Books APIs

Book information and library APIs

17 APIs in this category · last checked 2 October 2026
17
APIs listed
14
need no API key (82%)
8
CORS enabled (47%)
17
HTTPS (100%)

This directory lists 17 books APIs. 7 of them require no API key and support CORS, so you can call them directly from browser JavaScript with no backend and no sign-up. Every entry shows whether it needs authentication, serves over HTTPS and allows cross-origin requests, so you can pick one that fits your stack before you read a single doc page.

Showing 17 of 17 APIs

Gutendex

Gutendex serves JSON metadata for Project Gutenberg ebooks, including authors, subjects, languages and download formats, searchable by title, with no signup or API key needed.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Unknown

Ganjoor

Ganjoor's public API returns classical Persian poetry texts, poets and recitation artifacts from the Ganjoor digital library, with read access open and no API key required.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Unknown

Quran Cloud

Alquran Cloud returns Quran text by Surah or Ayah plus dozens of translations and audio recitation links, free to use with no key, built on the alquran.cloud REST service.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Yes

The Bible

The American Bible Society's api.bible service gives access to hundreds of Bible translations in USX format, with a free Starter plan capped at 5000 requests per month.

Auth: apiKey HTTPS CORS: Unknown

Bible-api

Bible-api.com returns verses and passages in 17 translations including KJV, ASV and WEB, needs no signup, but limits requests to 15 calls every 30 seconds per IP address.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Yes

Rig Veda

Indica's Rig Veda API returns hymn metadata including poets, gods and meters for all ten mandalas, free and keyless, with a live sandbox for testing queries before use.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Unknown

Thirukkural

Returns all 1330 Thirukkural couplets with Tamil text, English translation and bilingual explanations by kural number, free to query with no API key required.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Yes

Wolne Lektury

Wolne Lektury's API delivers metadata, full texts and audiobook links for Polish public domain literature, free and keyless, returning JSON by default with optional XML output.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Unknown

Wizard World

Wizard World returns Harry Potter data covering wizards, spells, elixirs, houses and magical creatures through a documented OpenAPI 3 spec, free to use with no API key needed.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Yes

Crossref Metadata Search

Crossref's REST API returns bibliographic metadata for scholarly books, articles and proceedings, free with no signup, though adding a mailto contact parameter unlocks a faster polite request pool.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Unknown

Vedic Society

Indica's Vedic Society API returns Sanskrit noun meanings grouped by category such as flora, fauna and kinship, free and keyless, with a live sandbox for testing queries.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Unknown

PoetryDB

PoetryDB returns classic English poems by author, title or line count in JSON or plain text, free with no signup, covering works from poets such as Shelley and Shakespeare.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Yes

Open Library

Open Library returns book, author and cover data from millions of catalog records, free with no key, limited to one request per second unless you send a contact email in the user agent.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: No

Quran-api

Fawazahmed0's Quran API serves over 440 translations in 90 plus languages via free jsDelivr CDN hosting, needs no key, has no rate limit and includes transliteration options.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Yes

Penguin Publishing

Penguin Random House's REST service returns author, work, title and cover data for its catalog in XML or JSON, secured with HTTP Basic authentication credentials requested from Penguin.

Auth: apiKey HTTPS CORS: Yes

Google Books

Google Books lets you search volumes and retrieve covers, descriptions and previews, needs a free Google API key for public data and OAuth only for private user bookshelves.

Auth: apiKey HTTPS CORS: Unknown

Bhagavad Gita Telugu

Gita-api.vercel.app returns Bhagavad Gita chapters and verses translated into Telugu and Odia, hosted free on Vercel, with no API key or signup required to query it.

Auth: No HTTPS CORS: Yes

Best Books and Library APIs for Developers

A books API allows developers to retrieve book metadata, ISBN lookups, library catalog records, and author information for use in reading apps, educational platforms, and e-commerce sites. These APIs save the effort of manually curating book databases.

Open Library and Gutendex are the best starting points for free, keyless book metadata, covering millions of public domain and modern catalog records. Google Books adds cover images and previews for a huge catalog but needs a Google API key. Crossref is the pick for academic and scholarly works, free and most reliable once you add a contact email for the polite request pool.

Religious text APIs are unusually well served here: API.Bible, Bible-api.com and the Quran and Bhagavad Gita APIs all offer free keyless access to multiple translations. The main pitfall in this category is licensing and freshness: Open Library and Penguin Random House restrict commercial or bulk use, and several hobby projects on free hosts like Heroku or Vercel can disappear without notice, so check an API is still live before shipping.

What to check before you pick one

  • Catalog size: Larger catalogs like Google Books and Open Library cover more obscure titles and editions.
  • Cover image availability: High-quality cover images are important for visually rich reading apps.
  • ISBN resolution: Confirm the API can resolve both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 formats accurately.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are books APIs?

Books APIs provide programmatic access to book metadata including titles, authors, ISBNs, cover images, descriptions, library catalog records, and reading list data.

Is the Open Library API free?

Yes. The Open Library API from the Internet Archive is completely free with no authentication required. It covers millions of books with rich bibliographic data.

How do I look up a book by ISBN using an API?

APIs like Open Library and Google Books allow you to query by ISBN-10 or ISBN-13. Send a GET request with the ISBN as a parameter and receive JSON metadata including title, author, and cover image URL.

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