Ten Ways to Get Paid for Traveling to Germany

Coming to Germany is on your bucket list, always has been. But the price of travel is high and getting higher. How can you afford the trip? And how can you pay for food, accommodation, and travel once you get there? Young Germany has compiled a list of ways to turn the tables on pricey vacations and GET PAID FOR living your travel dreams.

Become an Au Pair

Travel plus children plus a host family to help you through the culture shock and the paperwork?  Yes please!  The perks of coming to Germany as an au pair are many fold, not the least of which are that you will get to learn about German culture as a tourist and as the member of a German family.  If you’re lucky, your host family just might take you on vacation with them too.

Read the first-hand stories of people who have come to Germany as au pairshere and here.  Find out how to get started finding a placement here andhere.

Become an English Teacher

If you have strong English skills, teaching others those skills might be your best bet to GET PAID FOR living in and exploring a Germany city.  You might not even need any extra qualifications.

Find out how to get a job teaching at an international school here or about how to get a job at a language school here.  Or read about what it was like to do just that for one Hamburg transplant here.

WWOOF

WWOOF stands for “World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.”  It is a network—in Germany a charity that requires a small membership fee to join—that connects farmers with people looking for farm work with a side of room and board.  Stays at farms can last anywhere from a weekend to several years, depending on the needs of both parties.  While WWOOFers usually don’tGET PAID outright, having a place to sleep, something to eat, and locals to help you get acclimated can help you make a trip to Germany happen.

Find out more on the WWOOF website.

Volunteer

OK, so this option might not get you paid, but many volunteer positions do include accommodations.  If you are on a tight budget that support can be the difference between making a trip to Germany happen and staying at home. 

You can do a Voluntary Social Year, volunteer at a vineyard, or apply at one of these volunteer organizations.  Or start by reading the Young Germany Guide to Volunteering in Germany.

Become a Writer and/or Photographer

While guidebook writing is a lot less romantic and wonderful than you might imagine (expect: long hours, tight deadlines, and editors who want writers already living in the destination city), but why not follow your dream?  Better yet, employ yourself by monetizing your travel blog or try your hand at becoming the next Goethe or Hemmingway.

Photography is an art that can take years to master, but if it your career of choice (and particularly if you can combine it with writing skills), it can also help you make your travel plans pay.  Not only can you sell travel photographs to a stock photography company, you can offer coverage of weddings or portrait services in your destination of choice.

Become a Freelancer

If you have a job (or jobs, as is often the case with freelancers) that doesn’t require your presence in an office, then you can live anywhere while doing the work with which you’re already familiar.  More and more businesses are open to hiring talent that they communicate with through Skype and email, and that kind of flexibility can make your travel plans a reality without disrupting your career or cashflow.

Become a Tour Guide

Adopt a new German city as your home and EARN MONEY by sharing your passion and knowledge with other visitors.  It sounds like a dream, and finding tour guide work in Germany can be difficult.  There are more than 300 professional tour guides in Berlin alone—it is a competitive market.

Many guides operate on a freelance or self-employed basis, but there the problem is finding customers.  Start with a Google search of “tour guide job + your destination city” to find out if there are companies that are hiring.  If there aren’t, you could always think about starting your own business.  Viator has a list of professional tour guides throughout Germany here, and adding your profile to their service could be the first step in your journey to becoming a tour guide in Germany.

Become a Flight Attendant

This option is one of the most complicated—becoming a flight attendant is a long-term career choice that you probably won’t want to make lightly.  First, learn a little bit about what the career entails and what you can expect from the job here.  If you decide to take this route, you can expect a lot of travel—and not just to Germany—in your future.

Work for a Cruise Line

On Germany’s many rivers you will find just as many cruise ships, ferrying passengers past castles and fortresses and dropping them off for a few hours at popular cities.  If you are already set up in Germany but want to travel more, working on one of these ships is the perfect way to pay for your travel within the country.  To get you started in your search, this website offers a job search.

Get a Scholarship

If study and travel are two of your long-term goals, why not combine them by studying in the country you’ve always dreamed of visiting?  German universities are know for being cheaper than those in, for example, the United States, and the DAAD offers scholarships for foreign students interested in studying in Germany.  For more options, check out the Young Germany Guide to Financing Your Studies With a Scholarship here.

