Best way to read ebooks on a computer (Mac)?

[Jumbles]

This may be hard to believe but I am younger than 100 and have never purchased an ebook! (though I have borrowed them from the library and read free books as pdfs.)

I would like to purchase ebooks and manage and read them using Calibre (as opposed to Kindle for Mac or Apple Books) on my MacBook Pro, without using an ereader device to add them to Calibre. Is that possible? I think what I am asking for is a recommendation for a place to buy ebooks that will allow me to do that and/or a more general workflow for achieving that goal.

Any assistance much appreciated!

[Joliet Jake]

I guess you have few responses because few people use Macs. I assume the process is similar with a PC.

If you don't use an e-reader, your best best are any sites that sell books without DRM. A lot of smaller publishers, like Baen Books (speculative fiction website) sell such ebooks. Most of these sites will offer ePubs, and either Mobi or AZW. (Calibre can freely convert between these formats, so it doesn't matter which one you get.) You might also be able to get PDFs, but those are painful if you use an e-reader.

iBooks exist, but I don't know if you can get those from a mobile device to your Mac.

It's simple:

1. Download the book. I would have a specialized directory/folder to download the ebooks into.
2. Go into Calibre and upload the book from there. (Calibre will store the books in a separate directory/folder. You can delete the ebooks from the specialized directory/folder afterward.)
3. Tell Calibre to back up your ebooks. You do this by selecting Calibre library, and then export. This will backup all your ebooks, preferably in a different drive (such as a USB key).

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by Jumbles

... I would like to purchase ebooks and manage and read them using Calibre (as opposed to Kindle for Mac or Apple Books) on my MacBook Pro, without using an ereader device to add them to Calibre. Is that possible? I think what I am asking for is a recommendation for a place to buy ebooks that will allow me to do that and/or a more general workflow for achieving that goal.

Originally Posted by Joliet Jake

I guess you have few responses because few people use Macs ...

Well, I am a Mac user and I didn't respond because I use an ereader and Jumbles didn't want to use an ereader.

It's been a while since I purchased anything outside of Amazon, but I think you can do what you want if you purchase books from Kobo or Google Play. You will need the DeDRM plugin from noDRM's GitHub. Check out the FAQ for instructions.