When it comes to getting your book fix, you’ve got plenty of options. You can always pick up an actual book, but if you’re not into that, and you’d rather read on your phone, where do you go?
You could download a dedicated e-reader app (Nook or Kindle, for example), and get all your reading material through that. Or, if you prefer something a bit less tied to a specific platform, you could download a service like Scribd or Oyster. Both offer access to magazines and books from multiple publishers for a low monthly subscription price.
But sometimes those options aren’t enough—sometimes you want the convenience of an e-reader app but with more variety of selection than what a single publisher has to offer. And that’s where we come in: we have fantastic books from across the publishing spectrum—and an app to match!
Best Apps For Reading Books
When futurists in the early 90’s predicted that one day we would read books on computers, critics laughed and scoffed. After all, nobody could imagine reading an entire book on those early, low-resolution monitors that strained their eyes.
They pictured people sitting in their desk chairs and staring at a blinking cursor, rather than curling up with an iPad on the sofa. Since the naysayers failed to predict other changes that would create an entirely different User Experience (UX), they dismissed the prediction outright.
Today, printed books still outsell e-books, but e-books have captured one-third of the book selling market, which is pretty amazing if you think about it. We went from assuming nobody would ever give up that visceral feeling of holding a book in their hands and turning the pages, to one-third of the world swiping along on a virtual page.
What’s responsible for this change? Some of it has to do with the hardware. Tablets and e-readers are lighter than ever and the resolution is amazing, with imagery that doesn’t strain our eyes. The rest of the change, however, comes down to the software and the unique features that the best reader apps provide. This is where you should pay attention.
Why Every App Entrepreneur Should Study the Best E-book Reader Apps
Every app entrepreneur should study reader apps, no matter what kind of app they’re thinking of selling!
See, you can learn a lot about designing a solid digital product by studying the best book reading apps on the market. What features do they offer that keep their users coming back? What is it about their UX design that makes consumers choose these apps over countless other options?
We’ll take a careful look at what the best reader apps have to offer, exploring how a strong mobile app development strategy enhances the mobile user experience and generates serious revenue.
10 Best Book Reading Apps for Android and iOS
Here are the top ten most popular book apps—the ones that have created a UX so impressive that their users keep coming back. We have also listed the key features for each app to highlight what works.
- Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle book reading app
Android Rating: 4.0
iOS Rating: 4.8
A 1990’s Newsweek article joked that Amazon.com would have to change its name to “Toast.com” after Barnes & Noble announced they’d be getting into the online book selling business. Yet another bold prediction that proved ridiculous in hindsight.
Kindle, the book reading app by Amazon, is the undisputed leader of the digital reading app market. You can easily download the app on your smartphone or buy its proprietary device to store all your ebooks. The robust and well-designed Kindle app gives you access to over seven million ebooks.
Key Features:
Kindle unlimited membership availability
Text page customizations are available
Brightness and background customizations are available
Offers a built-in dictionary for all the Kindle books
Reading progress tracking
Book synchronization across devices
Download: Android, iOS
- Nook
Nook book reading app
Android Rating: 4.6
iOS Rating: 4.8
The creation of American bookseller Barnes & Nobles, the Nook readER app, offers a digital reading experience that can rival the Kindle. Kindle, of course, remains more popular due to Amazon’s market dominance, but the Nook has a strong following and high ratings on both the Android and Apple stores.
This mobile book app supports an online repository of over four million ebooks across several genres (fiction + non-fiction), magazines, comics, and graphic novels.
Key Features:
Built-in recommendation system for the book reader app
Choice of wide and varied fonts and page styles
Social sharing options are available
Synchronization across devices
“Read and record” feature for reading stories to kids
Can add bookmarks, highlights, and notes
Can organize your personal library under categories
Download: Android, iOS
- Google Play Books
Google play books reading app
Android Rating: 4.1
Google Play Books is the best way to read ebooks on Android devices. The app supports ebooks, comics, and audiobooks. You can download books from the Google books platform, which features over 130 million distinct titles. Google Play Books is a free reading app with no subscription required. Just pay directly for each book you read and you’re good to go.