Scientists link creativity to insanity

Creativity and insanity are not that different according to scientists.
After many years of studying human’s mind, scientists from Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that the though pathways of creative people are quite similar to those of people with schizophrenia. Both lack some important receptors used to direct and filter thoughts. It could be this uninhibited processing that allows creative people to “think outside the box”. That could lead to mental illness in some people. But rather than a clear division, experts suspect a continuum, with some people having psychotic traits but few negative symptoms.
Many of the artists, writers and theorists, who are known for their high creativity have also had mental illnesses – Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dali, John Nash (mathematician portrayed by Russell Crowe in the movie A Beautiful Mind) and many more. Creativity is often associated with an increased risk of depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Well known fact is that people who have mental illness history in their family have a higher chance of being more creative.
Professor Fredrik Ullen believes his discovery could help explain why. He looked at the brain’s dopamine receptor genes which experts believe govern divergent thought. He found that highly creative people who did well on tests of divergent thought had a lower than expected density of D2 receptors in the thalamus – same as people with schizophrenia. The thalamus serves as a relay centre, filtering information before it reaches areas of the cortex, which is responsible, among other things, for cognition and reasoning.
“Fewer D2 receptors in the thalamus probably means a lower degree of signal filtering, and thus a higher flow of information from the thalamus,” says Professor Ullen. |
He believes that barrage of uncensored information is what ignites the creativity. This would explain how highly creative people manage to see unusual connections in problem-solving situations that other people miss. Schizophrenics share this same ability to make novel associations. But in schizophrenia, it results in bizarre and disturbing thoughts. UK psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society Mark Millard said the overlap with mental illness might explain the motivation and determination creative people share.

“Creativity is uncomfortable. It is their dissatisfaction with the present that drives them on to make changes. Creative people, like those with psychotic illnesses, tend to see the world differently to most. It’s like looking at a shattered mirror. They see the world in a fractured way. There is no sense of conventional limitations and you can see this in their work. Take Salvador Dali, for example. He certainly saw the world differently and behaved in a way that some people perceived as very odd.”
Some companies have  secure, secret laboratories for their highly creative staff where they can freely experiment without disrupting the daily business.
Chartered psychologist Gary Fitzgibbon says an ability to “suspend disbelief” is one way of looking at creativity.
“When you suspend disbelief you are prepared to believe anything and this opens up the scope for seeing more possibilities. Creativity is certainly about not being constrained by rules or accepting the restrictions that society places on us. Of course the more people break the rules, the more likely they are to be perceived as ‘mentally ill’.
He works as an executive coach helping people to be more creative in their problem solving behavior and thinking styles.
“The result is typically a significant rise in their well being, so as opposed to creativity being associated with mental illness it becomes associated with good mental health.”

Beat The System With This List Of 40 Free Educational Websites

According to www.webometrics.info, there are more than 17 000 universities in the world, but getting a degree in many of them is quite costly. Many students around the world(and their families) get into big debts or have to work over sixty hours a week in order to afford an Education. Two thirds of the US college seniors who graduated in 2011 had student loan debt, with an average of over 27 000 USD per person. Reading those statistics I can’t stop thinking about those words from over 30 years ago:

With mass education, it turned out that most people could be taught to read and write. In the same way, once we have computer outlets in every home, each of them hooked up to enormous libraries, where you can ask any question and be given answers, you can look up something you’re interested in knowing, however silly it might seem to someone else. – Isaac Asiov

Isaac Asimov died in 1992, but if he could see the opportunities that the Internet is giving us in XXI century he would probably grin from ear to ear. Getting a degree in an university might be expensive, but there are much better options.
There are many websites on the Internet that now offer FREE of charge learning materials. Now even very poor people can afford to be better educated than many of Harvard’s graduates, all they need is access to a computer(does not even have to be personal one, it could be the one that the local library offers for public use)
Enough with the words, here is a great list of 40 useful links which can help you learn a lot for free:

1. ALISON –  over 60 million lessons and records 1.2 million unique visitors per month
2. COURSERA – Educational website that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use. Learn from over 542 courses.
3. The University of Reddit – The free university of Reddit.
4. UDACITY – Advance your education and career through project-based online classes, mainly focused around computer, data science and mathematics.
5. MIT Open CourseWare – Free access to quite a few MIT courses that are on par with what you’d expect from MIT.
6. Open Culture – Compendium of free learning resources, including courses, textbooks, and videos/films.

