UNESCO's World Book Day in 2022 falls on April 23 (except in the UK, where we like to be different, as it falls in early March), and if you own the Amazon Kindle or any of the other Kindle models, or simply subscribe to Prime, you're in for a treat.
That's because Amazon is offering 10 free ebooks to celebrate the occasion, which anyone with a Kindle – or a Prime account – can download for free. So if you own one of the best Kindles, you've getting even more bang for your buck.
The offering lasts until April 27, and covers books from a range of authors and genres – we'll list them all below. The aim is to promote literature from all over the world.
To get the books, simply head to Amazon's Read The World page to add them to your Amazon account, then download them to your ereader. You don't need a Kindle to make the most of this deal, as you can read them in a web browser or on the Kindle smartphone app, but we'd always recommend buying a Kindle if you want to read on the go.
What are the free books?
- The Puma Years by Laura Coleman (Travel Memoir, Bolivia)
"In this rapturous memoir, writer and activist Laura Coleman shares the story of her liberating journey in the Amazon jungle, where she fell in love with a magnificent cat who changed her life." Check out the full listing here.
- The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai (Literary Fiction, Tunisia)
"From an award-winning Tunisian author comes a stirring allegory about a country in the aftermath of revolution and the power of a single quest." Check out the full listing here.
- North To Paradise by Ousman Umar (Memoir, Ghana)
"The inspiring true story of one man’s treacherous boyhood journey from a rural village in Ghana to the streets of Barcelona—and the path that led him hom" Check out the full listing here.
- Where The Desert Meets The Sea by Werner Sonne (Historical Fiction, Israel)
"An illuminating and heart-stirring historical novel set in post-WWII Palestine, where the boundaries of love and friendship are challenged by the intractable conflicts of war." Check out the full listing here.
- An Eye For An Eye by Carol Wyer (Thriller, England)
"A killer running rings around the police. A detective spiralling out of control." Check out the full listing here.
- The Other Man by Farhad J. Dadyburjor (Book Club Fiction, India)
"A heartwarming and transporting romantic comedy about finding happy ever after on your own terms." Check out the full listing here.
- The Easy Life In Kamusari by Shion Miura (Contemporary Fiction, Japan)
"From Shion Miura, the award-winning author of The Great Passage, comes a rapturous novel where the contemporary and the traditional meet amid the splendor of Japan’s mountain way of life." Check out the full listing here
- Mother Dear by Nova Lee Maier (Psychological Thriller, Netherlands)
"There’s only one thing worse than doing the unthinkable: what you’re willing to do to hide it." Check out the full listing here.
- To The Sky Kingdom by Tang Qi (Fantasy, China)
The listing for To The Sky Kingdoms doesn't provide a short description, but you can check out the full listing here.
- The Caiman by María Eugenia Manrique, Ramón París (Children's Book, Venezuela)
"The unforgettable story of a man and his alligator." Check out the full listing here
A different crop of free books
If you own an Amazon Kindle, you're likely no stranger to free books - not only are there various subscription services like Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited, but the Kindle Store has loads of free novels on it, and it's also easy to send a PDF to your Kindle for all the free classics online.
But Amazon's Read The World offering for World Book Day is a little different, as the texts cover a broader range of genres than we normally see from the heavily-genre-fiction-and-romance fare that's normally offered for nothing.
More importantly, this literature spans the whole world, so you can read from authors from Ghana, China or India, as well as other places. Again, we don't normally see this kind of diversity too much from the Kindle store.
So World Book Day will be great news for Kindle owners or Prime subscribers who like to experience the cultures of other countries... which is part of the point of it, really.
- Here's a guide on how to read Amazon's Kindle Vella
