Every book lover would perk up hearing the words “Free Books.” Who would not love to read their favorite books for free?! Reading books is a wonderful habit, but they also tend to be expensive, especially if you want to tackle the hundreds of books on the to-be-read list. Therefore places like libraries, second-hand book stores, as well as audiobook apps and ebook apps, are a great source of help for book lovers.
Best Free Kindle Unlimited Books!
The Kindle Unlimited app is one such app that helps book lovers to read their favorite books for free or at a lower price. The Kindle Unlimited membership allows its members to read books with the tag Kindle Unlimited for free. There are a lot of books to choose from under this tag; here is a list of some of the best books available for free on Kindle Unlimited to help you select your next read! You can also check our detailed Kindle Unlimited review and learn all the available features. Or get the Kindle Unlimited Free Trial 📚 right away and enjoy unlimited premium ebooks to read.
1. A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa (Translated by Martin Brown and Riya Kobayashi)
Born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a father of South Korean descent, the story of how the author ends up in North Korea is tragic and baffling. The author grew up in Japan during the Second World War and was old enough to remember the turbulent history of Post War Japan. That period was filled with poverty, economic instability, hunger, and suffering for the Japanese and others alike, but the people of Korean descent were the worst affected.
Subjected to racism and considered the lowest of the low, the prejudice they faced made them believe propaganda stating that North Korea was the only place that would accept them with open arms and give them an unimaginably good life. They called it “Paradise on Earth,” and its great leader Kim Il Sung was said to be a very benevolent man. Believing this propaganda to be the truth, the author’s father immigrates with his reluctant family to North Korea, unknowing the hell that awaits them, in what the author calls the largest immigration from a Capitalist country to a Communist country.
What follows is more than three decades of torturous living and suffering. The author manages to escape from North Korea, but it still does not make this story a happy ending. Read this memoir, if only to understand how the world’s leaders got together to create havoc in the lives of common people with their decisions and the harm caused by believing in propaganda blindly. This is a cautionary tale, one that history never taught us. You can get the book here! 📖
2. Blue: A Novel by Emmelie Prophète (Translated by Tina Kover)
This novel reads like poetry in prose, which is unsurprising because the author is an award-winning poet. The story begins with the author sitting in an airport, finding it comforting. She muses about her home country, Haiti, and the country she is visiting, America. She thinks back on her family members who left for America to get a better life, but she thinks back on how their life was no better than the one they had in their own country; they both have their downsides.
No matter the opportunities available in the land to the north of her country, she still finds herself drawn to the brilliant blue color of the Caribbean Sea surrounding her country. This book is a mixture of musings, memories, and a poetry-like style of writing that interweaves to create a beautiful visual of one woman’s thoughts and feelings about her country and her relationship to it and her family members. You can get the book here! 📖
3. The Collected Essex County by Jeff Lemire
This book is one of the most popular graphic novels and a must-read for people who love this genre. Jeff Lemire proves with this book that he is a true master of graphic novels. This book is split into three parts, each with a different story. These stories can be read as standalone, but they have connections. The first part tells the story of an orphaned boy who goes to live with his uncle. He is a troubled boy and befriends an older guy called Jimmy Lebeuf, who helps him by indulging in his fantasies of superheroes, aliens, and hockey.
The second part tells the story of an old man haunted by the memories of his past and his troubled relationship with his brother, which he regrets to this day. The third part tells the story of the old man’s nurse and delves into her past. The past reveals how the lives of the people in the story are interwoven and how loss and tragedy can still pave the way for life in the present day of a small town. These stories are poignant, and the art is impressive. This book should be on top of the must-read list for every book lover, whether or not they are fans of graphic novels. You can get the book here! 📖
4. Highway with Green Apples by Bae Suah (Translated by Sora Kim-Russell)
This short story is written in a non-linear narrative following the musings of the protagonist, an aspiring artist. She is apathetic in her approach to life, family, friendship, and love. She has no idea what she wants from life and remains unmoved by her day-to-day existence. When she thinks back on what she would like to do in the future, there is only one scene that she sees herself as able to do, and this scene baffles those around her. This novel, though short, can stifle the readers and make them feel claustrophobic and introspective about their feelings, maybe more so because of the inability of the protagonist to feel anything. You can get the book here! 📖
5. North To Paradise by Ousman Umar (Translated by Kevin Garry Dunn)
This is a very inspiring story of one man’s willpower to achieve his goals and overcome all the obstacles before him. The author was born in Ghana, but troubled by the poverty surrounding him, he always dreamed of living in the White Man’s Country from a young age. So, at the age of twelve, he sets off on a dangerous journey across the African continent that even adult men would find difficult. He travels through Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Mali, Morocco, and Mauritania, repeatedly facing dangerous and deadly situations.