7. No Excuse List – Huge list of websites to learn from.
8. Open YALE Courses – Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript formats. Registration is not required
9. Khan Academy – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science.
10. Zooniverse – Take part in a huge variety of interesting studies of nature, science, and culture.
11. TUFTS Open CourseWare – Tufts OpenCourseWare is part of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course content for everyone online. Tufts’ course offerings demonstrate the University’s strength in the life sciences in addition to its multidisciplinary approach, international perspective and underlying ethic of service to its local, national and international communities.
12. How Stuff Works? – More scientific lessons and explanations than you could sort through in an entire year.
13. Harvard Medical School Open Courseware The mission of the Harvard Medical School Open Courseware Initiative is to exchange knowledge from the Harvard community of scholars to other academic institutions, prospective students, and the general public.
14. VideoLectures.NET – the title says it all – amazing video lectures on many topics.
15. TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.
16. Shodor – A non-profit research and education organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and math education, specifically trough the use of modeling and simulation technologies. Included in this site are instructional resources, software, interactive lessons, explorations and information about workshops for students, teachers and learners of all ages on mathematics and science. Make sure you check Shodor Interactive – a great collection of interactive math, geometry, fractal, probability, algebra and statistics activities.
17. Udemy FREE Courses – hundreds of experts teach on Udemy every month including New York Times best-selling authors, CEOs, Ivy League professionals and celebrity instructors. Courses include video, live lectures and tools to help teachers interact with students and track their progress. There are many free courses that can teach you business online, law, programming, design, mathematics, science, photography, yoga and many more.
18. Maths & Science – Courses, tests and learning materials about mathematics and science for students from 1 to 12 grade.
19. edX.org – Free courses designed specifically for interactive study via the web, provided by MIT, Harvard, Barkley, Georgetown, Boston University, University of Washington, Karolinska Institute, Kyoto University and many more.
20. iTunes U – Apple’s free app that gives students mobile access to many courses. It offers many free video courses, books, presentations and audio lectures.
21. Liberty Classroom – Owned by bestselling author Tom Woods. Offers some free courses in history and economics, but at the price of one movie ticket a month you can gain access to a lot of useful information. Not completely free, but totally worth it…
22. Drawspace – Hundreds of free drawing lessons.
23. Codeacademy – Easy way to learn how to code. It’s interactive, fun and you can do it with your friends.
24. Duke U – Duke offers variety of free courses on iTunesU.
25. Scitable – A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetic, the study of evolution, variation and the rich complexity of living organisms.
26. My own business – Offers free online business administration course that would be beneficial to new managers and to anyone who is interested in starting a business.
27. Kutztown University’s free courses – The Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s Small Business Development Center offers more than 80 free business online learning. Kutztown’s courses are individualized and self-paced. Many of the courses feature high-end graphics, interactive case studies and audio streams.
28. Open Learn – Gives you free access to Open University course materials.
29. Free Computer Books – Free computer, mathematics, technical books and lecture notes.
30. Academic Earth – Free video lectures from the world’s top scholars.31. American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself sign language online
32. BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
33. unplugthetv – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch.
34. Lifehacker – Learn to hack life! Tips and tricks for improving all areas of your life.
35. JustinGuitar – Hundreds of free guitar lessons as well as some basic music theory.
36. DuoLingo – Learn a new language for free while helping to translate the web.
37. Layers Magazine – Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premiere Pro, In Design and After Effects tutorials.
38. Creative Flow – list of OVER 950 Photoshop tutorials to keep your skillset up to date.
39. Open2study – Open2Study delivers free, high-quality education online. You can study subjects with real value, and in just four weeks you can learn something new, explore the next step in your career, challenge yourself or simply satisfy your curiosity. These subjects are provided by leading Australian institutions, and are taught by academics and leading industry professionals who love to teach. All you need is an internet connection and the desire to study.
40. OEDb – Choose from over 10,000 free online classes

Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills

The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills.  You just have to know where to look.  Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills, but I figured I’d save you some time.

Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new.

