Random Book Generator

Draw three, keep one

Three books are on the page when it opens. Press Pick 3 new books for three more. On a keyboard the space bar does the same. For a longer list, press Add another at its end; the × on a row makes it shorter. The All books menu narrows the draw to free ebooks, award winners or one of six kinds of book, from Literary fiction to True stories and ideas. Many books sit in several groups, so Frankenstein turns up as sci-fi, as horror and as free. To keep a book, take the others away with the × at the end of their rows: the next press fills the gaps and leaves what you kept. Nothing repeats until you have seen every book in the group you chose.

How to read the prize lines

The five prize lists were read from their winner tables on 18 September 2026. The Pulitzer has gone to American fiction since 1918. It was the Prize for the Novel until 1947 and for Fiction from 1948, and each line uses the name of its day. The Booker Prize began in 1969 and the Newbery Medal, for American children's books, in 1922. A Hugo Award, first given in 1953, carries the year it was handed out. A Nebula is named for the year of the novels judged, so Dune holds the Nebula for 1965 and the Hugo of 1966. Twenty-six books here won both. Every other book shows the year it was first published, or no year where none could be confirmed.

What Free ebook means

A book marked Free ebook was found in English in the catalog of Project Gutenberg, the volunteer-run online library. Search the title at gutenberg.org to read it in a browser or send it to an e-reader, with no account needed. Most of the 277 are there because United States copyright has run out: since 1 January 2026 that covers books published in 1930 or earlier. Twenty-one prize winners are among them, including The Age of Innocence and The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. Copyright terms differ between countries, so check the rule where you live.

• Book club: let each member take away a book they do not want with × and press the button again until all five are keepers, then vote.
• Build a reading year from the All books menu: draw one book from each of the eight groups, and four months stay open for your own choices.
• Want to start tonight? Choose Free on Project Gutenberg in the All books menu, take the first title that comes up, and search it at gutenberg.org.
• The Children's and teen group runs from picture books such as Goodnight Moon to novels for older teenagers, so read the line under the title and judge the age fit yourself.