Now, we should note that Google Play Books’ success is not just a result of a well-designed UX. One advantage that Google has over its competitors is that it has indexed all the books in its library. In other words, if you do a search for a quote that appeared in, say, Physicist Richard Feynman’s autobiography, there’s a good chance that page in the book will pop up as a sample you can access. If it does, there’s a good chance you’re more likely to buy the book from Google Play.
This may seem like an unfair advantage, and some authors have complained that it’s a copyright infringement, but Google won their Supreme Court Case on the issue.
Key Features:
Built-in recommendation engine
Access to audiobooks for listening on-the-go
Can preview free samples of books before making a purchase
Bubble zoom feature brings comic book art to life
Can take notes that you can sync with Google Drive
Night-light setting for comfortable reading at bedtime
Download: Android
- Scribd
Scribd book reading app
Android Rating: 4.5
iOS Rating: 4.7
Scribd is one of the best book reading apps you’ll find on the Android and Apple app stores, especially if you’re looking for a variety of material. It offers an ad-free experience combined with a free trial offer for new members. The app supports millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and sheet music for musicians.
Key Features:
Massive sheet music collection
Supports document library for research, government reports, and case studies
Can customize the narration speed for audiobooks
Download option to read or listen, even offline
Ability to set a sleep timer
Can add notes and bookmarks
A choice between vertical and horizontal page scrolling
Download: Android, iOS
- Apple Books
Apple books reading app
iOS Rating: NA
Apple books is one of the best book reading apps out there, but it’s available only on iOS devices — iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc. The app offers access to millions of ebooks and audiobooks with a few clicks. All you need is an Apple ID, an internet connection, and (of course) an Apple device to get started.
Key Features:
Built-in recommendation system
Can add your preferred books to the “Want to Read” section
Can listen to ebooks from your Apple Watch
Easy to read page colors and font customizations are available
Auto-night theme available to keep you from straining your eyes
Family sharing option available for up to five members
Organize books into a personal collection
Download: iOS
- Kobo Books
Kobo Books reading app
Android Rating: 4.3
iOS Rating: 4.6
Kobo is a free book app that offers more of an indie shop experience, offering books in over nine languages. The app also has an impressive search feature that provides easy access to your favorite books based on author, title, topic, and genre.
Key Features:
Gain Kobo super points with every purchase
Reading customization available, including night mode settings
Time left for completion feature available for audiobooks
Can set a timer when listening to audiobooks
Device synchronization available
Download: Android, iOS
- Audible
Audible audiobook app
Android Rating: 4.5
iOS Rating: 4.8
Audible is Amazon’s go-to source for audio books, featuring all the latest editions for millions of best sellers.
Even though it’s not a traditional “reader” in the truest sense of the word, Audible has become immensely popular, allowing book sellers and authors to reach a wider audience. Everyone from daily commuters to gym-goers can enjoy books they otherwise might not have time to enjoy—all in an audio format. The app can also keep users updated with news articles from the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and the New York Times.
Using a subscription model, Audible is a powerful source of recurring revenue for Amazon. Each month users get a certain number of credits based on the plan they purchase, and those credits allow them to download books they’ll have access to for the rest of their lives. All these features make it the most popular audio book app on the market.
Key Features:
“Download and listen” option for offline access
Maintain access to your library for life—even after you cancel
Swap option for exchanging audiobooks
Can set a sleep timer to stop listening
Audible Daily Deals for affordable book pricing
Wide variety of narrators available
Download: Android, iOS
- Moon + Reader
Moon+Reader book reading app
Android Rating: 4.3
Moon+ Reader is only available for Android devices and is considered one of the best book apps for Android. The app was even selected for Google Play’s Editors’ choice for 2018 for the value it offers its users. It supports thousands of books across many genres and over 20 ebook formats.
