book review application

Goodreads: Book Reviews 12+

Kindle, audible, amazon & more.

• #4 in Books
• 4.8 • 554.9K Ratings

Screenshots

Description.

Discover stories that matter to you, from readers like you. Goodreads is the world's largest community of readers. Find new and interesting books by browsing personalized recommendations based on books you've read and your favorite genres. See what your friends are reading, write book reviews, and keep track of what you want to read. Goodreads is a free service for book tracking, recommendations and reviews. Use our barcode scanner the next time you are in a bookstore. Add the book in your hands to your "Want To Read" shelf and browse reviews before buying. Features: • Get personalized recommendations and discover new books based on your tastes. • Goodreads Choice Awards: vote for your favorite books of the year and see the winners! • Participate in the Reading Challenge! • Book cover and barcode scanner! • Keep a want-to-read list. • See book reviews and updates from your friends. • Discover new books and explore popular book lists. • Rate and review books you read. • Share notes and progress updates as you read. • Recommend books to friends. • Join online book clubs and connect with other readers. By using this app, you agree to Goodreads’s Terms of Use (https://www.goodreads.com/about/terms) and Privacy Policy (https://www.goodreads.com/about/privacy).

Version 4.19.0

This release contains several bug fixes and improvements.

Ratings and Reviews

554.9K Ratings

Time AND Money saver

Good reads is amazing. Whether its the upcoming books in a certain genre updated daily, the recommendations from people with similar taste. A favorite feature of mine is the Preview feature, which allows the reader to read a few chapters (depending the the chapters lengths and books itself). With the different versions and and publications -and languages- that has saved me money. Something I wish I discovered before to save money from previous book that I ended up disliking. The slight problem I have with Goodreads is that my other bookshelves have combined with my want to read. As a reader, I will take note of upcoming and eye catching books that I might enjoy. Putting my "airballs if you will" shelf automatically in the want to read section is tiring and annoying. I can see the airball shelf itself separately, I cannot do the same with my want to reads as they combine automatically. Overall, this app is amazing has been a saving grace, and enjoyable books and reviews. Which are incredibly helpful when you find people with similar interests. My slight problem can be easily solved with a separate list of permissions in the settings to combine bookshelves.

Love it but I’ve got some ideas

Don’t get me wrong this app is helpful and I use it all the times but it can be pretty clunky sometimes The featured booklists on your page are kinda tricky to find again and I wish there was a whole tab for them with like recently viewed lists and recommendations and things like that because when you accidentally leave an amazing list and can’t find it it’s the worst. The biggest issue I have is it’s not the most new user friendly. I got this app and had so many books and shelves to create for my previous reads but it takes five clicks to add a book to a shelf. When I make a shelf it’s because I realize I have lots of books similar and so scrolling through my reads and clicking five times for each is not fun at all and takes all day. I wish there was a select tool so you could add multiple books to a shelf at a time this would probably make this review five stars. Another little issue I have (and maybe I just can’t figure it out) is Re reading. If I read a book multiple times why can’t I count both towards my reading challenge? It won’t be an accurate page count if it turns out that was just the one of the times I read the book that year. I feel like you should have multiple reading dates on your book info so it isn’t just showing the last time you read it. If this is a feature and I just haven’t found it then I apologize. Definitely needs a refresh I just looked at version history and it’s mostly bug fixes! This app NEEDS something new

needs a revamp

i use this app religiously but it needs an revamp BAD. the UI looks like it hasnt changed since day 1 and itd be nice if i could see my friends activity more often than i see ads on my feed 😑. would be nice if we could personalize our profiles, but not necessary. also recommendations or searching through genres could be greatly enhanced by further filtering of intended audiences—i dont want to scroll through twenty 20 childrens fantasy books before even finding one mediocre adult fantasy book im not interested in. ABSOLUTELY would benefit from half star rating system or even 10 star rating system im tired of seeing a 3 star review with “3.5 stars …” or a 1 star review with “0.5 stars…” in the actual review. the app is also not super user friendly and is generally clunky. lots of unnecessary tapping needed and idk what it is but the searching function is super clunky too. i feel like the search option should first search our shelves for matches before searching the rest of the database for matches. definitely need a multi-select option to make shelving multiple books easier. i have over 300 books in my read im not reshelving each individual book, jeffrey. add tags in reviews so we can filter by tags. basically more filtering options for everything. add private reviews only your friends can see so that they dont affect the overall review of the book (sometimes you can acknowledge a book is well-written and still hate it).

App Privacy

The developer, Goodreads , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Linked to You

The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:

• Contact Info
• User Content
• Search History
• Identifiers
• Sensitive Info
• Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

• Developer Website
• App Support
• Privacy Policy

You Might Also Like

StoryGraph: Reading Tracker

Fable: Books & TV

TBR - Bookshelf

Bookmory - reading tracker

Bookly - TBR Book Tracker

PangoBooks: Buy & Sell Books

• Member Login
• Library Patron Login

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR

FREE NEWSLETTERS

Search: Title Author Article Search String:

Becoming a Reviewer for BookBrowse

Reviewer application form.

Support BookBrowse

Join our inner reading circle, go ad-free and get way more!

Find out more

BookBrowse Book Club

Who Said...

Information is the currency of democracy

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Solve this clue:

L T C O of the B

and be entered to win..

Your guide to exceptional           books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info and giveaways by email.

Free Weekly Newsletters

Keep up with what's happening in the world of books: reviews, previews, interviews and more.

Spam Free : Your email is never shared with anyone; opt out any time.

Looking to publish? Meet your dream editor, designer and marketer on Reedsy.

Find the perfect marketer for your next book

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Blog • Book Marketing

Last updated on Feb 07, 2023

How to Get Book Reviews in 5 Steps (2024 Update)

Imagine the day of your book launch. You’re sitting in front of your computer, blissfully imagining all the five-star book reviews that will soon be yours. Yet the days pass... and the reviews don't come.

Needless to say, you'll want people to buy and read your book ASAP so they can leave you some good reviews. But you may see the Catch-22 here: in order to make your first sales, you’ll need to display positive book reviews. So how do you get the chicken before you’ve got the egg (or vice versa)?

Enter book bloggers , who are your new best friends! For this post, we asked our top Reedsy publicists to share their best tips on how to get book reviews from book bloggers — and we've condensed their advice into these five essential steps, plus a few bonus tips at the end.

You can also check out this Reedsy Live on how to get your first book reviews, with advice from author and book marketer Debbie Drum.

Those who prefer their tips in written form, let's dive right in with the very first step of the review acquisition process!

1. Identify your audience

A quick preliminary note: you want to start the review-gathering as early as possible. If you can, plan your book review campaign 4-6 months in advance of your publication date. Because if you want your reviews to be in place by then, you’ll need to give people time to actually write them!

Now, using the "5 W’s of Storytelling," let's talk about the first thing you should be asking yourself: who? Who will be reading your book, and who is best positioned to promote it to that audience? The following tips will help you answer these questions.

Build a questionnaire

Here are a few more specific queries to help you clarify your "who":

• Who reads in my genre?
• What magazines, websites, forums, or blogs do they frequent?
• Where might they find reviews of my book that will entice them to buy it?

Indeed, publicist Jessica Glenn recommends building a full-length questionnaire to identify your audience and where you might find them on the Web (or in real life!).

“Most, if not all, publicists and publishers send authors a very long questionnaire to fill out when they start their marketing plan ,” she says. “That's so we can dig into any useful piece of bio, community, or regional info to figure out who and why people will be interested in your book.”

Your questionnaire will direct you to your target audience and help you create a  proto-persona.  This is the "ideal reader" of your book, so to speak — a perfect blend of the traits you'd expect them to have. (For example, if you've written a YA paranormal romance novel, your proto-persona might be a 14-year-old girl who's obsessed with Twilight .) And whoever they are, you'll keep them in mind every time you make a marketing decision.

Think about comp titles

Another great way to get a handle on your target audience is to figure out your comparative titles — books that are a) similar to yours and b) share the same general readership. When pitching to book reviewers, these are the titles you'll use to sell your own  book . For instance, "My book is  Normal People meets The Incendiaries ."

According to Jessica, you should have at least 15 potential comp titles for your book, ideally a mix of bestsellers and well-reviewed indie titles. “Many first-time authors balk at this," says Jessica, "as they believe there is no true comp for their book — but dig deep and you'll find them!”

Comp titles are critical because they act as a compass, pointing you towards a ready-made audience that enjoys works in the same mold as yours. This is a huge help in determining your target readers, as well as which reviewers will cater to them. Speaking of which...

2. Find relevant book blogs

Now that you’ve got a strong sense of your audience, you're ready to find blogs that will provide the best exposure to that audience. We recommend starting with our directory of 200+ book review blogs , but feel free to do your own research as well!

As you dig into book review blogs, check on these two things first:

• Is the site active? Has the blogger published a post within the last month or so?
• Are they currently accepting queries? If they're closed at the moment, it could be months before your book gets a review — if at all.

And if you want to confirm your book marketing strategy when it comes to book review blogs, we recommend first taking this quick quiz below!

Which book review site is right for you?

Find out here! Takes one minute.

Once you've confirmed that a book review blog is both active and open to queries, think about whether it's right for your  book. Here are some important factors to consider:

• Genre . Don't waste your time on blogs that don't review books in your genre. "Be very mindful of a publication’s particular audience and target market when pitching for review. If their readership is science-fiction, do not pitch a commercial crime novel!” says publicist Hannah Cooper .
• Traffic . High-traffic book blogs might seem like your highest priorities, but this isn’t necessarily true. “Don't shy away from the smaller blogs,” says publicist Beverly Bambury . “They can sometimes foster a real sense of community and starting off small is just fine."
• Posting frequency.  Another consideration is how often the blogger in question actually publishes reviews. Too often, and your book will get lost in the shuffle; too seldom, and they're likely to lose readers. Try to strike a balance with about 1-2 reviews per week — no decent reviewer can turn them out faster than that, anyway!

Track down your comp titles' reviewers

Remember those comp titles you came up with earlier? You can use them not only to pitch your book, but also to find potential reviewers , as they will correspond perfectly with your genre and target audience.

“Once you have your 15-or-so comps, you can research where each book has been reviewed,” says Jessica. “With luck, you will find at least a couple of book reviews per title, which will give you many more outlets to investigate further.”

Now, as an author, you might be wondering: “How can I begin to find all the places where a given book was reviewed?” Don’t forget the power of Google! Try searching the following terms to find reviews for a given title:

• [Title] + book review
• [Title] + review
• [Title] + Q&A

And here's one last tip to give you a boost — sign up for a "Mention" account and/or set up Google alerts to get a notification every time these titles appear online.

Once you’re armed with a bundle of suitable book review blogs, you've arrived at the third (and perhaps most crucial) step in this process. This is, of course, creating the pitches you'll send to reviewers.

Free course: How to get book reviews

Learn how to get the book reviews you need to turn browsers into buyers. Get started now.

3. Write pitches for them

Pitching a reviewer is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is a) keep it short, and and b) personalize it as much as possible. However, before we get to our publicists’ actionable tips on pitching, there’s one more thing that you absolutely HAVE to do. And that thing is...

Read the review policy!

Before you pitch any blog, make sure you read the blogger’s review policy. Some blogs will have a form to fill out; others might ask you to email them directly. Still others might not welcome any queries from self-published authors . Whatever they say, make sure that you follow it to a T.

“There are two main benefits to reading and following the review policies closely,” says Beverly. “First, you show the reviewer that you respect and appreciate them when you follow their instructions. This is important when asking someone to do you a favor.

"Second, you may find that even if the site is closed for review queries, it's open to publicity queries — where you might be able to place an excerpt or do a Q&A or occasional blog post. You'll never know if you don't take the time to read the review policy first.”

More tips for pitching reviewers

Now that you’re clear on what the blogger wants, you can start pitching them with confidence. Here are three more key tips for pitching book reviewers:

1. Never send out bulk pitches. "When you pitch each outlet individually, specifically write that you read their positive book review of your comp and what that comp title was,” says Jessica Glenn. Or if you didn't find them through a comp title, mention other  aspects of their blog and why you think they would be great to review your book!

2. Be concise and direct. “Include your title, publisher, date of release, and genre in the first paragraph,” notes Beverly Bambury. “Then you might want to include the cover copy or a brief description of the book. Finally, be direct and ask for what you want. If you want a review, ask for it! If you want an excerpt placed, ask for that.”

3. Appeal to their commercial side. “All reviewers want the opportunity to discover the next 'big thing’ — particularly with fiction — so make them feel as though they have the opportunity to get the word out first," says Hannah Cooper. Indeed, if you can convince a reviewer that you are doing them  a favor, you're practically guaranteed to get a review.

Basically, try to get reviewers to think, “Oh, if I enjoyed [comp title], I’ll enjoy this person's book too,” or “They've done the research to know that I’m a good fit for their book.” If you can do that, you’re already much closer than everyone else to obtaining high-quality book reviews !

FREE COURSE

Book Marketing 101

Learn seven tried-and-true strategies for boosting book sales.

4. Send out your book

This is the step before the moment of truth (the review itself), so it's extremely important to get everything right. To ensure you're complying with each reviewer's guidelines, review their policy again before you send them your book. Some bloggers might prefer digital copies of manuscripts, while others might want a physical ARC — be prepared to accommodate.

Also, as you begin sending your book to various outlets, you should track your progress in a spreadsheet. Record which blogs you’ve submitted to so far, which blogs have responded, and which blogs you plan to submit to, so you don't accidentally double-submit or skip over anyone.

