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Google Books is a search engine that gives you access to digitized books – from fiction to non-fiction to academic works.
Search and find on Google Books
With Google Books, you can search for specific books and view sample pages. This is how the search works:
- Enter title, author, keywords or ISBN.
- Google will show you relevant search results, starting with the best matches.
- In the left column, you will find details such as availability, as well as dealers or libraries that own the book.
- Example: A search for “climate change” returns books on science, politics and non-fiction. The hits highlight the search terms in yellow.
- Tip: Use the search field in the book to search for specific keywords.
Google Books: Things to keep in mind
Google Books primarily offers excerpts and not complete content for all works. The following is important:
- For copyright reasons, only excerpts from the books are usually available. The range here extends from books in which you can only read the table of contents to literature that you can view halfway through.
- With a Google account, you can get a little more insight into a book. However, Google logs your page views to do this.
- You can only view the books on Google Books; there is no download button. However, with the “Google Books Downloader” software, you can download excerpts of many books as JPG, PDF or PNG files.
- For some titles, you have the option to buy them directly as an e-book. Payment is usually made via Google Wallet. You then have immediate access to the book and can access it from different devices.