Key Features:
Numerous page customizations are available
Day- and night-mode switcher
Five auto-scroll modes are available
Availability to trim down unwanted whitespaces
“Keep your eyes healthy” option to reduce eye strain
Supports four screen orientations
Highlight, annotations, and dictionary available
Download: Android
- PocketBook Reader
PocketBook-Reader book reading app
Android Rating: 4.6
iOS Rating: 4.4
PocketBook Reader is a free books app for reading ebooks, magazines, comics, articles, and much more. The reading books app supports nearly 26 ebooks and audio formats and offers an ad-free experience. Also, special formats are available for comics.
Key Features:
Built-in text-to-speech engine
Cloud-enabled app for synchronizing books and audiobooks
ISBN Scanner for finding books with the help of a barcode
Easy navigation and minimalistic (flat) design
Supports two night-reading modes
Page-turning animation can be customized
Can create widgets on the home page for easy cloud service access
Built-in dictionary and translator available
Download: Android, iOS
- OverDrive
OverDrive book reading app
Android Rating: 4.6
iOS Rating: 4.6
This one-of-a-kind app lets users borrow ebooks, audiobooks, and even videos from their local library’s digital collection. OverDrive attracts support from across 40,000 libraries worldwide, making it one of the best book reading apps available. All users need is an active account through supported libraries or institutions.
Key Features:
No late fees—the book is automatically returned on the due date
Can create holds and wishlists to queue up your favorite books
Also offers audiobooks for listening on-the-go
Movies and TV shows are also available
Variable speed playback for audiobooks and videos
Reading experience customizations available
Quick and easy navigation for better customer experience
Download: Android
Countless Ways to Serve Your Customers
You probably don’t work for a bookseller, and chances are you aren’t planning to go into the e-reader business since it’s mostly dominated by international booksellers. That said, hopefully you see the value in studying the best book reading apps—no matter what kind of online business you want to create.
If you’re interested in creating any kind of app, it helps to look at established industries and see what the very best apps are doing to serve their customers and create an unforgettable User Experience. In fact, we’ve created a series of blog posts that do just that. We have blog posts exploring: the best dating apps, the best food delivery apps, the best rideshare apps, the best fitness apps, and more!
E-readers are a mature industry. And a “mature” industry in the tech world is one that has been around for five years or more and has plenty of competition. Competition sparks innovation, as product teams rush to deliver new features that set them apart from the rest. All this makes studying the leaders an essential practice for anyone who wants to sell their own app, no matter what kind of app they want to create.
read books offline for free
Apart from serving as a constant companion in solitude, books serve as food for the mind by stimulating our imagination and creativity. However, buying a new book each time can burn a hole in your pockets. Thankfully we have lots of free books online, ready to be read or downloaded without costing you a dime!
Where to read books online for free?
We have compiled a list of the best sites where you can read free ebooks online and download them legally to create your own library of favorite virtual books. In this list of top 12 sites mentioned below, you will find a comprehensive assortment of completely free online books, ranging from classic novels to computer technology guides.
But before you jump to the list of free sites to download ebooks, do check out our other lists of free and legal services:
Free Movie Download Websites That Are Completely Legal
Best Websites To Download Paid PC Games For Free, Legally
Best Websites To Download Paid Software For Free, Legally
Best Websites For Legal Torrents And Safe Downloading
Now, let’s start this list and tell you different places to grab some amazing stuff to read online or download —
Top 12 websites to download free books online
- Open Library
open library
“One web page for every book ever published” – is the ultimate goal of Open Library, an initiative of the quite popular Internet Archive which serves as a digital library of Internet sites.
There are millions of free books to read on the website which can be downloaded in other formats such as EPUB, DJVU, MOBI, and PDF. You can search for good reading material on varied subjects and genres such as Fantasy, Biographies, History, Medicine, Art, etc.
Open Library has an advanced search option as well that lets you search ebooks through titles or authors. In case you cannot remember either of them, you can search for a particular free book to read online just by entering a favorite line from the book.
Why use Open Library?
