads over the life of the site. These three ebook download sites are the biggest sites for downloads of e-novels

In order to compensate for Feedbooks, I converted all the download numbers into a percentage of total for that site. These were compiled to give a top twenty.

I admit this is a bit fudgy, but stay with me on this one - the list is good.

The 20 Most downloaded Ebooks of 2009

1. The Art of War
2. The Kama Sutra
3. Pride and Prejudice
4. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
7. Dracula
8. The Count of Monte Cristo
9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
10. Ulysses
11. Grimm’s Fairytales
12. 20000 Leagues Under the Sea
13. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
14. War and Peace
15. A Tale of Two Cities
16. Frankenstein
17. The Prince
18. The Call of the Chtulu
19. Fanny Hill
20. Les Miserables

And I should make an honourable mention of I, Robot by Corey Doctorow, which landed in the top ten on absolute downloads, despite being only listed on one of the surveyed sites.

I have read six of the list. What about you?

Related posts:

1. How I increased my reading using eBooks on iPhone
2. Ebooks for fiction readers, a summary
3. Free PDF of Photoshop book
4. Audio books killed the radio star
5. Six ways support your reading habit without wasting money

7 Responses

1. Shayne Tilley Says:
   February 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am

   What! — no SP books

2. DrCris Says:
   February 2nd, 2009 at 10:00 am

   @Shayne Tilley: I decided to only look at novels, because otherwise SitePoint would take all 20 positions, surely.

3. Robin Says:
   February 2nd, 2009 at 10:00 am

   I’ve read all but two, and I may have read them a long time ago and not remember them. I’m not sure. I’ll have to read them and see. (I do that…now have started keeping a database of what I read.)

   I have not read (I think):

   The Call of the Chtulu
   Fanny Hill

   This is a great list and great resource. Thank you!!

4. DrCris Says:
   February 3rd, 2009 at 10:05 am

   @Robin: I am not great at keeping a list of what I read, but getting better. I have only read 6 of the 20. I keep finding ideas for new books to read, but much faster than I get to actually read them!

5. dragonfly Says:
   February 8th, 2009 at 11:16 am

   I like http://librivox.org/ for the audio equivalent (though it takes me so much longer than just reading).

6. DrCris Says:
   February 20th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

   @dragonfly: I read lots of audiobooks, and I love Librivox books.

7. RaiulBaztepo Says:
   April 1st, 2009 at 11:04 pm

   Hello!
   Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
   PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language
   See you!
   Your, Raiul Baztepo

Leave a Comment