Formatting your book

Other than double-checking the review policy, the most important thing to do here is to format your book in a professional manner . After all, you want the presentation of your content to match the quality! Even though it shouldn't technically matter, reviewers will definitely judge your book by how it looks, inside and out.

The good news for self-formatters that you probably won't need to send physical proofs, and ebooks are much easier to format than hard copies. Digital copies also cost next-to-nothing to produce, so you can easily send multiple copies of your book out to different reviewers. You may want to check out apps like Instafreebie and Bookfunnel , which make it easy to generate individual ARC download links that you can send to the reviewers.

Pro tip : If you’re searching for a good book production tool, the Reedsy Book Editor can format and convert your manuscript into professional EPUB and print-ready files in a matter of seconds!

5. Follow up after a week

A week or more has passed since you queried a book blog, and so far… crickets. What do you do now? Why, follow up,  of course!

When it comes to this stage, keep calm and follow Hannah Hargrave’s advice: “Don't bother reviewers for an answer daily. I will usually chase again after a week has passed.

"If you receive a decline response, or no one responds to your third chase-up, assume this means they are not interested. Any further follow-ups, or aggressive requests as to why your work's not being reviewed, will not be viewed kindly. Above all, be polite and friendly at all times.”

That said, someone rejecting your book for review is a worst-case scenario. Best-case scenario, the blogger responds favorably and you’ve bagged yourself a review!

What comes next, you ask?

The reviewer will post their review of your book on their blog — and on Amazon, Goodreads, and any other platforms that they’ll name in their review policy. This is yet another reason why it's vital to read that policy carefully, so you know exactly where  the review will be seen.

If all goes well, the reviewer will publish a positive review that you can use to further promote your book. Maybe you'll even get a decent pull-quote for your book description ! Not to mention that if you ever write a sequel, you can almost certainly count on them for a follow-up review.

Pro-tip: Want to write a book description that sells? Download this free book description template to get a headstart. 

FREE RESOURCE

Book Description Template

Learn to write a book description that will make readers click “buy.”

But what if you don't get any bites from book bloggers, or — horror of horrors — one of them gives you a negative review? Fortunately, the next two sections should help you deal with each of these possible dilemmas.

Bonus ways to get book reviews

Though book bloggers are the most reliable and professional source of reviews for independent authors, you may want to try other avenues to maximize your chances! Here are three more ways to get book reviews  for your work, so you can bolster your Amazon profile and start making some serious sales.

1. Tell your followers about your book

Though Amazon prohibits reviews from close friends and family , you're free to tell your random social media followers about your book and hope they leave good reviews. It obviously helps if you have a large following on Twitter or Instagram, even more so if some of those followers are fellow authors who appreciate the significance of reviews.

That said, NEVER offer "review swaps" or any kind of promotional enticement for customers to leave reviews, as this would also be against Amazon's terms. Simply let your followers know you've got a book out and that you'd love for them to read it; the rest is in their hands. However, when it comes to reviews, any amount of awareness is better than none.

2. Submit to Reedsy Discovery

Finally, for a professional review option that's a bit less time-and-effort-consuming on your part, you can submit your book right here on Reedsy Discovery! The platform allows authors to share their books with readers who are right up their alley, plus get the chance to be reviewed by one of our Discovery writers. If they leave a good review, you'll be featured in our newsletter, which goes out to thousands of subscribers every week.

Sounds pretty sweet, right? And it only takes a few minutes to submit .

Is your book ready for Discovery?

Take our quiz to find out! Takes only 1 minute.

How to deal with negative reviews

Once your work is out there in the world, you can’t control other people’s reactions to it. “Remember, by submitting your book for review, you're accepting that some people might not enjoy it,” says Hannah Hargrave. “It can be very tough after you’ve spent months or years crafting your novel, only for some reviewer to tear it apart. But you need to be prepared."

In that vein, here are some final tips on how to deal with bad reviews:

1. Have someone else read them first . This might be your agent, your friend, or your mom — anyone you trust to pre-screen your reviews. They can inform you whether each negative review is a worthwhile (if humbling) read, or just too nasty to stomach.

2. Ignore unreasonably hateful reviews . Easier said than done, yes, but really try to tune out these people! For example, if they're clearly not your target audience, but insist on pretending like they are. Or people who pick apart your sentences word-by-word, just for the "fun" of it. There's no sense in agonizing over readers who are determined to hate you, so block them on every platform and refuse to read anything else they write.

3. Address valid criticisms . You're only human, and your book won't be perfect. If someone points this out in a constructive way , acknowledge it and do what you can to fix it. This may be as simple as editing a misleading blurb, or as complex as restructuring your entire series. But if you're the author we know you are, you'll be up to the task.

Every author's book is different, but the process for getting book reviews is reassuringly universal. To recap: identify your audience, find relevant blogs, pitch them, send out your book, and don't forget to follow up! On top of that, feel free to try alternative strategies, and remember not to take the bad reviews too personally.

Yes, marketing a book may be madness, but the process of getting reviews lends method to that madness. So go forth and get your reviews — you deserve them! 🙌

Special thanks to book publicists Jessica Glenn , Hannah Hargrave , Hannah Cooper , and Beverly Bambury for their input and suggestions throughout this article. If you have any more questions about how to get book reviews, let us know in the comments!

2 responses

Elena Smith says:

25/09/2018 – 22:33

Excellent Write up. I have thoroughly gone through the article and according to my personal observations you have done a great job writing this Article.Being associated with writing profession, I must mention that AcademicWritingPro are quite helpful nowadays.Furthermore, quality is also an important aspect.

Team Golfwell says:

11/12/2018 – 05:38

We do free book reviews if your book interests us. We are a group of retired people in New Zealand who play golf, read books, write books, and do free book reviews if we like your book. We write books too, so we like to see what other authors are currently doing and it is amazing to see what writers are creating. We try to post our reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble and our social media. See our book review page for more info > > https://www.teamgolfwell.com/free-book-reviews.html #bookreviews #kindlebookreviews #amazonbookreviews #indiebookreviews https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ad92dde2f70456000bf5c44af3489ee638dae511be91f7b8cb1545acb388cdb.jpg

Comments are currently closed.

Continue reading

Recommended posts from the Reedsy Blog

How to Make a Cinematic Book Trailer (with Examples)

Book trailers can be a fun and effective way to promote your book. Learn how to craft one from scratch by following these 7 steps.

The Differences Between Book Marketing and Publicity: Credibility Versus Control

Book marketing and book publicity comprise two main pillars of book promotion. Check out this post by Kellie Rendina to understand their differences.

Developing Your Author Brand: 6 Ways to Showcase Your Unique Writing Identity

An "author brand" can be a pretty vague concept. Learn how to successfully develop yours in this post by Harry Bingham.

How to Make Your Book Newsworthy: 5 Tips from a Publicist

How can you earn media coverage for your book? Book publicity takes some preparation and watchfulness, but it can help your book become news.

Affect vs. Effect: How To Always Pick the Right Word

Affect is usually a verb that means “to create a change” in something, while effect is usually a noun that describes “a change that is caused” by something. In other words, an affect produces an effect.

Amazon Editorial Reviews: An Indie Author’s Secret Weapon

In this post, we’ll explain why Amazon editorial reviews matter, how to secure them, and how to use them to impact your launch.

Join a community of over 1 million authors

Reedsy is more than just a blog. Become a member today to discover how we can help you publish a beautiful book.

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out if you're well-suited for reviewing with our one-minute quiz.

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account:

• Speaker for Writers Events
• Testimonials
• Call for Speakers
• Guest Blog Post
• Share Call for Submissions
• Submit Feedback/Suggestions
• Contribute an Interview (MEMBERS)
• Member Directory
• Book Award Winners
• Interviews – Authors, Members, Experts
• Join Our Community
• Get Certified
• Member Home
• Member Login

• Join Us Here
• Thought Leader Membership
• Partner Membership – Service Providers
• Tour the Member Dashboard
• Member Testimonials
• Media Leads for Authors
• All Blog Posts
• Book Marketing
• Writing Nonfiction
• Professional Speaking
• Revenue Streams for Authors
• Live and On Demand Courses
• Professional Speaking Course for Authors
• Marketing Master Course
• Publishing Master Course
• Publicity Master Course
• All Upcoming Events
• Nonfiction Writers Conference
• Podcast Interviews
• Book Awards
• Entry Application
• Book Awards Payment
• Nonfiction Book Awards Categories
• Digital Award Seals
• Nonfiction Book Awards – FAQ
• Book Reviewers Apply Here
• Recommended Resources
• Virtual Assistants for Authors
• Publishing, Marketing, Publicity Consultants
• The Nonfiction Book Marketing and Launch Plan
• Free Reports for Authors
• NonfictionBookClub.com
• *CONFERENCE*

Select Page

How to Get Book Reviews: 50+ Resources to Generate Book Reviews

Posted by Stephanie Chandler | Oct 8, 2015 | Blog , Nonfiction Book Marketing | 17

If you’ve been wondering how to get more book reviews, below you will find a comprehensive list of book review sources, including both free and paid options.

A note on paid options: We do NOT advocate paid services that promise to churn out X number of manufactured book reviews based on how much money you spend with them. However, we have included a listing of reputable services that offer quality reviews.

Free Book Review Options:

Amazon Reviewers – Reviews on Amazon are hugely important to the success of a book. Potential buyers look to reviews to help make a decision to buy, and Amazon’s algorithms factor in the number of reviews a book has generated. The more reviews a book receives, the better the likelihood of that book showing up higher in Amazon search results.

Each Amazon book reviewer has a public profile, and many include their email addresses and website information (many top reviewers are also bloggers—for even greater exposure). These reviewers WANT to be contacted and offered free review copies! Look for reviewers of competing titles, send an email and ask if he/she would like to receive a review copy of your book.

Book Review Bloggers – Bloggers have tremendous influence with readers when it comes to reviewing and recommending books. See the following directories to find bloggers who review books in your genre. Also try searching Google for <genre> + “book review.”

• The Book Blogger List
• The Indie View
• Blog Nation
• The Indie Bookshelf
• Reedsy’s List of Book Bloggers

Industry Bloggers – Seek out bloggers who cover topics of interest to your target audience or industry. See if they conduct book reviews, publish book excerpts or interview authors. Google searches should help you compile a list of bloggers to contact.

Major Media Bloggers – All of the major magazines and newspapers now host blogs (from The New York Times to Cat Fancy Magazine ), and many of those blog posts are written by unpaid contributors. Seek out freelance contributors who cover topics related to your target audience and offer up a review copy.

Email Subscribers – Periodically send a note to your mailing list subscribers gently reminding them that book reviews help sell books and that you’d greatly appreciate it if they would post a review for your book.

Midwest Book Review – A wonderful organization that supports indie authors, Midwest Book Review has been around for years and reviews printed books for free.

Smaller Publications – Don’t overlook trade association newsletters and magazines, plus smaller magazines and even hometown newspapers.

Your Website – Create a Review Copy Request form on your website. Ask visitors to provide you with details, including website link and size of audience, in order to qualify to receive a complimentary review copy.

Contest on Your Site – Consider using Rafflecopter , a simple program that you can plugin to your site to host a book give-away contest—it’s free! Gently ask (and remind) contest winners to post reviews after reading.

Online Groups – Announce that you are interested in sending out review copies to groups that reach your target audience. You can find all kinds of groups via:

Experience Project – This site features groups built around some very personal topics—from surviving abuse to living with addiction. Find topics related to your book and invite members to receive a complimentary review copy via Experience Project .

Book Clubs – Offering your book to book clubs for free can be a great way to generate reviews and buzz for your books. Search for book clubs by genre online and via Meetup.com . See also: From Left to Write , Book Club Reading List .

Goodreads Giveaways – More than 40,000 people enter to win books from Goodreads Give-aways each day. Authors can offer up books for free to this program and specify the number of days the promotion will run (they recommend 30 days). An average of 825 people enter to win these promotions, and Goodreads selects the winners at the end and sends authors a CSV file with addresses. When mailing copies of books to winners, be sure to insert a note requesting that the recipient write a review if they enjoy the book.

Other Giveaway Sites:

• LibraryThing

***Note that if your book is enrolled in Amazon’s KDP Select program, you will not be able to participate in the sites listed here that conduct free ebook give-aways (a major downside of the Kindle exclusive distribution clause).

Noise Trade – This site allows you to list your ebook as a free give-away for any length of time you choose. In exchange, readers provide their email addresses, which you can download for follow-up. They can also provide a “tip” for authors, resulting in small fees potentially earned for books listed on Noise Trade .

Social Media – Invite your audience to become book reviewers. You can share a link to your “Review Copy Request” form on your website or conduct a contest to give away several review copies. You can also start early and build a waiting list for reviewers well before you book is published!

Giveaways at Events – Whenever you donate copies of your book for raffle prizes or gifts, include a note asking the recipient to review.

Peers, Clients, Family, Friends – While you want to be careful asking family and friends to write reviews because you don’t want all of your reviews to appear biased, it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask the people you know to read your book and share an honest review.

Review Communities – There are numerous communities where writers can share their work and get feedback. This is a great way to build some interest and create fans before your book is published: Wattpad , WeBook , WidBook .

Book Life – Hosted by Publishers Weekly , submit your book for free for review consideration at Book Life .

Readers Who Contact You – As an author, you should expect that your readers will periodically contact you, either via email or social media, to let you know they enjoyed your book. When this happens, always reply with gracious appreciation and suggest that the reader could help you by posting reviews online.