Still, he manages to get through every one of them with grit, determination, and sheer luck. He finally managed to reach Spain at the age of 17. Unfortunately, this does not signify his happily ever after yet. He faces new adversaries, but the willpower and determination which helped him reach this far are still alive, and this helps him face these new obstacles and achieve success. This memoir teaches us the strength of our determination and belief in ourselves and the lengths we can go to achieve them. You can get the book here! 📖
6. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (Co-authored by Justine Eisinger and Steven Scott)
We have all learned about the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. Still, we were never taught about a similar event in the United States of America during the same time, the internment of Japanese-American citizens into camps not unlike the Nazi camps. They Called Us Enemy is a graphic memoir about George Takei and his family and their experience in the American concentration camps. Long before he became famous for his role in Star Trek, George Takei understood what it is to be considered different from others.
In 1942, after the Pearl Harbor bombings by the Japanese army, President Roosevelt ordered that every person of Japanese descent living in America should be forcefully sent away to camps known as “relocation centers.” Seen from the eyes of a very young George Takei, this is a harrowing recounting of the dark side of the World War Two victors that have been hidden from history. The experiences he gained from these internment camps colored how he viewed the world around him as he grew up. It is essential that we read books which tell us the parts of history that we had never known about till date, in the words of the people who have lived through them. You can get the book here! 📖
Amazon Original Short Story Collections
These short stories are delightful works written by some of the most famous authors in the world. They are available only on Amazon, hence the name Amazon Originals. Most of these stories are part of different collections, but they are standalone works; you do not have to read every book in the collection. These bite-sized books only take up 30 minutes of our time, but the entertainment value they provide belies their short size. Here are some of my favorites from the list.
7. Evidence of the Affair by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Written as a series of letters between a man and a woman during 1976-1977, this story connects two people dealing with their spouse’s betrayal. When Carrie Allsop discovers what looks like a love letter written by someone called Janet Mayer to her husband, she is devastated. But not one to let things lie, she contacts the woman’s husband whose letters she found. This starts the beginning of prolonged secret conversations between the two betrayed spouses, who find solace for their wounded hearts in the comforting words of each other.
And soon, they begin to realize that the illicit affair may not be the worst thing to happen as it served as a catalyst to bring them together. And for one person, this may serve as the liberation they did not know they craved. Taylor Jenkins Reid proves, with this short story, that she can spin a compelling tale, whether it be novel-sized or short. You can get the book here! 📖
8. My Evil Mother: A Short Story by Margaret Atwood
Being a teenager is hard; being a teenager in suburban America during the 1950s is harder; being a teenager in suburban America during the 1950s with a mother who is a witch is the hardest of them all. The mother in question looks like the typical 1950s mother stereotype on the outside, but she is anything but ordinary. When other mothers used their kitchens to cook delicious meals for their families, this mother used hers to cook up deviant spells on those she thought was up to no good.
That is not all; she may or may not have turned her daughter’s father into a garden ornament. The daughter grows up believing that her mother is an evil witch, but as she becomes an adult, she realizes that the things she once believed may not be true. Find out this twistedly hilarious relationship between an unconventional “witch” mother and her daughter throughout the years. As always, Margaret Atwood’s works are a treat to read, and this short story will leave the readers wanting more. You can get the book here! 📖
9. Neighbors: The Real Thing By Elizabeth LaBan and Melissa DePino
This work is a part of the Real Thing collection, with the tagline “A bundle of love stories.” This ebook is part of the Kindle in Motion collection with art, animation, and video content, an interactive story that you can switch on or off according to your interests. This book deals with friendship and love. The authors, Elizabeth LaBan and Melissa DePino, met each other as neighbors, and after bonding over their dreams, they decided to become life-long best friends. What follows is a decade-long friendship that survives through many life incidents such as divorces, moving away, and abusive relationships; throughout all this, their friendship is tested repeatedly, but they overcome it despite all odds. This book tells us how sometimes friends can be our true love and soul mates. You can get the book here! 📖
10. The Best Girls by Min Jin Lee
This book is part of the Disorder collection, with the tagline “Stories that get inside your head.” The tagline is spot on for this book, as the story got into my head, and refused to leave for a while after reading it. Born in a patriarchal family in Seoul, South Korea, the protagonist is the eldest daughter and the first child of her parents. Three sisters follow her, and then the most awaited son and the family’s last child are born.
The protagonist watches as her little brother is showered with love and affection while she and her sisters are expected to stay quiet and remain in the background, silently doing all their tasks and duties. Their family is impoverished, and adding five children does nothing to improve their economic situation. They attempt to give their only son a good life while forgetting or not even caring about the girls.
The short story belies the sadness and the tragedy that ensues, more so when you realize that this is not just contained to that one part of the world; that patriarchy and misogyny are spread all over the world like cancer without any end or cure. This story is not easy to read, from beginning to end, despite its short size, or maybe especially because of it. But this leaves an impact that is not easily forgotten, making it a great story, in my opinion. You can get the book here! 📖
The above-mentioned list of books is some of my favorite free ebooks from the Kindle app. These books vary in genre and contain stories told by people from around the world. Some of them are informative, some of them are inspirational, some of them are introspective, some of them are tear-inducing, but all of them are entertaining! Give these books a read, and you will like them as much as I did; best of all, you do not have to break the bank to read them! You can sign up for Kindle Unlimited Free Trial 📚 now and read unlimited free ebooks right away!