An extensive collection of free online books in all almost every category one can think of
Easy to download full books for free in different formats
Visit Open Library
- Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
With a huge archive of over 57,000 free books for downloading, this website offers a diversified reading collection for readers. As Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to make books available for free of cost, it neither charges any registration fee nor requires you to sign up.
From Classics to Periodicals and History to Social Sciences, there are free books available on all types of subjects. You can search for specific titles or explore by genre and download books in EPUB, MOBI Kindle, HTML, and simple text format too.
In case reading books online is on your resolution list for 2019, do check this free books site as several books are scheduled to enter the public domain for this year. Another perk this site offers is directly saving ebooks to cloud storing services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive easy access.
Why use Project Gutenberg?
Best for Classical Novels
Same genre books categorized as ‘bookshelves’ for easy browsing
Visit Project Gutenberg
- ManyBooks
Manybooks – best sites to read free ebooks online
With more than 50,000 free online books available on the website, ManyBooks serves as an excellent option for bibliophiles to appease their craving for good books. The site hosts a variegated collection of books formatted for eReaders like Kindle and other popular formats such as EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT, etc.
Browsing for books is quite easy on ManyBooks as it offers neatly categorized sections of texts in different genres. Moreover, it has a Recommended and Featured Authors section that can help readers pick their next book.
Every ebook page on this site contains helpful information such as genre, author’s name and word count. As most of the content on ManyBook belongs to the public domain, you can download books legally and free of cost.
Why use ManyBooks?
Recommended for both classic and contemporary books
Flesch-Kincaid score on each ebook to indicate how easy or difficult it is to read
Lets you download books in all formats right from a zip file to PDF to suit your reading device
Visit ManyBooks
- Bookboon
This website offers free books to read online on every category you can think of. If you are specifically looking for an educational textbook or business book, Bookboon will help you find exactly what you need.
This free book site has thousands of ebooks ready to be download and read. You just need to visit the free section and enter a few details to download books. The website is easy to navigate and well categorized.
Apart from English, Bookboon offers texts in other languages such as German, Dutch, Danish, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Spanish and Czech.
Why use Bookboon?
Best for downloading educational and business books
Free books online in multiple languages
All books available in PDF format
Visit Bookboon website
- Feedbooks
Feedbooks
Feedbooks offers an immense collection of original as well as public domain books for free. The website has a neat interface with well-cataloged sections of books ranging from Short Stories, Mystery Novels, Action, Fantasy, History to even Academic Books and much more.
The Download page for each book displays helpful information such as synopsis, word count, reading hours, publishing date, etc. You can download books online for free without signing up in standard formats such as EPUB, MOBI, and PDF.
Exploring new reading material on Feedbook is easy with the search options. You can find the free books to read on Free Public Domain Books and Free Original Books section. Besides, it has sections like Bestsellers, New Releases and Editorial Reviews which can help you to find new books to read online.
Why use Feedbooks?
No registration required
Mobile browser friendly website
Fast website and easy to navigate.
Visit Feedbooks
- Free-eBooks
Free-ebooks
The tagline of this website “Read Anywhere. Anytime” says it all. Free-eBooks offers good literary works of fiction, non-fiction, and academic texts. The UI of the site may seem a little cluttered, but if you spend some time digging around the website, you will find a lot of free books to read.
There is a featured section on the website which showcases the best ebooks at a particular time and great books of all time. Browse through categories to find what you like. Although there is a limit of 5 ebook downloads per month and that too in PDF format, the rich collection of free books to read on the website makes up for it.
Why use Free-eBooks?
Showcases curated lists of genre-specific books and best pick of the month to help you discover good reading material
Offers audiobooks as well
Visit Free-eBooks
- LibriVox
Would you rather listen to books instead of reading them? Try LibriVox. It is a digital library of audiobooks which are absolutely free. The free audiobooks are read by volunteers that work to release quality recordings of classic books.
Even though audiobooks aren’t technically ebooks, it is surely a great way to enjoy books when you are on the move and keeps you entertained. It is also a great help for the visually impaired and helps them enjoy great literary works for free.
