Mai Read
No mystery behind the price
How Mai Read makes classic books free to read.
The short version: we catalog editions that are available from public-domain or archival sources, then make those records easier to browse and open. We don’t turn copyrighted books into free books.
What happens behind a free title
- Records come from established catalogs. The Gutenberg sync uses English-language records marked out of copyright in Project Gutenberg’s catalog data. It filters for readable text and useful title, author, and subject metadata. A smaller featured set links to Internet Archive records.
- Mai Read organizes the edition details. Title pages show bibliographic information and identify the source. The “View Source Record” link lets you inspect the edition at its provider rather than relying only on our summary.
- The reader provides a simpler way in. For supported titles, choose “Read in Mai Read” to open the work in the browser reader. The source record remains available from the title page.
Who provides what?
Project GutenbergCatalog records and ebooks for many older English-language works. Its public-domain status is stated for the United States.
Internet ArchiveDigitized collection records for selected featured editions and historical comics.
Mai ReadCatalog organization, title pages, discovery tools, and the browser-based reading experience.
You, the readerCheck the edition record and local rules before downloading, sharing, or reusing a work.
What “free” does—and doesn’t—mean here
- The catalog is available to browse without a purchase.
- Mai Read’s reading interface is a catalog and reader; it is not the rights holder for the books.
- We do not claim that new commercial releases, current manga, or every scan on the web is free to redistribute.
- Provider availability can change. If a source record or reading file is unavailable, that is controlled by the provider.