1. Hack a Day – Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.
2. eHow – eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.
3. Wired How-To Wiki – Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.  Browse through hundreds how-to articles and then add to them, or start a new one.
4. MAKE Magazine – Brings the do-it-yourself (DIY) mindset to all of the technology in your life.  MAKE is loaded with cool DIY projects that help you make the most of the technology you already own.
5. 50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do – While not totally comprehensive, here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do.  It’s a great starting point to learn new skills.
6. wikiHow – A user based collaboration to build and share the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual.
7. Lifehacker – An award-winning daily blog that features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently.
8. 100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time – Today, knowing how to use Google effectively is a vital skill.  This list links out to enough Google related resources to make you an elite Google hacker.
9. Instructables – Similar to MAKE, Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others as the tackle new projects and learn new skills.
10. Merriam-Webster Online – In this digital age, your ability to communicate with written English is paramount skill.  And M-W.com is the perfect resource to improve your English now.
11. Lumosity – Learn to improve your memory by playing a series of fun and educational brain training games.
12. 100 Skills Every Man Should Know – Another compilation article with instructions to help you learn new skills.  This one says it’s geared for men, but I think most of these skills are applicable to women as well.
13. 5min Life Videopedia – Lot’s of great tutorials and DIY videos.
14. HowStuffWorks – Knowledge is power.  While this site isn’t exactly geared to help you learn new skills, it contains so much useful information that you’re bound to learn a skill or two while you browse.
15. StumbleUpon – A collective set of recommendations from thousands of hours of searching by web users who share your interests.  It’s basically a recommendation engine.  Users add to this engine by providing their personal recommendations on what sites are worth your time.  If you select topics and tags of interest like ‘Self-Improvement‘ and ‘DIY,’ you’ll be learning new skills in no time.
16. Work.com – An extensive directory of how-to guides for beginning entrepreneurs.
17. Howcast – Hosts professional how-to videos as well as how-to wiki tutorials.  Howcast combines user ideas with the expertise of professional studio video to deliver what is nothing short of amazing, informative content.
18. VideoJug - The video content on this site covers a variety of topics including informative ‘How To’ and ‘Ask The Expert’ films that guide you step-by-step through everything and anything in life.
19. MakeUseOf – A booming daily blog that features cool websites, computer tips, and downloads that make you more productive.  Lot’s of insightful tips and tricks to learn.
20. WonderHowTo – This site is focused on one clear organizing principle: aggregating and linking to truly great, free how-to videos from which you can learn new skills.
21. SuTree – Another useful aggregator of how-to videos from all around the web.
22. Zen Habits – The ultimate productivity and self-improvement blog.  Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives.  It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, and find happiness.  Lot’s of learning material here.
23. Academic Earth – Online degrees and video courses from leading universities.
24. About.com Videos – Another solid collection of how-to video tutorials.
25. PCWorld How-To – Lot’s of useful tutorials and guides related to fixing and modifying computers and other electronic gadgets.
26. Spreeder – This site is focused on teaching you one new skill:  speed reading.  And it does a great job of doing so.
27. Woopid – Watch free technology training videos.  Get help and answer your computer and gadget questions with thousands of video tutorials for PCs, Macs, and various software applications.
28. DIY Network – A go-to destination for rip-up, knock-out home improvement projects.  The site offers expert answers the most sought-after questions regarding creative projects for DIY enthusiasts.
29. Scitable – A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetics, the study of evolution, variation, and the rich complexity of living organisms.  The site also expects to expand into other topics of learning and education.
30. All Recipes – A complete guide to recipes and cooking tips.  If you’d like to learn to be a better cook, this site is for you.
31. 43 Folders – This site is more about inspiring you to follow-through with your goals than it is about learning new skills.  But I think following-through with your goals is a skill.  Most people never quite get there.
32. Dumb Little Man – Another awesome productivity and self-improvement blog hosting lots of useful information.
33. iTunes U – Hundreds of universities — including Stanford, Yale and MIT — distribute lectures, slide shows, PDFs, films, exhibit tours and audio books through iTunes U.  The Science section alone contains content on topics including agriculture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and geography.
34. American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself sign language online.
35. BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
36. Delicious Popular DIY – Lots of popular DIY articles bookmarked by users from all over the web.
37. Khan Academy – Over 1200 videos lessons covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance.  Lot’s of educational material to help you learn new skills.
38. The Happiness Project – Learn the skills necessary to create happiness in your life.
39. How To Do Things – Another solid collection of how-to tutorials.
40. ShowMeDo – A peer-produced video-tutorials and screencasts site for free and open-source software.  The large majority are free to watch and download.

