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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:
- Visit books.google.com.
- Enter the title, author, keywords or ISBN.
- Google will show you relevant results, starting with the best matches.
- In the left column, you’ll 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 results highlight the search terms in yellow.
- Tip: Use the search field in the book to search for specific keywords.
Google Books: What you should know
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.
Alternatives and complementary features to Google Books
In addition to the search and sample, Google Books offers other useful features and there are alternatives you can consider:
- Find books in libraries: Google Books not only shows retailers, but also libraries that own the book you are looking for. Use this information to check whether the book is available in a library near you. The “Search in a library” button often takes you directly to online catalogs.
- Discovering academic literature: If you are looking for academic literature, you can use Google Scholar (scholar.google.de) as a supplement. There you will find academic articles, dissertations and publications, some of which you can also view in Google Books.
- Recommendations and similar titles: Google Books often displays similar titles that are thematically or contextually related to your search. This is particularly useful if you want to broaden your horizons or delve deeper into a particular subject.
- Using apps and e-readers: If you want to buy books as e-books or download them for free, you can use the Google Play Books app. Synchronization between devices is seamless, and you can save bookmarks, notes or highlights directly in the app.
- Free classics and public domain works: Google Books offers numerous public domain books that you can read in their entirety for free. These works, often from before 1923, are ideal for exploring literary classics or historical texts.
