gutenberg API for agents (unofficial) — JSON over curl | clify
Project Gutenberg, a free public-domain eBook library. This CLI reads book details, lists books by author, subject, reading list or category, shows the top-downloaded and newly posted books, finds related books, and downloads plain text and RDF metadata.
Host: gutenberg.org. Call these verified read commands with plain curl; no install, key, or account. Use the public JSON API with plain curl. No install, key, account, or browser is needed. Example: curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/sites.json'. Start with /search?q=weather, then call /abc/COMMAND. Responses are one JSON object. The hosted MCP and GitHub repo are also available.
Commands
get-book
Get one eBook's detail page: title, summary, the bibliographic table (author, subjects, language, release date, downloads) and the author link Params: id*
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/get-book'
list-author-books
List the eBooks by one author (25 per page), sorted by popularity, title or release date Params: author_id*, sort_order, start_index
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-author-books?start_index=26'
list-subject-books
List the eBooks under a Library-of-Congress-style subject (25 per page) Params: subject_id*, sort_order, start_index
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-subject-books'
list-bookshelf-books
List the eBooks on a reading list (bookshelf) or in a main category (25 per page) Params: bookshelf_id*, sort_order, start_index
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-bookshelf-books?sort_order=title&start_index=26'
list-bookshelves
List all volunteer-curated reading lists (bookshelves) A–Z with their links Params: none
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-bookshelves'
search-bookshelves
Find reading lists and categories whose names match keywords (use | to OR several terms) Params: query*, sort_order
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/search-bookshelves?query=crime%7Cdetective%7Cmystery'
list-categories
List the main subject categories (Literature, Science & Technology, History, …) with their bookshelf links Params: none
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-categories'
get-top-downloads
Top 100 most-downloaded eBooks and authors for yesterday, the last 7 days and the last 30 days Params: none
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/get-top-downloads'
list-also-downloaded
Books that readers of a given eBook also downloaded (related books) Params: id*
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-also-downloaded'
get-book-text
Download the full plain-text (UTF-8) content of an eBook Params: id*
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/get-book-text'
get-book-rdf
Get an eBook's machine-readable RDF/XML catalog metadata (title, creators, subjects, formats), converted to JSON Params: id*
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/get-book-rdf'
list-new-books
eBooks posted or updated today (RSS feed of new releases) Params: none
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-new-books'
list-featured-books
The home page shelves: about 10 newest releases followed by about 10 most popular books Params: none
curl 'https://clify-dev.netlify.app/gutenberg/list-featured-books'