You’re learning French and you’d like to find longer, richer material to practice reading? Once you’ve tackled news articles, blog posts and short stories, the next step is immersing yourself in French novels or non-fiction books to expand your vocabulary and discover new contexts, while having fun. In this article, I share websites where you can find free and legit full ebooks in French, as well as other resources to read full stories online.
The access to those resources is not limited to people living in France, you should be able to read them from anywhere in the world (please let me know if you face any restriction!).
Hey, did you know all my articles exist in French version? If you’re trying to improve your French reading, I advise you to read the original French-only version, and use the English version as a support if needed. Please note the English version is not a literal translation.
This might also interest you: In the previous article, I shared tips to receive video suggestions in French only on Youtube.
Before we start, a little bit of useful vocabulary when talking about books in French:
- “Livres non fiction“: books with informational content, like self-help books, theory books, textbooks, biographies, books about history…
- A non-exhaustive list of categories of non fictional books in French: politique (politics), société (society), art, relations (relationships), cuisine (cooking), voyage (travel), droit (law), famille (family), bien-être (wellbeing), développement personnel (self-help), histoire (history), informatique (computer science), nature, animaux (animals/pets), religion, santé (health), sciences (science)…
- “Livres de fiction” or just “Fictions“: those are fictional, made-up stories created by an author, mainly novels or short stories anthologise.
- A non-exhaustive list of categories of literary fiction genres in French: romance, science-fiction, fantastique (fantasy), fantasy (medieval fantasy), feel good, tranche de vie (slice of life), voyage initiatique (initiatory journey?), érotisme (erotica), comédie/humour (comedy/humour)…
Learning how to read whole books in French: fiction or nonfiction?
The most important thing, when practicing with “comprehensible input”, is for you to find content that you actually enjoy and that you can get the gist of. Fiction books are usually more interesting to read, but depending on the genre (especially sci-fi and fantasy), the vocabulary might be too difficult for first time readers.
If your plan is to read plenty of fantasy books (for example) in French, it’s worth learning the specific vocabulary that you find in those (weapons and clothes names, spells, artifacts…). That specific vocabulary will make reading in French a bit more complicated at first. My advice is to create reusable reading helps with those words, so you can use it as a reference.
Books about day-to-day topics (like drama, comedies or contemporary romance) are generally more accessible, because of their simpler vocabulary
The choice is yours!
Nonfiction books are often easier to read, especially if you find ones about topics you’re interested in and have knowledge about. The only downside of nonfiction books is that it won’t prepare you for having conversations, while novels generally have dialogs.
You can start with nonfiction books to improve your vocabulary and get used to how French is written, then gradually move to easy fictions (young adult, manga, comics…) until you’re confident enough to read more complicated and longer books, like novels.
Now, let’s discover websites where you can grab free ebooks in French:
Amazon
- Book types: fiction, nonfiction
- Reading platform: Kindle (mobile or computer application, or Kindle e-reader)
- Website language: local language
- Links:
On Kindle, you can just search “Free ebook French” or “Ebook français gratuit” to see a list of ebooks in French that you can get for free. You can find classics (which are globally available because they’re now part of the “public domain”) but also contemporary ebooks that are given for free as part of a promotion campaign.
Authors who self-publish on Kindle can temporarily give away their books in order to get more visibility on Kindle. It means the free books you’ll find are generally not well known from the public. There are full novels and short stories, in different genres, although many of them fall into the romance category.
One big downside of Amazon Kindle is that you can’t download the file in PDF or epub format, you’ll have to read the books through one of the Kindle apps (which are free), or have an e-reader of the brand.
I tested this on Amazon.com, but you should be able to find free books in French on any local Amazon platform, although the choice will probably vary from one to another.
Tip:
Amazon lets you read the first few pages or chapter of ebooks available on the platform! You can thus practice reading a few pages and check if your level’s sufficient before bying or renting the book.
Kobo / Rakuten
- Book types: fiction, nonfiction
- Reading platform: Kobo (mobile or computer app, Kobo e-reader)
- Website language: local language
- Links:
Pretty much the same as Kindle for Amazon, Kobo lets you search for free ebooks in French. They even have filters for it: you can just select the desired language, then open “More filters” and select “Free books only“. Just like Kindle, most books are fiction and you can find all genres, with more titles available in the romance category.
You’ll also need either the free application from Kobo, or a Kobo e-reader, in order to read those books.
La librairie
- Book types: fiction, nonfiction
- Reading platform: your choice (PDF or ePub download without DRM)
- Website language: français
- Links:
La Librairie offers a large selection of ebooks without DRM (which can be read on all e-readers without restriction). There are novels, short stories and nonfiction books. However, some books are displayed as free, but require that you buy the paper version to download the “free” electronic version… This information is not clear at all on the website. Books that are actually free are mostly short stories or samples.
Wattpad
- Book types: fiction
- Reading platform: Wattpad (website or mobile app)
- Website language: English
- Links:
Wattpad is a platform that allows anyone to publish their own stories. You can find all genres and the stories are tagged by language. You should be careful as those self-published stories are not reviewed by an editor and they may have grammar or spelling mistakes (although it’s also the case for self-published novels).