Paid Book Review Options:

Reviewer Software – Book Review Targeter is a software program that we at NFAA love! This system allows you to search for Amazon book reviewers who have reviewed books similar to yours, and then export their email addresses and websites–or send them an email right from the software. While you can research reviewers one at a time by yourself, it will take you countless HOURS. Every author needs reviews and we highly recommend Book Review Targeter ! (Disclosure: affiliate link!)

NetGalley – For a modest fee, you can list your book in the NetGalley directory and make it available for their 300k + reviewers to choose from.

Kirkus – An established and reputable company, Kirkus provides professional-level reviews for a modest fee.

Foreword Magazine – Reputable reviews for indie authors via Foreword .

BookBub – The top service for paid email campaigns to promote books via BookBub . Also BookSends .

Author Buzz – Get book announcements out to libraries, bloggers, book clubs and more via Author Buzz .

Bargain Booksy – If your ebook is priced for sale between $.99 to $4.99, you can purchase an email promotion to members on Bargain Booksy . See also Free Booksy .

Facebook Advertising – You can take advantage of a number of advertising options via Facebook to promote your book is available for review. You can boost posts to your fans and their friends, target ads by various demographics and keywords, and even target ads to fans of a competitor’s Facebook page. Learn more about Facebook Advertising .

Do you have another option for getting book reviews? Feel free to share in the comments below!

Did you know we host an annual Nonfiction Writers Conference ? Check it out!

About The Author

Stephanie Chandler

Stephanie Chandler is the founder of the Nonfiction Authors Association and Nonfiction Writers Conference , and author of several books including The Nonfiction Book Publishing Plan . A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, and Wired magazine. Visit StephanieChandler.com to learn more.

Related Posts

The 4 People Every Author Should Hire

What Topics do You Speak About?

How to Win At The Self-Publishing Game by Hollie Jones

Member Round-Up: What are your favorite podcasts and why?

17 comments.

I didn’t see Story Cartel in this list. Is that one you’d recommend for a non-fiction book? Thanks!

I’m glad you mentioned Story Cartel. It’s a great resource for fiction writers, but at this moment there are a grand total of 8 nonfiction titles listed on the site! Five in General Nonfiction and three in Biography. No other nonfiction genres are currently offered there. On the flip side, the low number of competing titles could possibly work to your advantage. I’m just not sure how many nonfiction readers are looking for titles here. Since there is a fee involved in participating, I’d proceed with some caution.

Thank you very much for this list. Reviews are so important and finding reviewers isn’t easy.

Thanks for sharing these resources! I’m glad you mentioned that fees aren’t always a red flag. Many resources advise authors to never pay for reviews. What they’re usually referring to is paying someone to write a positive review of your book. However, bloggers and other site owners have to spend a lot of time reviewing a book, from reading it, to writing the actual review, and on to promoting it on social media, etc. Expecting them to do so for the price of the book is unreasonable. Some will because it’s a hobby or they monetize in another way, but many will charge an administration fee for an honest review. Like any other form of advertising, it can’t always be free.

There is indeed a fine line when it comes to paying for reviews. The real problem is that there are services out there that promise to generate reviews for books, but they aren’t at all reputable. It is also against Amazon’s policies to allow paid book reviews. Fortunately, there are plenty of free reputable book review options, and a few paid services (Kirkus, Foreword) that are worth consideration too!

Great resource. I’m working on my second book. I found that reviews were helpful with the first one but it was hard to find reviewers. (A google search helped but not all reviews led to traffic, much less to sales.) Thanks for spelling things out!

We’d love to hear back from you about your success in getting reviews this time around. Good luck!

The task of marketing books is daunting. Thanks. I am completing your list this week! I sent my first book to family and friends. Their encouraging reviews gave me courage.

It’s nice that we can count on family and friends to cheer us on!

Dear Stephanie: Your posts are always relevant, readable, and in-depth. But, this post is even better. It resonated on several personal levels:

The success of my Looking Good in Print: A Guide to Basic Design for Desktop Publishing, was due to my original publisher–Joe Woodman of Ventana Press–investing heavily in making review copies as easy to obtain as possible.

Although many traditional publishers thought he was out of his mind, Joe was placing **open cartons** of Looking Good in Print in the press rooms at large personal computing and publishing trade shows. Anyone with a press pass could just walk in and pick-up a copy.

So, whereas, other publishers were distributing press releases, Joe was handing out actual copies!

His nontraditional/review-oriented approach paid off; Looking Good in Print went on to sell more than 375,000 copies around the world.

2. Another part of his strategy which paid off was providing an accompanying press release that was contained numerous, detailed “review-like” phrases and text which sounded more like reviews than a press release.

Many of these paragraphs were included, verbatim, in published reviews. An easy tactic to implement–many reviewers in fast-growing publications appreciate the “Cliff Notes” assistance the press releases contained.

3. Finally, I currently review business and marketing books for the Content Marketing Institute, a round-up of 3 years of these reviews is available here: http://www.slideshare.net/CMI/the-essential-bestbooks-reading-list-for-content-marketers .

Even though I am established as a reviewer, it surprises me at how responsive some authors and publishers are regarding review copies when I request one, and how unresponsive others are. Even when I’ve established a track record with some publishers, it can be difficult to obtain copies in a timely fashion.

Worse than being turned down for a review copy is when there is no response to a request. The takeaway lesson: a prompt “yes or no” response and immediate follow-up go a long way to project a professional image.

Anyway, Stephanie, congratulations on a meaningful post with lots of relevance to nonfiction writers self-published or traditionally-published. Roger

Thank you for the compliment, Roger, and for an excellent response that illustrates why review copies are so powerful. I can’t begin to imagine why anyone would turn down the opportunity to send out a review copy, though I have seen a “scarcity” mindset among some people who may not yet grasp why it’s better to get your book into as many readers hands as possible!

Thanks for such a thorough and timely post. Although new indie authors are entering publishing at a rapid pace, too many of them are mystified about marketing, especially about getting book reviews.

I look forward to using the wealth of sources you’ve shared for getting reviews for my upcoming book, as well as sharing this post with my tribe.

Thank you for this excellent resource.

I skimmed the article [I’m saving it for more intense reading], but didn’t notice a reference to author-reviewing. Sorry if I simply missed it. As an author, I know how important book reviews are. When I read a book I enjoy, I write a review. If I start a book I don’t like, I quit. There is too much good stuff out there to waste your time on garbage.

I just got a recommendation to use Debbie Drum’s Book Review Targeter. ANY COMMENT?

We use and recommend Book Review Targeter–it’s a great tool!

I am an Italian book promoter and created a book promotion and review site some years ago, to promote foreign authors and books in Italy and Europe. I also offer a professional service of honest and unbiased book reviews in a double language: Italian and English, to give books an international exposure. I explained how this service works at this link: https://www.advicesbooks.com/paid-book-review-services/ . I hope this will be helpful to you.

Thank you Stephanie for this. It is a great article and very comprehensive. FYI Team Golfwell does free book reviews too > https://www.teamgolfwell.com/free-book-reviews.html

Thank you Stephanie for this excellent article and this information. FYI Team Golfwell does free book reviews for non-fiction as well as almost all genres especially children’s books, women’s fiction, Y/A, and humor. It doesn’t hurt to ask https://www.teamgolfwell.com/free-book-reviews.html #freebookreviews #bookreviews #childrenbooks

Leave a reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Professional Speaking Course Returns August 29th

Join us LIVE on Zoom for a powerful 3-week course on how to become a professional speaker. Speaking Course Details Here

FREE WEBINAR: BUILD YOUR NONFICTION BOOK MARKETING PLAN

Learn the most effective strategies to promote your book with this content-rich webinar! Get the Webinar Here

Weekend Workshop at Omega Institute in New York

Join NFAA CEO Stephanie Chandler for an in-person weekend workshop on how to write and publish your nonfiction book. July 26-28 at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. Learn more here.

NEW BOOK! The Nonfiction Book Marketing and Launch Plan – Workbook and Planning Guide

Are you ready to sell more books? This comprehensive workbook includes over 250 pages of value in a size 8.5 x 11 format. It will help you develop effective marketing plans so you can grow your audience and sell more books. Get the Book Here

Download Our Popular Free Reports

ONLINE COURSES FOR NONFICTION WRITERS

Upcoming Events for Nonfiction Writers

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE REPORT: ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BETA READERS

JOIN THE NONFICTION AUTHORS ASSOCIATION

New Nonfiction Book Club site

Recent Posts

• Best Practices to Get Book Reviews and Avoid Getting Banned on Amazon: How to Ask for Reviews Properly 07/12
• How to Avoid Publishing Industry Scams and Research Publishing Companies 07/11
• Book Award Winner: A Photographic History of Snakebite Treatment: Bad Medicine, Snake Oils, Potions, Elixirs and Kits by Bob Ashley, Charles F. Smith, and Gordon W. Schuett 07/09

The Apps You Need To Actually Buy, Read, & Review Books On Your Phone

It can be incredibly difficult to keep up with all the new books being released all the time — but these book apps certainly make it a lot easier . Even though I'll always be a traditional hardcover book-lover, I do read books on my e-reader and listen to audiobooks from time to time on my phone. In my mind, it seems that real books will never go out of style, but that doesn't mean I can't keep up with technology that makes it easier and more convenient to read.

My phone is full of downloaded e-books and audiobooks, and I have my ever-growing TBR list jotted down in multiple places. Not to mention, I've taken screenshots of so many pictures of books that I just find pretty (don't judge me for judging a book by its cover, OK?). Needless to say, my phone has become my go-to resource for finding — and reading — new books.

If you're looking for new ways you can show your love for books, review them online, keep track of what you read, share photos of your bookshelf with friends, and, of course, discover new books to read, take a moment to consider these literary apps:

Let's get this out of the way: You already know what Goodreads is, but how does the app measure up? Despite its outdated interface, the Goodreads app actually functions fairly well for all the tasks you would typically complete on your desktop: Adding books to your "Want To Read" shelf, reviewing and rating books you've already read, and seeing what your friends have recently finished. The app, unlike the desktop version, allows you to scan the barcodes/ISBNs of books to add them to your library, which might save you time if you're cataloging more than one book at once. Learn more.

If you want to privately catalog your books without the social media aspect of Goodreads, try Libib. You can either manually insert all the information (which is a pain, since you also have to manually upload cover photos) or scan the barcode/ISBN, which automatically pulls in all information and photos. Libib offers very few bells-and-whistles, but I preferred its scanning functionality to the other book apps I tried. You also have the option of making your library public, if you do want to share what you're reading with your friends. Learn more.

We don't talk often enough about the library is a place where you can get free books as often as you want. With Libby, borrowing is made easy — and you can read e-books from the library without actually having to leave your couch . You sign up, type in your library card information, and pick your library of choice. You can also download e-books and audiobooks for offline reading, send the books you borrow to your Kindle (if you prefer to read it on that platform), and sign up with multiple library cards. Learn more.

If you adore podcasts and books, Serial Box is a must-have. Week after week, new "episodes" of books are released, and you have the option to listen or read (or do both). Just like your favorite TV shows, each season contains 10-16 episodes, and each can be read or be read to you in about 40 minutes. Some of the serials are originals (like the continuation of Orphan Black, available as an ebook or an audiobook narrated by Tatiana Maslany) and others are classic books, released episodically. Learn more.

Scribd is simply one of the best book apps on the market. While it does come with a monthly price tag (though it is less than one paperback book), the cost is well worth it if you're an avid e-reader and audiobook lover. Basically, it's a subscription service that allows you unlimited access to their selection of e-books, audiobooks, and magazines, for the cost of $8.99 per month. (You get one month free when you sign up .) Of course, not every book or audiobook is available, but if you read just one a month, you're probably saving yourself a few bucks. Learn more.

Whether you've been introduced to the growing world of self-publishing or not, Wattpad is here to show you the way. It's a community of writers and readers, and a place to share thoughts, read something new, or take a crack at writing something yourself. Remember, some of the best authors working today got their start writing fanfiction, and there's no reason you can't flex some of your creative muscles, too. Learn more.

I'm a big fan of Audible, and when I found Downpour, an app that takes your audiobook experience to new levels, I was stoked. You can set sleep timers (this was super helpful for me since I usually listen to books when I'm too tired to read), and it allows you to bookmark certain spots that you loved or wanted to go back to at some point. You can purchase books individually, or purchase a monthly subscription for $12.99, which includes one credit per month. Learn more.

Libro.Fm allows you to purchase audiobooks directly from independent booksellers. (You have the option to support "all bookstores" or support a specific bookstore of your choosing.) You can purchase audiobooks individually or purchase a $14.99 per month membership that allots you one audiobook per month. (The first month is free, and there are options for three month, six month, and 12 month memberships.) Plus, you're supporting small business! It's a win-win.

Unfortunately, you can't sign up for the service within the app, nor can you actually purchase any audiobooks with it. The only thing you can do on the Libro.Fm app is listen to books you've already purchased on your desktop. It's definitely annoying, and I hope they upgrade the app in the near-future. That being said, this is still a service worth supporting. Learn more.

The interface of Gutenberg isn't as sleek as the interface for the Kindle app or Apple Books, but it does have one advantage: Everything is free, because all the books are in the public domain. I keep it on my phone for days when I need a pick-me-up in the form of a Jane Austen re-read. Learn more.

Additional reporting by Cristina Arreola.

This article was originally published on Aug. 4, 2016

Best ebooks apps in 2021

The best ebooks apps for smartphones will help you find something good to read

Forget about dedicated e-readers — the best ebooks apps let you read everything from books to articles to comics directly on your smartphone or tablet. Apple's Books and Google Play Books already do a great job as stock apps, but specialist reading apps bring additional features to the fix — highly configurable settings, support for odd formats and read-all-you-can subscriptions just to name a few.

