Internet retail giant Amazon.com on Thursday opened a lending library of digital books available free to owners of its popular Kindle electronic readers.
To borrow from the Kindle online library people must be members of Prime, a premium Amazon service that provides free two-day shipping on all items purchased and unlimited streaming of online films and television shows.
The annual subscription fee for Amazon Prime is $79.
"We're introducing a new Prime benefit built for Kindle: The Kindle Owners' Lending Library," said Amazon.com chief executive Jeff Bezos.
"Prime Members now have exclusive access to a huge library of books to read on any Kindle device at no additional cost and with no due dates," he continued.
The library boasted thousands of works including many from New York Times best-seller lists. People can borrow one book each month.
Books in the Amazon library include "The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins and "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen.
Amazon worked out deals to pay publishers fees for lending books.
All Kindle owners recently got access to digital books from public libraries.