Nearly a year after adding LIFE Magazine image archives to its image search, Google is now offering digitized versions of LIFE Magazine through its book search. The digital archive covers all 1,860 issues spanning from 1936 to 1972.
You can access LIFE by going directly to Google Books and clicking on one of the covers. Once you do, you'll be taken to that issue's overview page.
You'll notice links to various articles on the overview page:
Below the links, you can browse through thumbnails of the covers for every issue:
Below that is a map of all the places mentioned in the issue you're currently browsing:
Going back up to the articles section, after clicking on a link, it will bring up the digital version of the article. You can "flip" through the magazine as if it were a print edition.