Check out more than a dozen of the best ebooks apps, from convenient, all-in-one marketplace-reader combinations to feature-packed and customizable standalone readers, as well as subscription-based unlimited reading services.

• Best Kindles : Get a top e-reader
• These are the best audiobook apps
• Where to get free ebooks

The best ebooks apps to download today

1. kindle (android, ios: free).

Amazon's Kindle app is a multi-platform e-book juggernaut, featuring marketplace, reader and library management features. More than 1 million titles are available in the Kindle store, from the latest bestsellers to free classics. 

A customizable display lets you set font size, brightness and other settings. Also, Kindle syncs your last page read, bookmarks, highlights and notes between devices and platforms. 

One of the best things about the Kindle app is Kindle Unlimited program. Through that program, Kindle users are able to access to thousands of audiobooks and e-books for a monthly fee. Overall, Kindle provides an excellent mix of usability, legibility, value and variety to feed your reading habits.

Download Kindle: Android , iOS

2. Realm (Android, iOS: Free)

It used to be known as Serial Box, but a name change to Realm hasn't changed the app's approach to getting a good story. You don't have to shell out for a complete audiobook, with Realm instead offering shorter, episodic content in bite-sized chunks of novels. If you've resumed commuting, Realm's installments are just about the perfect length.

You can pick from a range of genres — drama, fantasy, sci-fi and more. The first episode is usually free, with subsequent installments costing $1.99. You get both text and audio versions of a story, and discounts on the full version are available with a season pass. 

With offerings such as “The Witch Who Came In From The Cold”, “Bookburners” and “Tremontaine” and a highly configurable reader and audiobook player mode, Realm is an interesting take on digital books.

Download Realm: Android , iOS

3. Scribd (Android, iOS: $8.99/month)

While Amazon boasts of its Unlimited program, it wasn't first off the bat in providing an unlimited access program for books. Scribd offers an unlimited access program for ebooks, which was compared to a "Netflix for books." 

Scribd features a library of more than 500,000 books from 900-plus publishers across a variety of genres. The app features a customizable display as well as curated editorial collections, personalized recommendations based on your reading history and the ability to download books for offline reading.

Download Scribd: Android , iOS

4. tiReader (iOS: Free)

Think of tiReader as an all-in-one iOS ebook reader option for consuming your DRM-free ebooks, audiobooks, and digital comics. The app supports a broad selection of formats, such as epubs, PDFs, cbrs and cbzs, as well as photos, archives, and more. 

A customizable reader includes bookmarks, annotation tools, day and night modes, library management and search filters, as well as cross-device syncing. tiReader also includes cloud support for ebooks that you store online, as well as OPDS support for publicly available ebook libraries and public domain content. 

The free version of this top ebooks app lets you try things out with a five-document maximum in the library (you can keep deleting files if you want to add new books). The $4.99 in-app purchase upgrades you to the unlimited version of tiReader.

Download tiReader: iOS

5. Libby by Overdrive (Android, iOS: Free)

Why spend a ton of money on ebooks if your local library already has a digital media lending system? Libby takes Overdrive's popular digital media management system and lets users to borrow ebooks and audiobooks from participating libraries. 

Simply sign in with your library card and then you can browse your library's digital media collection, allowing you to search for titles, set holds, borrow ebooks and audiobooks with a tap, and return or extend a lend just as easily. 

You can preview books from the app, downloading borrowed titles or streaming them to your phone or tablet if you prefer to save space.

Download Libby: Android , iOS

6. FullReader (Android: Free)

FullReader is an all-in-one Android ebook reader, supporting numerous formats, such as epub, PDF, CBR and CBZ, as well as office files like RTF, .doc, .docx and even MP3s (great for audiobooks). Users can sort their files into collections or simply use the built-in file explorer, and the app also includes cloud storage support as well as OPDS compatibility for exploring libraries of free online content. 

The reader itself is clear and easy to navigate, with access to bookmarks, the table of contents, text-to-speech, and the ability to make notes and annotations. The app is free and ad-supported, with an in-app purchase disabling advertising.

Download FullReader: Android

7. Madefire Comics & Motion Books (Android, iOS: Free)

Like other comic readers, Madefire gives you access to enough comic books to choke Galactus. But some of them also move, along with adding lashings of atmosphere with 3D elements and audio.

These aren’t cartoons — you get traditional panel layouts. But parts of the image transition in a manner that draws your eye to certain elements. Your reading pace is slowed, helping you take everything in. And the action is joined by rumbles and dark music in the likes of Hellboy, or iconic transformation sounds in Transformers.

This may be a gimmick — and it’s unlikely to tear you from your comic reader of choice. But as a glimpse into a different way of presenting comic stories, Madefire’s well worth a look.

Download Madefire: Android , iOS

8. KyBook 3 (iOS: $14.99/year)

KyBook 3 is one of the best ebooks apps because this all-in-one e-reader supports DRM-free formats like epub, RTF, DJVU, PDF, CBR and CBZ. Whether you're looking to read poetry or prose, comic books or RPG rules, KyBook's likely to do a solid job. 

You can configure the viewer's fonts (including supplying your own font files), themes, and other layout settings like margins and line spacing. Readers can upload files through iTunes, or access their ebooks in supported cloud services like iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Yandex Disk. There's even support for OPDS catalogs, allowing you to access tons of free and public domain content online. 

A premium subscription — $14.99 for a year, though three-month options are available — allows you to sync your ebook metadata and files across devices.

Download KyBook: iOS

9. Comixology (Android, iOS: Free)

Comixology is one of the most popular digital comic platforms online, featuring titles from major comics publishers such as Marvel , DC and Image. Readers can buy their favorite issues and series from the Comixology website and read them in the app, which in addition to being a top ebooks option is also one of the best comic book readers . 

Of particular note Comixology's the Guided View mode, which is great for reading on a small screen. US customers benefit from an Unlimited mode that works as a "read-all-you-can" subscription. On the downside, you can't import in an existing comics collection or make in-app purchases on iOS.

Download: Comixology: Android , iOS

10. Chunky (iOS: Free)

If you already have a collection of DRM-free comics, you may want to check out Chunky instead of Comixology. Chunky is a free and feature-packed comics option for the iPad . 

On the technical side, Chunky supports CBR, CBZ and PDF comics, as well as metadata tags from ComicRack and ComicBookLover. A smart upscaling mode renders even low-res files as crisply as possible, while multiple view modes let you read however you like. There's even an auto-contrast/tint fix to adjust for faded comic scans. 

The app can download comics from your cloud storage services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive, straight into the app's self-organizing library. Plus, a parental lock allows you to flag and hide titles behind password protection. It's a fantastic free package whose only fault is a lack of iPhone support. For the cost of a $3.99 pro upgrade, the app can connect to Mac or Windows shared folders, FTP or SFTP servers, ComicStreamer, Calibre or Ubooquity libraries for sharing files in and out.

Download Chunky: iOS

11. Comicat (Android: $2.99)

For DRM-free comic reading on Android, check out Comicat, another app that blends a comic book reader with the best ebooks apps have to offer. This premium Android comic book reader gives you a ton of features and customizability for less than the price of a single comic issue. 

The app auto-scans your mobile device (or selected library folders) for comics in supported formats (such as CBR, CBZ, and PDF). It then automatically sorts them into series in a nice bookshelf view which you can manually organize. Once you're in the reader view, the interface is unobtrusive, with long press or slide controls bringing out options and settings. 

Comicat supports cloud storage folders, password protection, manga-style right to left displays, image enhancement to correct contrast, brightness, and saturation among other tweaks.

Download Comicat: Android

12. Moon+ Reader (Android: Free)

Moon+ Reader is a nifty Android e-book reader app known for its highly customizable interface. While it may not come with a dedicated marketplace, Moon+'s UI makes it stand out from the pack. You can set font styles and sizes, backgrounds, spacing, paging modes, autoscroll, multiple view modes and more. 

The app is free, but a $6.99 pro version is also available to remove ads and add PDF support, as well as other extra features. If you already have a sizable e-book collection and are just looking for an Android app to read with, then consider Moon+ for your e-book reading needs.

Download Moon+: Android

13. FBReader (Android, iOS: Free)

FBReader supports EPUB, RTF, DOC, HTML, MOBI and other formats on both Android and iPhones. While it doesn't feature an attached store like some other best ebooks apps, FB Reader makes up for it with its highly customizable nature. 

Users can tweak text fonts, size, hyphenation, text colors and backgrounds, margins, page animations and more. External dictionary support, a browser/downloader for finding books online, language localizations and plugin support for PDFs and library syncing round out an impressive free package.

There is a pro version of FBReader that sheds some of the limitations of the free version — you can store more than 10 books and the translation feature is enabled. That costs $6.99 of Android users and $4.99 on the iPhone.

Download FBReader: Android , iOS

14. Aldiko (Android, iOS: Free)

Aldiko is a neat e-book reader app that supports EPUB, PDF, and Adobe DRM encrypted e-books. A clean and customizable interface includes settings for text size, margins, page layouts, brightness, fonts, colors and more. 

A library management system allows you to easily sort your material by tags and collections. The core reader is free, but a Premium version includes the ability to add notes, highlights, notes and an ad-free experience.

Download Aldiko: Android , iOS

15. Kobo Books (Android, iOS: Free)

While not as well known in the US, Kobo is especially popular in Canada and France. Featuring a library of more than 5 million ebooks and publications, Kobo lets you access content from its online store while also letting you import your own content. 

The app supports numerous formats, such as EPUB, PDF, CBZ and CBR. Obligatory view and text customizations let you get comfortable, and the app syncs across devices and platforms.

Download Kobo Books: Android , iOS

16. Marvin 3 (iOS: Free)

Marvin is a feature-packed and extremely configurable iOS reader app for DRM-free EPUB files; it also supports CBZ and CBR comics. 

As a reader, Marvin boasts several great reading features, from a variety of fonts (including a specialty font for dyslexic readers), a night mode and customizable themes, highlighting, annotation and dictionary tools. You'll also find numerous format tweaks ranging from text justification, to paragraph indentation and spacing. 

In addition, you'll find a solid set of organizing tools, allowing you to sort into collections, choose from list or cover views, collection sorting and more. The app also supports iOS features like Split View on the iPad. There are also premium features require a $4.99 in-app purchase.

Download Marvin: iOS

• Best iPhone apps
• Best Android apps

Get the top Amazon Prime Day deals right in your inbox: Sign up now!

Receive the hottest deals and product recommendations alongside the biggest tech news from the Tom's Guide team straight to your inbox!

Craig Grannell has been writing about tech for longer than he cares to remember, and spends his days surrounded by black rectangles, cables, and countless devices going DING when a notification comes in. He’s written for a bunch of magazines and websites including Tom's Guide, TechRadar, Wired, Stuff and many others, and specializes in Apple, apps, games, design and retro. At some point, he’s hoping someone will pay him a full-time wage to write about Robotron: 2084 and Bubble Bobble all day.

Pop-up ads in Google Maps? That shouldn’t be happening, says Google

Apple just became first company ever charged with violating EU’s new pro-competition law

I took over 200 photos with the Razr Plus 2024 vs Razr 2024 — here's the winner

Most Popular

• 2 Samsung has become far too complacent — and the Galaxy Z Fold 6 proves it
• 3 Apple launches website promoting Apple Watches for kids — what you need to know
• 4 Early Amazon Prime Day gaming deals — here's 9 deals on PS5, Switch, and Xbox I'd get right now
• 5 Forget Prime Day — this 65-inch 4K Roku TV just crashed to $298 at Walmart

Book Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write a book review, a report or essay that offers a critical perspective on a text. It offers a process and suggests some strategies for writing book reviews.

What is a review?

A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles, entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies, exhibitions, performances, and many other forms. This handout will focus on book reviews. For a similar assignment, see our handout on literature reviews .

Above all, a review makes an argument. The most important element of a review is that it is a commentary, not merely a summary. It allows you to enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with other audiences. You can offer agreement or disagreement and identify where you find the work exemplary or deficient in its knowledge, judgments, or organization. You should clearly state your opinion of the work in question, and that statement will probably resemble other types of academic writing, with a thesis statement, supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Typically, reviews are brief. In newspapers and academic journals, they rarely exceed 1000 words, although you may encounter lengthier assignments and extended commentaries. In either case, reviews need to be succinct. While they vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features:

• First, a review gives the reader a concise summary of the content. This includes a relevant description of the topic as well as its overall perspective, argument, or purpose.
• Second, and more importantly, a review offers a critical assessment of the content. This involves your reactions to the work under review: what strikes you as noteworthy, whether or not it was effective or persuasive, and how it enhanced your understanding of the issues at hand.
• Finally, in addition to analyzing the work, a review often suggests whether or not the audience would appreciate it.

Becoming an expert reviewer: three short examples

Reviewing can be a daunting task. Someone has asked for your opinion about something that you may feel unqualified to evaluate. Who are you to criticize Toni Morrison’s new book if you’ve never written a novel yourself, much less won a Nobel Prize? The point is that someone—a professor, a journal editor, peers in a study group—wants to know what you think about a particular work. You may not be (or feel like) an expert, but you need to pretend to be one for your particular audience. Nobody expects you to be the intellectual equal of the work’s creator, but your careful observations can provide you with the raw material to make reasoned judgments. Tactfully voicing agreement and disagreement, praise and criticism, is a valuable, challenging skill, and like many forms of writing, reviews require you to provide concrete evidence for your assertions.

