Websites about Books, Libraries, and Literature

Note: See our Reader's Corner for more book-related resources and information.

Authors

Author Home Page Library - from the Electronic Poetry Center, this will link you to information on many poets.

Contemporary Authors - Information on 90,000 writers active from 1900; includes biographies and bibliographies (lists of authors' writings and lists of commentaries or literary criticism by others). The Literature Resource Center Includes this database. [a Gale database]

Literature Resource Center - biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors. [a Gale database]

Literary Resources on the Net - a collection of links to sites on the Internet dealing especially with English and American literature.

Luminarium - English authors from Medieval writers through mid-Seventeeth Century.

Online Literary Criticism - Search or browse by name, title, or literary period. Includes American, British, Canadian, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Latin American, Japanese, Chinese, and other nationalities. This service is provided by the Internet Public Library, which welcomes suggestions of additional, relevant sites

Shakespeare Searched - This is a search engine "designed to provide quick access to passages from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets." Search results can be viewed by topic (such as love or death), work, and character. Includes options to view surrounding text of the passages and citations. The text of the plays is courtesy of Moby Lexical Tools. From the Clusty search software company.

Collected Works of Shakespeare - Works of the Bard

The Complete Review - Provides its own book reviews and compares them with published reviews from well-known sources.

Wired for Books - "audio recordings featuring authors reading their own works, videos of selected plays, and an archive of author interviews…."* Includes material for all ages - the Kids' Corner features Beatrix Potter's stories with text, pictures, and audio; an interview with Mr. Rogers; audio readings of Alice in Wonderland, Grimm's Fairy Tales, A Christmas Carol; and much more.

Top of Page

Books and Reviews

AddALL - A site that will search all the major online booksellers so you can comparison shop (40 book dealers).

Baen Free Library - Provides free science fiction books to be read online or downloaded in various formats. Almost 40 authors are represented, including Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, David Weber, and John Ringo. Find available books by author, title, or series. They really are free.

Biblio.com - 50 million used books, including rare and out-of-print items. Simple and advanced searches allow you to access by author, year of publication, price, and other options. A great resource!

Bibliofind - Want to find an out-of-print book? Or the retail value of an old book? Lists the holdings of thousands of used bookstores. Bibliofind has been taken over by Amazon.com . When you search for a title, sellers of used and even new copies are listed in the Amazon Marketplace.

Booklist - book reviews.

English Server's Fiction Collection - Contains original fiction, fiction criticism, poetry and drama information and links, etc.

Oprah's Books - Books discussed on her show and in O, The Oprah Magazine, and a message board where you can contribute your views. Youc an also see past selections and discussions from Oprah's former book club.

Romance Reader at Heart - No matter what type of romantic adventure you're interested in locating, this treasure trove of romance includes over 100,000 titles of all types, separated by subgenre. Other features include book reviews, author profiles and interviews, current news, and more!

Stop, You're Killing Me! - A resource for readers of mystery, thriller, crime and suspense
books, with over 2,100 authors and over 24,000 book titles. Each author's chronological listing of titles includes both series and non-series titles.

Top of Page

Databases

Book and Author Databases - Various searchable databases provided by the state of Florida and the Brevard County Library System. They include Literature Resource Center; Contemporary Authors; What Do I Read Next?; Biography Resource Center; eBook Collection (full books that you can read online), and others.

Libraries

Cleveland Public Library - One of the oldest and largest on-line libraries. The site now requires MACROMEDIA FLASH PLAYER, which can be downloaded FREE from a link on the first page. This may already be on your computer.

Internet Public Library - The Internet Public Library (IPL) is the first public library created of and for the Internet community and its style and service is similar to any large library.

New York Public Library - You may search the collection by Author, Title, Subject, Words in Title, Content Notes or Organization, Journal, Call Number or Government Document Number.

LibDex - Want to investigate the collection of a library in Massachusetts? Or Malaysia? Libdex is a worldwide directory of library homepages, web-based OPACs, Friends of the Library pages, and library e-commerce affiliate links.

Library of Congress Holdings - Search 17 million. You can’t check anything out from LC but you can verify titles, authors, etc.

Library Spot - A virtual library resource center.

Morton Grove Webrary - One of the oldest and largest on-line libraries

Orange County Library System - The most useful page of this site is the Internet Links. Go to Local Attractions. Now you can plan that road trip to area attractions. Through an agreement with the Brevard County Library System, your Brevard library card allows you to obtain an Orange County library card by visiting one of their libraries. (You will not be able to place holds on their books, however.)

Top of Page

Reference

Citation Styles for Referencing Internet Sources - How to cite all the information you find on the Web in your footnotes/bibliography.

Top of Page

Resources for Writers

10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained - A valuable site.

Cliché Finder - Use this list to find out if your writing is cliche-prone.

Creative Commons - This is a way of giving permission (license) to others to copy, distribute, display, etc. with certain restrictions. It is described as "a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license) ." Be sure to use the link at the bottom of the page, " Learn how to distribute your work using this license ". It has plenty of other information.

Quotations from Library Spot- For sources of quotations.

Resources for Writers and Writing Instructors - Lists sources such as style guides, grammar guides, copyright information, lists of common errors, etc.

U.S. Copyright Office - Information, legislation, basics, and procedures.

And don't forget--if your search for an answer didn't prove successful, contact the Reference Desk at your nearest Brevard County public library location.

Top of Page

Back to Websites by Subject