Also, check out these books for more ideas on pertinent life skills:

Why You Should Consider Dating A Girl Who Reads

Here are some things I’ve learned from my long-term relationship with a bookworm:
Gossip bores her.
She doesn’t really care about rumors that revolve within social media or work/school. Have you read “Their Eyes Were Watching God”?
She has something to say on every topic.
You know those weird moments when two people stare at each other in awkward silence, not knowing what to talk about?  That won’t happen with a girl who reads.
She is easy to buy gifts for.
Every time you want to surprise your special girl and get her something nice, it will be quite easy for you – just go to the local bookstore and pick a book or anything that is sold there. You will have to know her favorite writers/genres, but it’s much easier than picking a dress or perfume, believe me.
You’ll know what she’s doing most of the time.
What can I say? She’s quite loyal to her books
She can stay up for hours.
She’s used to staying up past midnight reading, so she could be quite a lively and fun company in the late hours.
She doesn’t need much to have a good time.
When I was at my old job, my boss sent me on a business trip to a mountain resort, so I decided to take my girl with me. Unfortunately, I was so busy for 5 days that I barely spent any time with her. Was she sad? No, not at all, she had a whole suitcase full of books with her, I think she managed to have some fun there. 
She’s not too clingy.
She needs her personal time. She knows when it’s time to be sweet as long as you know when it’s time to be silent.
She learns from the greatest authors
She doesn’t claim anything, unless she has read or studied it well. Most bookworms have grand knowledge of things most people have no idea of.
She’s probably a dreamer and will support every crazy idea you have.
Dreams make up a big portion of her life and as long as you support her in that, she will always be with you in every wacky undertaking. When I quit my job to start my websites, she was probably the only one who supported me. My journey was hard and if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have made it.
Thank you Eevee <3 p="">

FREE BOOKS: 100 legal sites to download literature

Looking for the next great book to sink your teeth into? Look no further. Below are over 100 links to websites that provide free e-books on a huge variety of topics.

Browse works by Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and other famous authors here.

1. Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.
2. The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.
3. Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.
4. Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.
5. Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.
6. Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.
7. Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.
8. Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.
9. The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.
10. Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.
11. Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.
12. Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.
13. Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
14. Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

Textbooks

If you don’t absolutely need to pay for your textbooks, save yourself a few hundred dollars by reviewing these sites.

15. Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.
16. Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.
17. KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.
18. Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.
19. Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.
20. MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.
21. Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.
22. Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.
23. Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.
24. eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

Math and Science

Turn to this list to find books about math, science, engineering and technology.

25. FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.
26. Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.
27. Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.
28. Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.
29. FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.
30. Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

Children’s Books

Even children’s books are now available online. Find illustrated books, chapter books and more.

31. byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.
32. Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.
33. International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.
34. Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

Philosophy and Religion

For books about philosophy and religion, check out these websites.

35. Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.
36. Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.
37. Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.
38. The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.
39. Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

Plays

From Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw to more contemporary playwrights, visit these sites.

40. ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.
41. Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.
42. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.
43. Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”
44. ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

Modern Fiction, Fantasy and Romance

These websites boast collections of graphic novels, romance novels, fantasy books and more.

45. Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.
46. The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.
47. Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.
48. Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.
49. Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.
50. The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.
51. Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.
52. John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.
53. SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.
54. Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

Foreign Language

For books in a foreign language like French, Spanish and even Romanian, look here.

55. Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.
56. ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.
57. Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.
58. Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.
59. Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.
60. KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.
61. Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.
62. Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.
63. Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.
64. Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.
65. Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.
66. Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.
67. Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.
68. CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.
69. Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

History and Culture

Refresh your memory of world history, the classics and U.S. history here.

70. LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.
71. The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.
72. Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.
73. Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.
74. Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.

Rare Books

Look for rare books online here.

75. Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.
76. …

Arts and Entertainment

This list features books about celebrities, movies, fashion and more.

77. Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.
78. Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.
79. Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.
80. 2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.
81. Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.
82. Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.
83. Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.
84. Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

Mystery

Here you can find mystery books from Sherlock Holmes to more contemporary authors.

85. MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.
86. TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.
87. Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

Poetry

These poetry sites have works by Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

88. The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.
89. Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”
90. Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.
91. Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.
92. Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.
93. QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.
94. CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.
95. PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

Miscellaneous

For even more free book sites, check out this list.

96. Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.
97. World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.
98. DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the more recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.
99. A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.
100. Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.
101. ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.
102. Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.
103. Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.

Mark Twain’s Top 9 Tips for Living a Kick-Ass Life

You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books, but what you may not know is how much of a bad ass he was at living life. Here are a few tips for living an awesome life from Mark Twain.

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He was a writer and also a humorist, satirist and lecturer.

Twain is known for his many – and often funny – quotes. Here are a few of my favourite tips from him.

1. Approve of yourself.

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

If you don’t approve of yourself, of your behaviour and actions then you’ll probably walk around most of the day with a sort of uncomfortable feeling. If you, on the other hand, approve of yourself then you tend to become relaxed and gain inner freedom to do more of what you really want.