Consider the following brief book review written for a history course on medieval Europe by a student who is fascinated with beer:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, investigates how women used to brew and sell the majority of ale drunk in England. Historically, ale and beer (not milk, wine, or water) were important elements of the English diet. Ale brewing was low-skill and low status labor that was complimentary to women’s domestic responsibilities. In the early fifteenth century, brewers began to make ale with hops, and they called this new drink “beer.” This technique allowed brewers to produce their beverages at a lower cost and to sell it more easily, although women generally stopped brewing once the business became more profitable.

The student describes the subject of the book and provides an accurate summary of its contents. But the reader does not learn some key information expected from a review: the author’s argument, the student’s appraisal of the book and its argument, and whether or not the student would recommend the book. As a critical assessment, a book review should focus on opinions, not facts and details. Summary should be kept to a minimum, and specific details should serve to illustrate arguments.

Now consider a review of the same book written by a slightly more opinionated student:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 was a colossal disappointment. I wanted to know about the rituals surrounding drinking in medieval England: the songs, the games, the parties. Bennett provided none of that information. I liked how the book showed ale and beer brewing as an economic activity, but the reader gets lost in the details of prices and wages. I was more interested in the private lives of the women brewsters. The book was divided into eight long chapters, and I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to read it.

There’s no shortage of judgments in this review! But the student does not display a working knowledge of the book’s argument. The reader has a sense of what the student expected of the book, but no sense of what the author herself set out to prove. Although the student gives several reasons for the negative review, those examples do not clearly relate to each other as part of an overall evaluation—in other words, in support of a specific thesis. This review is indeed an assessment, but not a critical one.

Here is one final review of the same book:

One of feminism’s paradoxes—one that challenges many of its optimistic histories—is how patriarchy remains persistent over time. While Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 recognizes medieval women as historical actors through their ale brewing, it also shows that female agency had its limits with the advent of beer. I had assumed that those limits were religious and political, but Bennett shows how a “patriarchal equilibrium” shut women out of economic life as well. Her analysis of women’s wages in ale and beer production proves that a change in women’s work does not equate to a change in working women’s status. Contemporary feminists and historians alike should read Bennett’s book and think twice when they crack open their next brewsky.

This student’s review avoids the problems of the previous two examples. It combines balanced opinion and concrete example, a critical assessment based on an explicitly stated rationale, and a recommendation to a potential audience. The reader gets a sense of what the book’s author intended to demonstrate. Moreover, the student refers to an argument about feminist history in general that places the book in a specific genre and that reaches out to a general audience. The example of analyzing wages illustrates an argument, the analysis engages significant intellectual debates, and the reasons for the overall positive review are plainly visible. The review offers criteria, opinions, and support with which the reader can agree or disagree.

Developing an assessment: before you write

There is no definitive method to writing a review, although some critical thinking about the work at hand is necessary before you actually begin writing. Thus, writing a review is a two-step process: developing an argument about the work under consideration, and making that argument as you write an organized and well-supported draft. See our handout on argument .

What follows is a series of questions to focus your thinking as you dig into the work at hand. While the questions specifically consider book reviews, you can easily transpose them to an analysis of performances, exhibitions, and other review subjects. Don’t feel obligated to address each of the questions; some will be more relevant than others to the book in question.

• What is the thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world you know? What has the book accomplished?
• What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? What is the approach to the subject (topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive)?
• How does the author support their argument? What evidence do they use to prove their point? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author’s information (or conclusions) conflict with other books you’ve read, courses you’ve taken or just previous assumptions you had of the subject?
• How does the author structure their argument? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• How has this book helped you understand the subject? Would you recommend the book to your reader?

Beyond the internal workings of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the circumstances of the text’s production:

• Who is the author? Nationality, political persuasion, training, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the biographer was the subject’s best friend? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they write about?
• What is the book’s genre? Out of what field does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or literary standard on which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know. Keep in mind, though, that naming “firsts”—alongside naming “bests” and “onlys”—can be a risky business unless you’re absolutely certain.

Writing the review

Once you have made your observations and assessments of the work under review, carefully survey your notes and attempt to unify your impressions into a statement that will describe the purpose or thesis of your review. Check out our handout on thesis statements . Then, outline the arguments that support your thesis.

Your arguments should develop the thesis in a logical manner. That logic, unlike more standard academic writing, may initially emphasize the author’s argument while you develop your own in the course of the review. The relative emphasis depends on the nature of the review: if readers may be more interested in the work itself, you may want to make the work and the author more prominent; if you want the review to be about your perspective and opinions, then you may structure the review to privilege your observations over (but never separate from) those of the work under review. What follows is just one of many ways to organize a review.

Introduction

Since most reviews are brief, many writers begin with a catchy quip or anecdote that succinctly delivers their argument. But you can introduce your review differently depending on the argument and audience. The Writing Center’s handout on introductions can help you find an approach that works. In general, you should include:

• The name of the author and the book title and the main theme.
• Relevant details about who the author is and where they stand in the genre or field of inquiry. You could also link the title to the subject to show how the title explains the subject matter.
• The context of the book and/or your review. Placing your review in a framework that makes sense to your audience alerts readers to your “take” on the book. Perhaps you want to situate a book about the Cuban revolution in the context of Cold War rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union. Another reviewer might want to consider the book in the framework of Latin American social movements. Your choice of context informs your argument.
• The thesis of the book. If you are reviewing fiction, this may be difficult since novels, plays, and short stories rarely have explicit arguments. But identifying the book’s particular novelty, angle, or originality allows you to show what specific contribution the piece is trying to make.
• Your thesis about the book.

Summary of content

This should be brief, as analysis takes priority. In the course of making your assessment, you’ll hopefully be backing up your assertions with concrete evidence from the book, so some summary will be dispersed throughout other parts of the review.

The necessary amount of summary also depends on your audience. Graduate students, beware! If you are writing book reviews for colleagues—to prepare for comprehensive exams, for example—you may want to devote more attention to summarizing the book’s contents. If, on the other hand, your audience has already read the book—such as a class assignment on the same work—you may have more liberty to explore more subtle points and to emphasize your own argument. See our handout on summary for more tips.

Analysis and evaluation of the book

Your analysis and evaluation should be organized into paragraphs that deal with single aspects of your argument. This arrangement can be challenging when your purpose is to consider the book as a whole, but it can help you differentiate elements of your criticism and pair assertions with evidence more clearly. You do not necessarily need to work chronologically through the book as you discuss it. Given the argument you want to make, you can organize your paragraphs more usefully by themes, methods, or other elements of the book. If you find it useful to include comparisons to other books, keep them brief so that the book under review remains in the spotlight. Avoid excessive quotation and give a specific page reference in parentheses when you do quote. Remember that you can state many of the author’s points in your own words.

Sum up or restate your thesis or make the final judgment regarding the book. You should not introduce new evidence for your argument in the conclusion. You can, however, introduce new ideas that go beyond the book if they extend the logic of your own thesis. This paragraph needs to balance the book’s strengths and weaknesses in order to unify your evaluation. Did the body of your review have three negative paragraphs and one favorable one? What do they all add up to? The Writing Center’s handout on conclusions can help you make a final assessment.

Finally, a few general considerations:

• Review the book in front of you, not the book you wish the author had written. You can and should point out shortcomings or failures, but don’t criticize the book for not being something it was never intended to be.
• With any luck, the author of the book worked hard to find the right words to express her ideas. You should attempt to do the same. Precise language allows you to control the tone of your review.
• Never hesitate to challenge an assumption, approach, or argument. Be sure, however, to cite specific examples to back up your assertions carefully.
• Try to present a balanced argument about the value of the book for its audience. You’re entitled—and sometimes obligated—to voice strong agreement or disagreement. But keep in mind that a bad book takes as long to write as a good one, and every author deserves fair treatment. Harsh judgments are difficult to prove and can give readers the sense that you were unfair in your assessment.
• A great place to learn about book reviews is to look at examples. The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The New York Review of Books can show you how professional writers review books.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Drewry, John. 1974. Writing Book Reviews. Boston: Greenwood Press.

Hoge, James. 1987. Literary Reviewing. Charlottesville: University Virginia of Press.

Sova, Dawn, and Harry Teitelbaum. 2002. How to Write Book Reports , 4th ed. Lawrenceville, NY: Thomson/Arco.

Walford, A.J. 1986. Reviews and Reviewing: A Guide. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

• New Releases
• Coming Soon
• Bestsellers
• Target Exclusives
• Barnes & Noble Picks
• Epic Reads Insiders

Sort by: Per page Per page

The 6 Best Book Apps for Reading, Discovering, and Borrowing New Books

Your rights as a student in us public schools, these ya thrillers kept us at the edge of our seats, choose a romance trope, we’ll give you a book rec.

It’s practically a book nerd’s duty to discover new ways to read books at any time. How else would we know the best ways to read on a rainy day, a crowded train, or while de-stressing during a chaotic week? Luckily for us, there are some great apps available to make reading, keeping track of your TBRs, and listening to audiobooks easier than ever! Plus, some that are just plain fun.

So, without further ado, here are six of the best book apps for your reading experience!

The 6 Best Book Apps

FOR READING AND DISCOVERING NEW BOOKS

1. Goodreads

Plus, you can search, rate, and review every book in the entire Goodreads catalogue. It makes it even easier to keep track of all the books you want to read and have read, you can add status updates for the books you’re currently reading, and you can take part in their annual reading challenge! If you’re already doing that, see how successful you’ll really be. We also love that through the Goodreads app you can talk all things books through messages, reviews, groups, and recommendations!

• Find Goodreads on the iTunes store
• Find Goodreads for Androids

2. Bookmojis

This keyboard app includes a selection of custom YA emojis, GIFs, & stickers personally curated and created by us to celebrate book nerds and make chatting fandom fun!

• Find Bookmojis on the iTunes store
• Find Bookmojis for Androids

Using the Libby app, you can find and borrow a book with just a few taps. It has a built-in ebook reader and its own audiobook player! Plus, if you prefer, you can send books directly to your Kindle for reading. The Libby app allows you to sign in to multiple libraries with one or more library cards, stay signed in for as long as you like, download books for offline reading or stream them to save space, sample any book, read zoomable graphic novels and picture books, and consolidate all of your holds and loans on one convenient shelf! You can tag titles with ratings, sync loans and bookmarks, and keep track of your entire reading history. The possibilities are endless, and this app brings everything we love about libraries on the go.

• Find Libby on the iTunes store
• Find Libby for Androids

The community is full of passionate readers, authors, and influencers who create short posts about all of their reading moments. It’s almost as if you combined Instagram and Goodreads into one social experience.

Since enjoying a book has no end, Litsy is totally mobile and allows you to capture whatever bookish thoughts you have, whenever you have them. It also makes it easy to fall into a rabbit hole of book nerdy fun, browsing your feed wherever you are. When you find a book that catches your interest, add it to your stack! Litsy also features a “Litfluence” scoring program, which is a fun and validating way to show you that they know what you’re saying matters. It’s all fun, simple, rewarding, and super easy to use!

• Find Litsy on the iTunes store
• Find Litsy for Androids

5. Serial Box

The stories here unfold in episodes, week after week. They’re easy to pick up, episodes are available in audio and text, and, yes, are enjoyable on their own, but also build up over the course of the season to tell a greater story.

The team at Serial Box believes that reading should be as convenient, quick, and captivating as the best TV shows. Like your favorite shows, these serials are organized into seasons of 10-16 episodes that each take about 40 minutes to listen to or read. There’s a new season every year, and a new episode every week. They’re fast-paced and full of character, because this app is aiming to bring you the highest quality fiction in a brand new exciting and engaging form.

• Find Serial Box on the iTunes store

6. OverDrive

Available 24/7, OverDrive lets the library come to you. There are no more late fees because titles are automatically returned, and you can place holds, create wish lists, and get notified when books you’ve requested are available! You can sync libraries, bookmarks, highlights, and recent reading positions across devices, and all you need is a valid account with a participating school, library, or other institution. Each library builds its own collection of titles, so adding something is as easy as contacting them through the app with a tap and letting them know you’re interested!

• Find OverDrive on the iTunes store
• Find OverDrive for Androids

Are there any other apps that you use? Let us know in the comments down below!

They hate my guts. They love me not. They love me… If you didn’t know, these are the three common…

There are few things we love more than a good fantasy or sci-fi book with positive LGBTQ+ representation. It’s a…

If you’ve been anywhere on the bookish corner of the internet these last few years, you’ve been unable to escape…

Celebrate the freedom to read with this post filled with info, embeddable badges, lists and more! …

8 Book Recommendation Apps to Find Your Next Read

Clare Barnett

Clare Barnett lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and daughter. She delves into all genres but has a soft spot for fantasy, mystery, and memoir. When she’s not working her way through her to-read list, she’s reading and writing about bookish things. Twitter: @clarebar. Inquiries: [email protected].

View All posts by Clare Barnett

Just like books themselves, there are book recommendation apps and services for every reader style. Prefer the old-fashioned hand-sell? We have our very own TBR for that. Looking for an algorithm to turn to your literary tastes into data points? There’s the StoryGraph. Or how about book recs based on reader personality? Bookfinity might be just what you need. Here are eight book recommendation apps and services to help you find that perfect book you didn’t know you needed. Happy hunting!

Book Riot’s TBR

Ok, TBR is not an app. It is however, a fast and easy way to connect with a professional bibliophile who will handpick books for you based on your tastes and favorite authors. Vast bookish knowledge plus an element of surprise equals book bliss. You’re welcome. 

