#book apps

I unfortunately use goodreads because I think it's simple and I like the community aspect. I also track using storygraph because I love visually seeing stats. and I tried using fable but it's just too much for me lol

I’m sick of Goodreads, so I was looking through the App Store and it was surprising how many new apps there are for books.

Well, 2025 is starting on a sour note for the bookish community as there is controversy surrounding one of the newer book-tracking apps, Fable.  I’m so enraged by what’s happening that I needed to summarize what’s going on, why generative AI is bad, and why I won’t be using Fable as a reading-tracking app. Continue reading Fable Reader App Controversy: Generative AI, Racism, and Why I Won’t…

Personally it's up to you. 😊

There's apps with free e-books and apps with free audio books.

Apps with free books tend to have much older books and less rare out of print or modern books. Examples of books they'll have: Ivanhoe (medieval), Dracula (19th century), Ulysses (early 20th century).

Examples of apps with free e-books: Gutenberg, librivox, free books and audio.

Examples of books with free audio books: librivox and free books and audio.

I prefer free books and audio (the app) as its audio is much clearer, the voice actors' reading is more natural, slower and clearer than most readings on librivox, which is easy for non English speakers to understand. Free books and audio uses only the clearest audio and reading from librivox. Also, on free books and audio's audio books, there's much less static.

The largest range of e-books you can buy and read other than Amazon Kindle are on the Kobo app.

Kobo has less books than Amazon, however it has a much wider range of books than other paid book apps. Kobo is free to download, but most of their books cost money. For reference: you can find rare books by Diana Wynne Jones on Kobo.

Kobo's e-books have no space between paragraphs and sentence lines are uneven, so you'll find it harder to read if you have dyslexia, adhd or autism. You can only enlarge e-book letter size in Kobo four times - whereas in Kindle you can enlarge font at least eight times if you have bad eyesight.

The Thrift books app lets you order and buy second hand paperback, hardcover and audio books at half price. Prices for books can range from $3 to $11 per book, although hard to find and popular books that would normally cost $50 now cost $25 on this app. Unfortunately they don't have any e-books.

If you don't have much money, then you can borrow e-books, audio books, comic books, academic journals, online photos, picture books and electronic maps for free from your country's local libraries' websites.

You can also download the library apps Libby and Overdrive to borrow books from main libraries.

Please note: you need a library card and your library needs to be registered with Libby and Overdrive, if you want to borrow online academic journals, comic books, e-books, audio books and magazines through their apps.

To register your library with Libby, ask your library to email Libby and fill in a short request form to be registered with Libby. Large urban libraries around the world are more likely to be registered with Libby than small rural libraries.

I've tested the Libby app in January 2020. Audio from their audio books - such as Tamora Pierce's Immortals quartet, have excellent sound, voice acting, speed and pronunciation, and no static.

You can read electronic magazines on the app zinio. Zinio can be downloaded onto your mobile phone, ipad, electronic tablet, laptop or desktop computer through the google play app store.

Bookmate's app also allows you to buy and download e-books for fiction and non fiction. You can download their app from the google play app store. I've read reviews on google play that say you may need to resubscribe every month - if this happens to you, call or email their customer

service department to fix this. You can also post book reviews and see a list of recommended books with this app.