You can download the titles in MP3 and there are links to the ebook versions available on each title’s page. LibriVox also runs weekly podcast in case you are interested. Since all books are recorded in 128 kbit/s, it makes a pleasant listening experience.
Why use LibriVox?
Best site for downloading free audiobooks
Good quality audio
Helpful for visually impaired
- Smashwords
Smashwords
If you are looking for some literary work by Indie authors, Smashwords is the right place to look. This online directory of books offers content created by independent authors and publishers across the world.
The collection of online books present on Smashwords includes several subject topics and genres such as Adventure, Business, Classics, Fantasy, History, Religion, Philosophy and many more. Just make sure you click the “free” tab before searching for a book.
You can search the platform using quick filter buttons like word count and ratings to find ebooks according to your tastes and download free ebooks in various formats such as EPUB, MOBI, PDB, and TXT.
Why use Smashwords?
A collection of over 475,000 online ebooks to read
For those who have a penchant for writing, can publish on their literary work on this platform
Visit Smashwords
- PDF Books World
PDFbooksworld
If you are looking for a good website where you can read and download ebooks in PDF format for free, your search ends here. This ebook publisher digitizes books that have attained the public domain status to be downloaded in PDF format which can be read on many devices.
The interface of PDF Books World is easy to use, and the content has been categorized into fiction, non-fiction, novels, academic and juvenile section. The comprehensive bookshelves on this platform offer free pdf books on any subject for readers of all ages.
Unlike other platforms, PDF Books World does not list any download links to external websites. Instead, they store it on their server itself and offer free membership for a lifetime.
Why use PDF Books World?
For downloading free ebooks in PDF format
Visit PDF Books World
- Bookyards
Bookyards
This web portal lets you browse thousands of free books online as well as audiobooks in various genres like Art, Biography, Computers, Fiction, History and much more.
Bookyard has a pretty simple webpage where you can either publish or download books for free according to authors or categories you prefer. Downloading content from Bookyards is hassle-free and does not require registration.
Visitors to this website can also choose to donate if they wish to and check out the educational links to more reference materials and documents.
Why use Bookyards?
For downloading PDF books and converting it to Kobo
Easy sharing option on various platforms
Visit Bookyards
- Hathi Trust
HathiTrust – best site to read books onlineHathi Trust is a digital library dedicated to the student community. It has been formed by a partnership of major research institutions and libraries who have joined hands to ensure that all cultural records are preserved in a digitized format for the use of future generations.
Numerous academic research organizations in the U.S. and libraries around the world act as the source of digitized content hosted on this website. It has a powerful search option which lets you find free books online in is database through titles or authors.
Hathi Trust has a compilation of pre-curated collections of texts on topics such as Ancestry, Manuscripts, and Old Psychology Texts. One can read books online on this website without registration, but downloading them requires you to sign up.
Why use Hathi Trust?
For classic literary work and academic texts
Visit Hathi Trust
- Wikibooks
Wikibooks – read free books online
If you are looking for non-fiction content, Wikibooks might be the best place to begin. As a part of the non-profit organization Wikimedia Foundation, the site hosts an extensive collection of ebooks on subjects like Humanities, Engineering, Computing, Science, Languages, and other academic topics.
Navigating through the website is pretty easy and further of subjects into multiple categories makes it easier to find specific content. Otherwise, you can always use the search option to conduct a site-wide search as well.
You can either read books online on the website or download PDF files for offline reading. Its Featured Books section displays books that are liked by a majority of Wikibooks community to help other readers in selecting ebooks to read.
Why use Wikibooks?
Recommended for textbooks (mostly academic)
Visit Wikibooks
Final Words: Which free book site you’ll prefer?
All the aforementioned online sources offer a fine collection of books. Besides, these websites haven’t been listed in any particular order so go ahead and knockout yourself with a rich collection of free books on these platforms. Since they offer a deluge of reading material, I am sure you won’t be running out of your stash of books anytime soon. Meanwhile, if you come across some other good websites for free books online that we might have missed out, do share with us in the comment section.
Conclusion
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