One of the newer services, Tertulia culls news, Twitter and podcasts for recent book mentions. Users can link their Twitter profiles to see what books people they follow have been tweeting about, or just see what cultural critics, famous writers, and journalists recommend. The interface is slick and the app is an interesting way to track the latest book buzz.

The StoryGraph

StoryGraph gets that the perfect next read is more of a vibe. It asks “What are you in the mood for?” and recommends books based on however many moods you tagged, based on the pace, length and genre of book you select. Mysterious and reflective? StoryGraph has recommendations for that!

BookyCall is a fun app that gives each book a dating app–esque profile that answers questions like “Who should swipe right on me?” and “What are my most attractive traits?” For example, Outlawed by Anna North describes itself as “I attract the courageous and determined type. I want to spend time with someone who isn’t afraid to fight for their beliefs, someone who isn’t afraid to get down and dirty.” If you do swipe right, the book will message you with links to buy at places like Bookshop, Amazon and Libro.fm.

The Amazon-backed juggernaut does it all. It can recommend your next read based on books you’ve shelved under “to read” “raves” or “tea and crumpets” (yes, that’s a shelf of mine). Goodreads also links books “readers also enjoyed” on every book’s page so you can find books in a similar vein. For a personal touch, you can also recommend books you’ve loved to your friends.

Likewise builds off the books you like to create a taste profile. Pick ten books that you loved and it’ll offer suggestions for similar books you may enjoy in a swipe-style spread. Users can also ask the community for very specific recommendations like “Enemies to lovers set in bakeries.” If you’re a fan of the platform, you can also use it to get recs for television and movies. 

 Created by book distributor Ingram, this is only a website for now. It offers book recommendations based on a user’s “reading personality.” Based on a quick quiz, I’m categorized as a “Time traveler,” with a little bit of “Serial Reader” thrown in. If those results mean I like historical fiction and crime, then correct. Bookfinity also makes recs based on mood, so users can search for books that users tag as “inspired” or “scared.”

Libby is the go to app for accessing ebooks and audiobooks through your public library. However, it also has hundreds of librarian-curated lists, like “You turn my pages: Romance featuring diverse characters and authors,” or “Found family” books. As a bonus, you can check them out straight from the list.

For more bookish apps to enhance your reading life, check out 15 Amazing Free Reading Apps to Take Your Books Everywhere.

You Might Also Like

12 Best Reading Apps for Book Lovers: Get Millions of Free Books

• 12 Best Reading...

Reading App - What Is It?

How can a book app enhance your reading experience, 7 best apps for book lovers: subscription-based choices, top 5 best free apps for book lovers, summing it up.

For centuries, book reading has been one of the most popular activities for leisure and education. These days, you can enjoy this wholesome activity with the additional benefits provided by digital technologies. Thanks to reading apps developed for smartphones, tablets, digital book readers, and other gadgets, you can keep thousands of books on your device and read them anywhere.

This article will cover many benefits of applications for book lovers and describe some new features and improvements over reading traditional paper books. We will provide the list of best book apps for iPhone and Android devices for you to choose from. So, if you are a book enthusiast, here is our guide on finding the best ebook app to enjoy literature, manage your digital library, and discover new levels of reading experience.

These days, Google Play, App Store, and other application marketplaces contain many software products for book lovers. They appeal to various tastes and preferences by offering a wide range of literature genres for young and adult readers. However, unlike traditional libraries or bookstores, most book-reading apps also give access to audiobooks and text-to-speech engines. This functionality brings a whole new level of experience, immersion, and convenience to literature lovers in comparison with the “conventional” reading of printed books.

So, as you can see, the name “reading app” is an homage to traditions and does not reflect the full range of features in modern software products developed for book enthusiasts. Today, the best ebook apps offer their users many ways to enjoy literature in different formats on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other digital devices. 

The choice of a favorite software product to enjoy books now depends on the user’s personal preferences. For some people, the best book reader app is a tiny software that is focused on imitating an ink-and-paper look of traditional books on a device screen. For others, the preferred ebook app is a modular software suite that supports dozens of file formats, allows both reading and listening to books, has a built-in shop and a library of purchased books with a rating system, and many other features.

These days, various software products that provide access to digital books offer their users many ways to enjoy literature. The most crucial change is the possibility to listen to books or even switch between reading and listening modes. This allows users to enjoy better immersion in storytelling and offers more convenience due to a hands-free experience.

Book apps also have many useful features for enthusiasts who are devoted to “traditional” reading. Those features may vary from small quality-of-life improvements to new possibilities that bring the reading process to a new level. For example, a small but convenient feature of changing the font and adjusting its size has a huge benefit by making reading much more comfortable.

Some of the best book reader app s have integration with online stores that sell digital books. This feature allows users to purchase rare works of literature that may be hard to find in traditional bookshops. Usually, similar to other types of stores, they have ratings and user comments to help users choose literature according to their tastes.

One of the most popular features in most ebook reading applications is the library which stores downloaded books. This way, users can have hundreds and even thousands of books on a single device. Before the age of smart devices, such an opportunity was unthinkable, and now it is a mundane reality we have already gotten used to.

Let’s take a look at the top 7 paid reading applications that are well worth their price. A little warning for you: some of them are technically free to download. However, you will have to pay to use the intended features of these apps. So, consider the pros and cons of each application and make a choice based on their prominent features and your preferences.

1. Amazon Kindle - an Obvious Choice for Amazon Users

One of the most feature-rich apps for book lovers .

• Available platforms: iOS , Android
• Subscription price: Kindle Unlimited - $9.99 per month, Amazon Prime - $14.99 per month or $139 per year.
• Interesting feature: You can sync and track your reading progress on multiple devices.
• Pros: A well-designed environment to choose, buy, borrow, and read books.
• Cons: Many synching and performance issues.

The Amazon Kindle software has been around for over a decade and still remains one of the best ebook apps. Two types of subscriptions offer different levels of in-app access to the content, and you can buy books directly from Amazon. The app has many features for convenient shopping and reading on a wide range of supported platforms.

2. Blinkist - the Best Reading App to Discover New Ideas

One of the best reading apps for fans of nonfiction literature.

• Subscription price: $14.99/month without a trial period or $89.99/year with a 7-day free trial.
• Interesting feature: Gives users 15-minute versions of concentrated insights from books and podcasts.
• Pros: Offers many titles on self-improvement and science.
• Cons: The “free” plan is extremely limited, and subscription plans are costly.

Blinkist is the top choice for people who like to get useful insights on a regular basis. The app has crash courses on a wide range of topics. Users can read and listen to full-size books and podcasts or extract the main ideas from them.

3. Bookly - a Reading App That Tracks Your Reading Sessions

An excellent choice for people who are interested in building a reading habit.

• Subscription price: $19.99/six months.
• Interesting feature: You can track your reading time and set goals for further reading.
• Pros: The app has ways to motivate and reward its users.
• Cons: Time tracking may be distracting for some users.

Bookly is a convenient app that will keep you motivated to read. It tracks your reading sessions and shows you the time you have spent reading, the number of read pages, and the amount of pages left to reach your current goal. Similar to other book- reading apps , it has a bookshelf and a rating system, so you can sort and rate your digital library.

4. ComiXology - a Top Choice for Comic Book Fans

The best collection of content from the most popular publishers of comics and manga.

• Subscription price: $5.99/month with a 30-day trial.
• Interesting feature: You can link your Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime accounts to get access to even more titles.
• Pros: An all-in-one app to read digital comics and build your personal library of purchased titles and editions.
• Cons: Somehow, Amazon managed to make this app worse with the recent updates.

Many comic book lovers will say that ComiXology is the best book app for iPhone and Android devices. Its library has over 230,000 comics, graphic novels, and manga from such famous publishers as DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, and many others. You can read the all-time classic issues or the latest stories about your favorite superheroes.

5. Epic: Kids’ Books & Reading - a Fun Ebook App for Young Readers

The best book reader app for kids. 

• Subscription price: $9.99/month and free for educators and students during the school day.
• Interesting feature: Dictionary lookup, quizzes, award badges, and reading buddies for better learning and entertainment.
• Pros: Personalized profiles for up to 4 children, multilingual books for reading and listening.
• Cons: Some content may be restricted and unavailable in some countries.

Epic is a kid-friendly, teacher-approved digital library that offers over 40,000 books, learning videos, audiobooks, and other content for children. If you want to get your kids into reading, this is one of the best book apps in this category.

6. Scribd - a Massive Library on Your Device

The top subscription-based choice that is well worth its price.

• Available platforms: iOS , Android , Fire OS
• Subscription price: $11.99/month with a 30-day free trial.
• Interesting feature: Unlike other apps, Scribd also offers a large selection of documents and sheet music.
• Pros: Over 1 million titles of fiction and nonfiction works, 60 million documents, and other content.
• Cons: Drains your device battery rather quickly, especially when playing an audiobook.

Scribd is a comprehensive library app that offers millions of books, magazines, audiobooks, podcasts, and documents. The cherry on top is the selection of sheet music, which is a rare sight in other reading software. All these features make Scribd one of the best subscription-based reading apps on Android and iOS devices, as well as Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets.

7. Wattpad - a Reading App That Supports Aspiring Writers

One of the best cross-platform reading apps for book lovers and storytellers.

• Subscription price: (Optional) $4.99/month for Premium or $7.49/month for Premium+
• Interesting feature: Writers can join writing contests and win partnerships with publishing houses.
• Pros: A lot of original content written by app users.
• Cons: An abundance of in-app ads, most books require purchase, and the free version has severely limited functionality.

Wattpad is a bustling community of readers and writers that offers many ways for talented authors to get discovered and make money. On this platform, you can publish your work and even get a partnership with publishing companies or movie studios. If you love to discover original works from talented but unknown authors, Wattpad is one of the best apps for book lovers .

Let us review the five most popular free book apps for Android and iOS. Though they may lack certain features in comparison with paid software, these free applications are solid choices for any book fans.

1. Goodreads - a Great App for Discovering And Reviewing Books

Join the most popular online community of book readers using Goodreads.

• Interesting feature: Users can scan book barcodes or covers to add them to their lists.
• Pros: Personalized recommendations, billions of book reviews, and many social features.
• Cons: You cannot read books directly from this app.

Goodreads is the most popular online service that unites millions of book fans. Though this app does not have reading functionality, it is almost essential for any book enthusiast who wants to stay in touch with people with a similar passion for literature.

2. Hoopla Digital - a Free Library App with Incredible Functionality

If you want an all-in-one software suite for ebooks, audio, and movies, this is your choice among the best free book apps .

• Interesting feature: In addition to mobile devices, this app is adapted for Android Auto and Apple Carplay.
• Pros: Incredible selection of content in various formats.
• Cons: Users cannot preview books before borrowing them.

Hoopla Digital makes the most out of your library card by offering tons of content for free and without ads. This app has everything for you to enjoy novels, comics, magazines, audiobooks, movies, and other works available in libraries.

3. Inkitt - an Altruistic App for Readers and Writers

Top choice for people who love modern independent authors and finding hidden gems.

• Interesting feature: The app has a vast library of free novels and stories in different genres that are exclusive to this platform.
• Pros: Completely free and without ads.
• Cons: Most books are written by inexperienced or independent authors.

Inkitt is an app that offers many fiction books for free. Besides, it allows its users to join a community and share feedback on independent literature. The hand-picked selection of stories and many features for comfortable reading make Inkitt one of the best free reading apps that also allows publishing stories.

4. Libby by OverDrive - For Users Who Still Have Their Library Cards

This is one of the best free apps for book lovers to enjoy the services of local libraries.

• Available platforms: iOS , Android .
• Interesting feature: Use your library card information to borrow books, magazines, and audio content.
• Pros: A large catalog of free content for reading and listening.
• Cons: The book search functionality needs improvement.

Support local libraries with the help of this amazing app. Libby allows you to borrow and read books and magazines using your mobile device and library card. It also supports audiobooks and allows listening to them on your smartphone or using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

5. Serial Reader - a Small App for Fans of Classic Literature

Break down classic literature into 20-minute reading episodes per day.

• Subscription price: Free, several optional features unlock with a one-time payment of $2.99.
• Interesting feature: Users can sync their reading progress with their Goodreads accounts.
• Pros: You can add your own DRM-free books in the epub format.
• Cons: Offers a tiny selection of books compared to other reading apps.

Serial Reader is one of the best book apps to make a habit of reading in small amounts. The digital library contains only 900 classic titles, but you can add your own books, and this app will divide them into short issues for daily reading.

Ebook reading apps remain one of the most popular types of software for mobile devices. If you want to create such an app with a custom set of features or an innovative approach, Intellectsoft can do this for you. Our expertise in iOS app development and Android app development allows us to deliver a wide range of solutions, as proven by our cases .

We have over 15 years of experience, which allowed us to gather a solid team of experts and hone our skills. So, if you need custom book-reading software, use our extensive mobile app development services . Our specialists will take care of all aspects of the development process, as well as perform consulting, post-release support, and other vital steps. Contact our managers and let us turn your idea into a top-quality software product!

What are the best free book reading apps?

We recommend the following five apps:

• Hoopla Digital;
• Serial Reader;

You can install all of them at the same time. Each app in this list has a unique feature, so they complement each other.

What is the best paid reading app?

If you want an all-in-one solution with a massive selection of titles, Scribd will be an optimal choice for you. If you like original stories and exclusive content, we would recommend Wattpad.

What is the best book-reading app for my kids?

We believe that Epic is the best ebook app designed specifically for children. It is subscription-based, but you will get many useful features and access to a great digital library.

