Sony’s eBook Store Now Provides Access To Google Books

Barnes & Noble may have claimed to have the world’s largest eBookstore for a while, but Sony is right on its heels, having just announced that its eBook Store will provide access to more than one million free public domain books from Google. These books include classics such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, biographies, historical texts, romance novels, and hundreds of other genres.

Google digitized the available titles as part of its Google Books project. Now, the titles are available in EPUB format and optimized for current models of the Sony Reader Digital Book.

“We are committed to ensuring our customers have the freedom to discover and read content from the widest possible range of sources,” said Chris Smythe, director of the eBook Store from Sony. “We’re proud to offer access to the broadest range of eBooks today – from hot new releases, to New York Times Best Sellers, to classics and hard to find manuscripts such as those available for free from Google.”

Sony Reader owners in the U.S. can download andtransfer any of the free ebooks to their PRS-505 or PRS-700 Reader using the Sony’s eBook Store (http://ebookstore.sony.com). New eBook Store users will need to set up an account and download Sony’s free eBook Library software before they can access the available titles.