This kind of platform can motivate you to read more regularly, as authors generally publish their stories as a series of chapters with regular releases. For some people, it can feel less intimidating to start reading chapter after chapter, rather than staring at a whole novel. On the other hand, if you fear the author won’t finish their story, you can filter out stories that are not finished yet.
You’ll mainly find romance, (heroic) fantasy and fan fictions, but you can also find other genres like science-fiction, humour or slice of life.
Webtoon
- Book types: fiction
- Reading platform: Webtoon (website or mobile app)
- Website language: selected language (French if you want to find publications in French)
- Links:
Webtoon is a platform where anyone can publish illustrated stories, like comics, graphic novels and manga/manhua/manhwa. This kind of story is easier to read, as pictures give you hints on what’s happening, texts are shorter and it’s mainly dialogs.
Vivlio / Cultura
- Book types: fiction, nonfiction
- Reading platform: on the website, the mobile app, a Vivlio e-read or other e-readers
- Website language: French
- Links:
Vivlio offers a large variety of free books, from which a lot are contemporary. A few well-known authors you can find there are Stephen King, Franck Thilliez, Paula Hawkins ou Anna Todd. Their selection of free books is more modern and diverse than most websites, where you generally just find the public domain classics.
You can also find those free books on Cultura and read them directly from the website, in the mobile app or on a Vivlio e-reader. The selection on both websites seems to be the same one.
Internet Archive
- Book types: nonfiction, fiction
- Reading platform: on the website, or download in PDF/epub and many other formats
- Website language: English
- Links:
- Warning: it seems that some texts available on the website might not be available in a legal way… This is a reminder that the person who downloads anything from the Internet is responsible for making sure they have the right to do so.
Internet Archive is a free only library where you can find a huge collection of media, like books and other textes, but also audio and video files. There are mainly nonfiction books, and a lot of old texts. However, after a little research, you can find novels (I found The Apothecary Diaries light novels, but I’m not sure they can legally have them there…), or comics like Lucky Luke or Tintin (same), video game guides, literary classics, erotica, self-help books, travel guides…
Project Gutenberg
- Book types: fiction
- Reading platform: on the website, or download in PDF/epub/kindle/other formats; some books are even available as audio books
- Website language: English
- Links:
Project Gutenberg has a wide collection of classics from the French literature, or English classics translated into French, that are in the public domain. To name a few examples: novels from Jules Verne, titles like Frankenstein, La guerre des mondes, Les fleurs du mal, Les mille et une nuits, Les Fables de la Fontaine, and many lesser known ones.
Everand
- Book types: fiction, nonfiction
- Reading platform: on the website, mobile apps
- Website language: available in French
- Links:
- Notice: Everand is a subscription service, but you can use it for free for 30 days (trial period)
Everand is a subscription service to read books and listen to audio books. You can use it for free during 30 days and cancel before the end if you don’t want to pay.
Mangas.io
- Book types: manga
- Reading platform: on the website, mobile apps
- Website language: French
- :
- Notice: Mangas.io is a subscription service, but you can use it for free for 7 days (trial period)
Mangas.io is a service that allows you to read manga (and manhwa and manhua) online. It’s a paid service but you can use it for free for 7 days, and cancel before the end of the trial period if you don’t want to pay. They have classics, like Bleach, Naturo, Assassination Classroom, Cat’s eye… and lesser known or really recent titles. There are titles in many genres: shonen, shoujo, seinen, josei, romance, slice of life, humor, boys love…
Harlequin
- Book types: fiction (romance)
- Reading platform: epub downlonad
- Website language: French
- Links:
Harlequin has been the reference in romance fiction since 1978 ! On their website, you can download a few bonus chapters, like prequels or prologues in epub format, and read anywhere. Those free ebooks have about 50 pages.
Websites where you can read free online samples in French
Here are a few websites that let you read the first few pages or chapters of their books online, but where you can’t download full books for free:
Dupuis – French comics editor, where you can find many well-known titles like the Spirou, Cédric, Boule et Bill, Largo Winch… series. You can read about 10 pages per book.
Glénat – They publish comics, manga, children’s books and nonfiction adults’ books (nature guides, travel guides, history, gastronomy…). You can read about 7 pages for children’s books, 15 for manga, 12 for comics or adults’ books.
Bambou – Classic humor comics, like Les profs, but also more recent titles and even instructional comics. You can read about 12 pages online (choose a book to see the option).
Dargaud – They publish comics for adults, in the following genres: science-fiction, fantasy, adventure, thrillers, graphic novels, but also a few young adult and humor titles. Not all books can be read online, and when possible, samples vary from 5 to 25 pages on average.
Kana – They publish manga, like Fire Force, Au delà des apparences, Bakuman, Assassination Classroom, Astro boy, Blue Spring ride, Black Butler… Samples have 10 to 60 pages.
Kioon – They publish manga like Les carnets de l’apothicaire, Jujutsu Kaisen, My hero academia… You can read a sample of their recent releases on the home page (on average 40 to 60 pages).
You can find a few French book summaries on this website