This can, in a related way, be a big obstacle in personal growth. You may have all the right tools to grow in some way but you feel an inner resistance. You can’t get there.

What you may be bumping into there are success barriers. You are putting up barriers in your own mind of what you may or may not deserve. Or barriers that tell you what you are capable of. They might tell you that you aren’t really that kind of person that could this thing that you’re attempting.

Or if you make some headway in the direction you want to go you may start to sabotage for yourself. To keep yourself in a place that is familiar for you.

So you need give yourself approval and allow yourself to be who you want to be. Not look for the approval from others. But from yourself. To dissolve that inner barrier or let go of that self-sabotaging tendency. This is no easy task and it can take time.

2. Your limitations may just be in your mind.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

So many limitations are mostly in our minds. We may for instance think that people will disapprove because we are too tall, too old or balding. But these things mostly matter when you think they matter. Because you become self-conscious and worried about what people may think.

And people pick up on that and may react in negative ways. Or you may interpret anything they do as a negative reaction because you are so fearful of a bad reaction and so focused inward on yourself.

If you, on the other hand, don’t mind then people tend to not mind that much either. And if you don’t mind then you won’t let that part of yourself become a self-imposed roadblock in your life.

It is, for instance, seldom too late to do what you want to do.

3. Lighten up and have some fun.

“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”

“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Humor and laughter are amazing tools. They can turn any serious situation into something to laugh about. They can lighten the mood just about anywhere.

And a lighter mood is often a better space to work in because now your body and mind isn’t filled to the brim with negative emotions. When you are more light-hearted and relaxed then the solution to a situation is often easier to both come up with and implement. Have a look at Lighten Up! for more on this topic.

4. Let go of anger.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Anger is most of the time pretty pointless. It can cause situations to get out of hand. And from a selfish perspective it often more hurtful for the one being angry then the person s/he’s angry at.

So even if you feel angry at someone for days recognize that you are mostly just hurting yourself. The other person may not even be aware that you are angry at him or her. So either talking to the person and resolving the conflict or letting go of anger as quickly as possible are pretty good tips to make your life more pleasurable.

5. Release yourself from entitlement.

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

When you are young your mom and dad may give a lot of things. As you grow older you may have a sort of entitlement. You may feel like the world should just give you what you want or that it owes you something.

This belief can cause a lot of anger and frustration in your life. Because the world may not give you what expect it to. On the other hand, this can be liberating too. You realize that it is up to you to shape your own life and for you to work towards what you want. You are not a kid anymore, waiting for your parents or the world to give you something.

You are in the driver’s seat now. And you can go pretty much wherever you want.

6. If you’re taking a different path, prepare for reactions.

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

I think this has quite a bit of relevance to self-improvement.

If you start to change or do something different than you usually do then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is coming through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. I think it’s pretty likely that they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

So what other people may say and think and letting that hold you back is probably just fantasy and barrier you build in your mind.

You may find that when you finally cross that inner threshold you created then people around you may not shun you or go chasing after you with pitchforks.  They might just go: “OK”.

7. Keep your focus steadily on what you want.

“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

What you focus your mind on greatly determines how things play out. You can focus on your problems and dwell in suffering and a victim mentality. Or you can focus on the positive in situation, what you can learn from that situation or just focus your mind on something entirely else.

It may be “normal” to dwell on problems and swim around in a sea of negativity. But that is a choice. And a thought habit. You may reflexively start to dwell on problems instead of refocusing your mind on something more useful. But you can also start to build a habit of learning to gain more and more control of where you put your focus.

8. Don’t focus so much on making yourself feel good.

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”

This may be a bit of a counter-intuitive tip. But as I wrote yesterday, one of the best ways to feel good about yourself is to make someone else feel good or to help them in some way.

This is a great way to look at things to create an upward spiral of positivity and exchange of value between people. You help someone and both of you feel good. The person you helped feels inclined to give you a hand later on since people tend to want to reciprocate. And so the both of you are feeling good and helping each other.

Those positive feelings are contagious to other people and so you may end up making them feel good too. And the help you received from your friend may inspire you to go and help another friend. And so the upward spiral grows and continues.

9. Do what you want to do.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Awesome quote. And I really don’t have much to add to that one. Well, maybe to write it down and keep it as a daily reminder – on your fridge or bathroom door – of what you can actually do with your life.