Visit the Project Gutenberg, Bibliomania or Bartleby websites if you wish to read a classic text. If you are looking for a contemporary, copyrighted text, try Google Books. There is a database of freely available works at the DMOZ Open Directory Project, while Novels Online and The eBook Directory provide comprehensive lists of online reading resources. A large number of romance novels are available at Public Bookshelf.
Search for the book you wish to read by title, author's name or keyword. Project Gutenberg offers advanced search options, "bookshelves" organized by theme, and a book catalog organized by title as well as author's last name. Bibliomania allows you to search for books by section or collection name, and then provides a list of relevant titles. Bartleby provides indexes by author, title and subject, as well as a drop-down menu of fiction works organized by author. If you use Google Books, you can search by title or author. Results will often contain several versions of the same work, some of which may be available in full text or preview formats.
Browse for a book, if you do not have a particular title in mind. Many websites dedicated to self-published online novels are geared primarily toward browsing, though other websites also have browsing capabilities. Public Bookshelf, which is organized by theme, includes synopses of available novels. The DMOZ Open Directory Project lists books by theme and author.
Download or view your chosen title, depending on the website's specific capabilities. Project Gutenberg books can be downloaded in ePub, Kindle, HTML or simple text formats. Bibliomania and Bartleby allow you to view re-formatted texts onscreen by chapter or part, while Google Books, which has viewing but not downloading capabilities, reproduces the book's original format and pagination.
Visit LibriVox if you are interested in accessing free audio books. Volunteers create LibriVox recordings, from works already in the public domain. They are available by chapter, either to download or to stream. LibriVox provides a title and author search option as well as a catalog for browsing.