What is the best ebook app to buy digital content?

You cannot go wrong with Amazon Kindle. It has an integrated shop with tons of titles, reviews, sale offers, and much more.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Top 12 software development methodologies, hiring ukrainian developers in 2022: what are the risks, native vs. cross-platform app development: how to pick, outsourcing software development to ukraine – a complete guide, product team on-demand: forget everything you know about software outsourcing , the basic principles of setting a dedicated offshore development center.

Something went wrong. Send form again, please.

Thank you for your response!

We have sent an email to acknowledge receipt of your request. In the event that you have not received our email, we kindly suggest checking your spam folder or alternatively, contacting us directly at [email protected]

What’s Next?

• We will send a short email notifying you that we successfully received your request and started working on it.
• Our solution advisor analyzes your requirements and will reach back to you within 3 business days.
• We may sign an optional mutual NDA within 1-2 business days to make sure you get the highest confidentiality level.
• Our business development manager presents you an initial project estimation, ballpark figures, or our project recommendations within approximately 3-5 days.

Get an Ultimate Guide to iOS App Development

This hands-on collection of worksheets and expert tips can be yours!

Download our eBook and set yourself up for success.

6 Book Recommendation Apps That’ll Tell You What to Read Next

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

I've Broken Two Samsung S Pens: Don't Make These 3 Simple Mistakes

7 reasons why spotify is my preferred app for podcasts, this popular app shares your phone number with everyone: here's how to opt out.

There's absolutely nothing worse than finishing up a great book or book series and not knowing what to read next. Sometimes it's difficult to find a book series that speaks to you as much as the one you just fell in love with, or to find more niche, smaller authors to support.

This is where book recommendation apps come in handy. Have you ever been to the bookstore and received a print out with your receipt of three or five books you might like based on the ones you just purchased? Well, this is exactly like that, just in app form. Check out the best book recommendation apps you can download today!

1. Likewise

Every day, Likewise presents you with a few books that you can either mark as read or save to read later. Then, you can view your saved books on the Saves tab and even create new lists if you already have a few books on your to-read list.

Related: Ways to Read More Books and Develop a Habit of Reading Regularly

Likewise also has a Community tab where you can view or join discussions, ask for recommendations from others, or join groups in your favorite genres. Then, there's a Discover tab where you can spend hours reading through trending books and lists like "Lana Del Rey's Favorite Reads" or "19 Page-Turners That Read Like an Action Movie."

And what's awesome about Likewise is that you can find more than just book recommendations. If you're looking for new TV shows, movies, or podcasts, the app can help you connect to similar communities and find your next favorites.

Download: Likewise for Android | iOS (Free)

2. Goodreads

With the Goodreads app, you can view personalized recommendations based on your favorite genres and previously read books. When looking at a recommendation, you can rate it if you've already read it or add it to your "Want to Read" list.

The app also has a cover scanner, which is nifty if you're in a physical bookstore. If you see a book you like, you can scan the cover and if there are reviews on Goodreads for the book, they'll pop up instantly.

Goodreads also has quite a few lists to scroll through on the Discover tab, to help you find books. The app also has reading challenges and giveaways, and you can invite friends or join groups to connect with the reading community.

Download: Goodreads for Android | iOS (Free)

Inkitt is a fantastic app to help support upcoming authors who have either just published a book or are currently working on one and want feedback. You can find pretty much every genre imaginable, so there's something for everyone on this app.

Related: Chrome Extensions to Manage Your Reading List

You tell the app what your favorite genres are and it'll automatically recommend you one or two books it thinks you'll like. Once you've read a story, you can comment on it, like it, or leave a full review for it. And you can download available books for free to read them offline while you're out of the house.

Overall, this app is really awesome for finding niche picks from smaller authors that you may not have ever heard of otherwise.

Download: Inkitt for Android | iOS (Free)

4. Bookshelf

Bookshelf won't give you personalized recommendations, but there's plenty to look through on its Explore tab. You can filter books by category to see a plethora of options, including Crime & Thriller, Food & Drink, Romance, Sport, and more. Then, once you select a category, you can even niche down your options further by selecting a subcategory.

At any given time, each category will have 60 of the bestsellers in that genre. And although you can't read reviews for each book, you can see the number of reviews and the star rating for each of the 60 books in a category.

One of the neat things about this app is your virtual bookshelf. You can add all the books you've read and use a five star rating system, tags, and notes to keep track of how much you liked it.

Download: Bookshelf for Android | iOS (Free)

5. BookSloth

BookSloth gives you personalized recommendations based on your interests and lets you browse through curated lists. Then, you can keep track of all the books you've read or want to put on your future reading list, review books when you're done reading them, and even work toward fun in-app achievements.

Related: Tips to Remember More of Every Book You Read

The app also lets you create a profile and connect with people who enjoy the same genres and authors as you. And if you don't want to actually friend anyone, you can just interact with the community by exploring discussions about books or joining book clubs.

Download: BookSloth for Android | iOS (Free)

6. ThriftBooks

If you love to buy physical books, but hate spending your entire paycheck on them, you need to check out ThriftBooks. On top of browsing a ton of curated lists and current bestsellers, ThriftBooks also gives you personalized recommendations. Each book in the app has a five star rating and most have written reviews to go alongside the rating.

ThriftBooks is also great if you're in college and want to find the cheapest textbooks possible. You can always double check Amazon and Chegg just to make sure you're getting the best price, but usually ThriftBooks has other retailers beat.

Plus, if you shop through the app and join the ReadingRewards program, you can get a free book sent to you for every 500 points you earn. And who doesn't love free books?

Download: ThriftBooks for Android | iOS (Free)

Always Have Your Next Book Lined Up

With excellent recommendations at your fingertips, you'll never run out of great books to read. And although the recommendations from app algorithms are usually pretty spot on, the communities within these apps are awesome for finding even more recommendations or just connecting with like-minded people.

If you love the smell, feel, and just enchanting world of physical books, make sure you check out your local libraries, bookstores, or even invest in a book subscription box that'll keep your life fun and interesting.

• Android Apps

• Roku Prime Day Deals Ready Now!
• Early Prime Day Deals on Samsung!

The 9 Best Book Reading Apps of 2024

E-readers are great, but don't count your phone out. These apps make reading on your phone a breeze

• Western Sydney University
• Payment Services

Book lovers no longer lack choices regarding quality ebook and audiobook apps. Here are some of the best book reader apps for Android, iOS , and Windows devices.

Best Free Book Reading App: Media365 Book Reader

Massive library of popular and niche ebooks that can be read for free.

Ability to import your own ebook files for reading in the app.

Offline reading requires a $1.99 upgrade.

Only for Android.

Media365 is a free reading app for Android that lets you read any of the books in its library in exchange for the occasional fullscreen advertisement. Authors can self-publish on the Media 365 platform, which is why so many niche and indie titles are available. Many mainstream books are also available, like the entire Harry Potter book series.

The Media 365 library stores eBooks in 15 languages, while font size can be adjusted simply by doing a two-finger pinch on the screen. There’s also a text-to-speech function, which lets the app read books to you. You can also upload your ebooks with supported EPUB, PDF, AZW3, CBC, CBR, CBZ, CHM, FB2, LIT, MOBI, TCR, AI, and PUB formats.

Download For:

Best eBook Reader App for Amazon Prime Members: Kindle

Massive library of ebooks to choose from.

Apps are updated on a very regular basis.

The Kindle app for Windows is more for traditional computers than touchscreens.

Can’t buy ebooks within the iOS or Android Kindle app.

The official Kindle apps on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows are Amazon’s way of letting their customers consume their Kindle ebooks without having to buy a Kindle.

Any Kindle-branded ebook on the Amazon website can be read within the Kindle app. A variety of features set this app experience apart from its rivals, including the built-in dictionary, the ability to skip ahead without losing your place, and Amazon’s X-Ray tech, which reveals extra information on a book’s characters and world while you’re reading.

The Amazon Kindle apps aren’t perfect, though. The Windows Kindle app is designed more for traditional desktop computers than modern devices with touchscreens, and the iOS and Android versions don’t support ebook purchases. However, Kindle eBooks can still be purchased on the Amazon website and will sync to the Kindle app almost immediately.

Most-Available Reading App: Rakuten Kobo

Loads of options to customize the reading experience.

There’s an official Kobo app for most phones in existence.

The Windows app is incredibly outdated, and the Facebook login doesn’t work.

Audiobooks are only available on the iOS and Android apps.

Rakuten’s Kobo is a major competitor to Amazon, with millions of ebooks and a growing number of audiobooks on its platform. The iOS and Android Kobo apps are clearly where the company puts most of its attention, with each app offering an impressive variety of font sizes, styles, and color options to make the reading experience more personal and comfortable for individual users.

The Kobo app is also available for Windows 10 in the Microsoft Store app store. Windows users will want to download the separate desktop version of the app, though, which is updated regularly and offers more features. The desktop app also works on Macs.

Best Reading App for Kids: Epic!

Lots of in-app gamification that encourages kids to read more.

Great selection of classic and modern children’s books.

App requires a monthly subscription to use, though a 30-day free trial is available.

Changing settings is a bit of a convoluted process.

Epic! is like a Netflix for kids, but instead of TV shows and movies, it supplies the user with a massive library of ebooks and audiobooks . Parents can make unique profiles for each of their children, who can customize their profiles based on their tastes.

While many classic children’s books are available to download, there are also many modern releases, such as one series of books covering famous pop culture icons. Children can also choose from family-friendly comic books like Snoopy and The Smurfs and numerous short video clips created by DreamWorksTV.

Best iPhone eBook Reader App: Yomu EBook Reader

Supports EPUB, MOBI, PRC, AZW, AZW3, KF8, CBZ, CBR, and PDF files.

eBooks can be saved to the Yomu app from any iOS web browser.

Settings menu is very hard to find after adding books.

Download links should be in the main menu, not in the tutorial.

The Yomu EBook Reader is a fantastic app for iPhone and iPad users who download their ebooks in various file formats and want to bring them all together for a cohesive reading experience.

Yomu, Japanese for “to read,” supports all of the popular ebook file formats and those supported by Amazon Kindle. Files can be imported to the app via a cloud service like iCloud , Dropbox, Google Drive , or OneDrive , and once the app is installed, Yomu will appear as a source when saving ebook files from any iOS web browser app.

PDF eBook Reading App: Foxit PDF Reader

PDF files can be shared directly to the app on iOS.

Reflow options makes all files readable on small screens.

Ability to create a new PDF file requires a $14.99 monthly subscription on iOS and Android.

Lack of a back button on app screens makes navigation very confusing.

Foxit PDF Reader Mobile is one of the better PDF apps and is an ideal solution for those who prefer to consume ebooks in the PDF file format . Unlike many similar apps that display a PDF as is and require you to pinch and zoom to read its content, Foxit features a reflow setting that resizes and reorganizes the text on a page to fit perfectly on a mobile phone’s screen.

PDF files can be transferred to the Foxit app via Wi-Fi , iCloud, or Foxit’s own Foxit Drive service. Those using an iOS device can import downloaded files directly from the share feature while using other apps. A monthly subscription is needed to take advantage of many advanced settings, but those looking for an app to simply read their PDF ebooks will be fine with the free functionality.

Best eBook Reader For Android Phones And Tablets: AIReader

Supports a lot of Android devices with the minimum OS requirement being Android 2.3.

Multiple profiles can be used for different app settings. 

No support for PDF files.

Scrolling can be very jittery on lower-end Android tablets.

AIReader is a popular reading app on Android due to its support for older Android smartphones and tablets running operating systems as out-of-date as Android 2.3. It should be mentioned that many of the scrolling and related animations aren’t as smooth as they should be on older devices, but the ebook reading experience is still solid. Most major file types will work no matter which Android device you’re on.

Best Reading App on Nintendo Switch: Inky Pen

Large selection of free comics from lots of popular franchises.

Comics look great on the Nintendo Switch.

$7.99 a month will be a bit expensive for some people.

No Marvel or DC Comics series.

Most would think the Nintendo Switch is just for playing games, but its library of non-game apps has been slowly growing since its launch. One of these apps, Inky Pen, is a full-fledged comic book reading app that lets anyone read full digital issues from popular comic book series on their Switch.

Inky Pen does charge a monthly fee of $7.99 for unlimited access to its entire library, but there are an impressive amount of free issues available that will keep most comic fans entertained during long car trips or lazy weekends. What’s cool is the app works when the Nintendo Switch is docked so that a group can read comics on a TV.

Best Reading App for Google Addicts: Google Play Books

Very smooth reading experience with a page turn animation looks fantastic.

Runs really well on cheap, low-end Android tablets.

App needs to switch to the Google Play app every time you want to read more about a book.

Has a much smaller selection than Amazon.

Google Play Books, as its title suggests, is Google’s first-party app for reading ebooks and listening to audiobooks bought within the Google Play Store . The book selection isn’t as extensive as Amazon’s, but it’s still large enough to please the casual reader. Those who enjoy reading at least one book a day may want more.

The good thing is that Google Play Books doesn’t need a subscription service. It can be used to enjoy a purchased ebook or audiobook one weekend, then ignored for a week without feeling financial guilt for not taking advantage of some monthly fee.

It’s a very solid reading experience for when you want to use it, is incredibly stable and easy to use, and has some of the best page-turn animations out of all the book-reading apps.

Google Play Books is an excellent reading app, especially for those immersed in the Google ecosystem.

Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day

• The 17 Best Android Tablet Apps of 2024
• 22 Best Places to Get Free Kindle Books in 2024
• What Is a Kindle?
• The 10 Best Apps for Your High-Schooler
• 16 of Our Favorite Places to Download Free Audiobooks in 2024
• 17 Best Sites to Download Free Books in 2024
• 10 Best eBook Readers for Android
• Kindle vs. Fire Tablet: What's the Difference?
• How to Get Free eBooks
• What Is an EPUB File?
• The 6 Best Speed Reading Apps of 2024
• Amazon Fire Tablet vs. iPad: Which Is Right for You?
• Is Kindle Unlimited Worth It? 4 Reasons Why You Should Get a Membership
• Top Android E-Book Readers
• Is Buying a Kindle Worth It? 4 Reasons to Buy One
• The 9 Best Travel Planner Apps of 2024

• Fueled on Twitter
• Fueled on Facebook
• Fueled on Pinterest
• Fueled on Instagram
• Fueled on Dribbble

Featured Articles

Article in Best of category.

The 8 best apps for book lovers.

Do you love reading on your phone? Do you want to find the perfect subscription for eBooks and audiobooks? Try these best apps for book…

2. Apple Books

4. madefire, 5. blinkest, 6. cereal box, 8. overdrive , here are some of the best reading apps.

At Fueled, we build apps for companies looking to expand their digital offerings to reach more users. This shift to mobile-focused business models is affecting every type of consumer, but readers especially are changing their habits. Book lovers are increasingly putting down the physical books and picking up iPads and Kindles. In 2018, a quarter of all books sold  so far have been e-books, and that figure doesn’t include audiobooks, which in turn make up another 18% of the market. Digital books are here to stay, so for National Book Lovers Day Fueled has put together a list of the best apps for book lovers of all ages.

People are seemingly split on whether physical books or digital books are better, but there’s no arguing that audiobooks are much more at home on a digital device rather than a half dozen cassettes or CDs. Thanks to apps such as Audible , you can buy, download, and near-instantly start listening to any audiobook you want. It takes up no space and you don’t need a physical player other than what’s in your pocket. And unlike music which has a “quality” component, audiobooks sound just as good as their physical counterparts.

Audible has led the audiobook popularity surge with a slick app, vast library, and — thanks to its acquisition by Amazon — a wave of new original content. Users can subscribe for a low monthly fee and use their monthly credit to pick up any book they want. Unlike streaming music, you own that book and can re-listen any time you choose, even after canceling your Audible subscription.

That subscription now not only includes your audiobook credit but access to podcasts and Audible Originals. Audible Originals are documentaries, sleep programs, and short stories by some major authors. Titles like The Coldest Case by James Patterson, read by Aaron Paul, Krysten Ritter, and Beau Bridges among others. Or Escape From Virtual Island performed by Jack McBrayer, Paul Rudd, Jason Sudeikis, and others.

One of my favorite features about Audible is its support for Apple Watch . You can save books directly to your Apple Watch so you can head out for a walk, hike, or a shopping session without your iPhone and stream your favorite book to your AirPods. If you prefer to listen on your iPhone, the Apple Watch will automatically display the Audible app with relevant controls. Its implementation is near-flawless and a great way to integrate hardware and software.

Audible is a fantastic option for fans of audiobooks that tailors its entire experience around this single-use instead of splitting its focus between different types of content. It’s even possible to shop and spend credit directly from the app which has made it easier and better than ever before.

Apple Books

Sometimes the best solution is the easiest solution, the default solution. And that is Apple Books . As this app comes from the maker of your phone, it gets the first shot to take advantage of new iOS and iPadOS features. It’s helpful that the app syncs over iCloud so all of your books and purchases sync seamlessly across all of your devices. Pick up an audiobook on your Mac during the day and when you walk out to the car your book will be waiting for — including support for CarPlay.

Apple Books — or just Books — looks at home everywhere. It has a clean, minimalist appearance and takes advantage of both light and dark mode options. It can store your purchased books, your own ebooks, PDFs, and audiobooks.

While reading you can adjust the background color, the font style, and the font size. Bookmarks can be added at any point to come back to in the future. Text can be highlighted and notes can be added anywhere you like and if you’re on Mac or iPad this can be done with native keyboard shortcuts.

Apple offers a full bookstore, just as it does with music. You can shop for all your favorite authors, see curated lists, and take advantage of frequent promotions and deals. This is tied to your Apple ID so any purchase goes to the card you have on file for the App Store. I love not needing to create a new account or give anyone else my payment details. It is all very contained, effortless to use, and secure. Other apps have more features but there is certainly something to be said for being built-in by default.

Apple’s App Store editors describe Bookly as a fitness tracker for book lovers and I can’t think of any better way to put it. It shows how long you read, how many pages you’ve plowed through, and enhances your reading experience more than any other app. It's also the best way to see what books you still want to read.

Bookly helps turn reading from an occasional task into a full-blown habit. For each book, you can see a variety of interesting metrics. You can see each reading session you do with how long you say down, how many pages you read, what your average pace is per page, and how many pages you finish per hour. It’s able to take that information and average it out to let you know how much longer you’ll need to spend to finish that title. It’s extremely cool to see this information presented for reading, something that doesn’t usually get that much visibility.

You can create your own reading goals which help you progress your reading habit. These can be daily goals such as an amount of time or a number of pages or it can be for the whole year, represented by the number of books you finish. Sometimes when you need that little bit of extra motivation, Bookly can get you a push.

Over time, your metrics will accumulate which paints a larger picture of your abilities. You can see how you’ve progressed in how much you’ve read and how fast. Awards are unlocked for achievements such as reading for consecutive days in a row. At any point you can instantly generate a glorious infographic touting your progress.

While reading, Bookly can act as a timer, counting how long you’ve been reading. In-app tools let you add your thoughts from that session — including plot points you want to remember, as well as words you liked or wanted to look up, and full quotes that you want to go back to. If you hate the silence, Bookly has an ambient noise player to fill the silence.

Any book lover will love being able to see so much information about their reading. Thanks to deep ties into iOS, those metrics are also visible through Home Screen widgets. This app is fun, simple, and a great way to better your burgeoning reading habit.

See your favorite comics come alive— and I’m not talking about the latest Marvel or DC superhero movie. Madefire makes comics more immersive than they already were by animating the striking artwork within.

This isn’t an animated movie, not even close. Instead, the cells and images move across your screen, building the story piece by piece as you read. There’s no one reading the story to you, you still do the reading, but the story is enhanced with music and sound effects. You become part of the story as you interact. While reading Batman you touch the panel to fire a Batarang as just one example. This is a huge benefit of a digital experience over a paper one.

That and the ability to store countless comics on your iPhone or iPad. Madefire has worked with the top publishers to bring these motion effects to the biggest names in comics. Marvel, DF, Image, Dark Horse, Blizzard, Valiant, and others all offer some degree of motion comics. At the moment, there are well over a thousand comics available with more on the way.

If you’re looking for an excuse to catch up on new comics — motion-driven or not — Madefire is here for you. Kick back and read, watch, and listen on your iPhone and iPad as well as your TV — a place you’ve never seen your comics before. You know, other than the movies.

While reading has a laundry list of benefits, not everyone always has time to kick back and read. Sometimes you only have 15-30 minutes which would take you months to finish a normal book. Blinkist distills the biggest takeaways and insights from more than 4,500 non-fiction bestsellers into short, easily digestible bursts.

Each session is only roughly 15 minutes long, easy to fit into any point of the day. You can choose to read these summaries or you can listen to them — or go back and forth as time permits. Blinkist also has a collection of exclusive short-form podcasts that are also non-fiction. These “Shortcasts” are informational and a great way to learn and improve yourself without the time commitment.

As you explore the thousands of books, you can search by author, topic, or books and you can filter by topic or category. Curated collections exist so you can get started on books Blinkist things you’ll enjoy. If you prefer, full audiobooks are available at a discounted member rate.

The fact Blinkist can playback the “blinks” to you or you can read them is what makes this app so cool to me. I don’t always want to listen and I don’t always have the ability to read. I love being able to catch up on a few blinks while at my desk but as I jump in the car I can finish the rest audibly. It’s a small thing that makes a big difference in my ability to breeze through these popular titles.

Serial Box is yet another app that offers a different kind of content. It has over 500 original stories set in fantasy, sci-fi, and horror genres. The stories can be listened to or read, depending on your presence, a feature I loved from apps such as Blinkist above.

A lot of attention was paid to the details with Serial Box. Literally, all the little details. It starts with the stories themselves. They are exclusive and can only be found on Serial Box. The stories are written by some of the most popular authors in the space. If you’re listening to them as audiobooks, you’ll also be treated to best-in-the-biz narrators such as Tatiana Maslany. Those audiobooks are also full of immersive, chilling, engaging audio effects inspired by the cinema.

Then there is the app itself. It has a custom audio player with light and dark mode support (don’t want to kill the mood with excess light!) and hypnotic animations that play across your screen. Audio can be streamed to any AirPlay 2 speaker (such as HomePod) and the app also has the ability to skip the intro/outro and set a sleep timer. Audio can be downloaded while you’re on Wi-Fi so you can listen offline, saving data, or while on a flight.

If you prefer to read, you can do so with infinite scrolling or page swiping options. Like any reader, it has multiple background colors, typefaces, and sizes available to make it easy on your eyes. There are even advanced settings like custom margin thickness, line height, letting spacing, and word spacing. Not many reading apps have that.

These genres aren’t for everything — especially horror. I would prefer not to read a horror novel thank you very much — but their popularity has certainly increased. Serial Box goes out of its way to cater to these users and plays into features, narrators, authors, and publishers that will jump out at them.

If you enjoy Marvel movies or like whatever the latest Stephen King novel is, I think you should absolutely give Serial Box a shot.

There’s absolutely no way I was going to put together a roundup of the best book apps without mentioning Kindle . It simply wouldn’t be possible. Most book lovers out there already swear by kindle so I can’t be revealing anything you don’t already know.

The Kindle app for iPhone and iPad takes the popular Kindle experience from Amazon’s readers and brings it to Apple’s ecosystem. It has the full array of customization options you’d expect including alternate colors, fonts, and sizes.

What’s most impressive with Kindle is the ease-of-purchase as well as size of the library. Kindle books can be purchased from Amazon and they can be purchased with a single click. Once you click the button it is automatically delivered in the background to your default device, be it an actual Kindle or iPad’s Kindle app. It’s engineered to a tee to be simple to do with as many barriers to purchase as possible removed.

If you have an Amazon membership, there are other Kindle perks. Sign up for Kindle Unlimited and have access to a vast catalog of titles included at no additional cost. This go-to app needs no further summation and you likely already have this app on your device. If you don’t and you use Amazon, be sure to check it out.

Your book costs may start to add up, especially if you are a fast reader or continue to improve your habit. Whether you are starting out and don’t want to invest too much or regularly suffer from bibliophilia and your monthly costs are getting too high, borrowing books may be a better choice.

In recent years, your local library has gone digital, allowing you to virtually borrow books rather than borrowing them physically. You don’t have to go into the library nor do you have to manually check if your yearned-for title is in.

Register an account using your library card and “check out” books digitally and read them right on your iPhone or iPad. That includes audiobooks as well. OverDrive is one of a few places that support these library books and it makes the whole process easy and free.

The OverDrive reader is fantastic and on par with Apple’s offering and many other reader apps on the App Store. Adjust font size, color, and spacing so that it’s easy to read regardless of your lighting conditions.

I’ve used OverDrive for years to read the best books without having to pay a dime, all thanks to your local library. Audiobooks are just as good thanks to the OverDrive app for CarPlay so my wife and I can listen on the road. Again, it’s free! So get a library card and give the app a download and start exploring the ever-expanding catalog of books.

But enough about other people's apps.

LET'S TALK ABOUT YOURS

More Articles By Andrewo

Shop Makes Mobile Shopping Better

Have you seen all those ads for Shopify? They run…

Baseplate is the Ultimate Lego Companion App

Lego has been experiencing a bit of a renaissance recently.…

Stay in-the-know for All Your Food-Based Holidays

My wife loves those random daily holidays such as "National…

Trying Mastodon? Use Ivory on Your iPhone!

While things have arguably settled, there’s still some turmoil in…

Callsheet Is the Movie Companion You Need

I hope this isn’t too blasphemous because it’s been the…

The 8 Best Apps for Couples in 2024

Jump To: 1. Between 2. GoodBudget 3. Love Nudge 4.…

Ferrite is a Desktop-Class Podcast Powerhouse

It seems everyone has a podcast these days, which is…

Yuka Empowers Smart Shoppers

Yuka is a super helpful app that allows you to…

FastMinder Makes Fasting Manageable

First and foremost — I’m not recommending you to try…

My Disney Experience Is a Game-Changer for Guests

If you’re gearing up to travel to Disneyland, you’re going…

Recent Articles

Fueled Merges with 10up To Deliver Superior Customer Experiences

Fueled is proud to announce its merger with 10up, the…

How to Know if Your App Idea Will Succeed

Having a great app idea is just the beginning. The…

How Airbnb’s MVP Paved the Way for a $93 Billion Company

It’s easy to look back at the inception of household…

How To Get Investors For Your Mobile App: The Ultimate Guide

Picture this: You wake up in the middle of the…

How Much Does It Cost to Make an App: The Ultimate Guide

You’ve got a million-dollar idea for an app. Or you…

How Much Money Can You Earn With an App in 2024?

How Much Money Can an App Earn? There's a lot…

How to Backup Google Universal Analytics Before the GA4 Transition

On July 1, 2023, Google Universal Analytics (UA) properties stopped…

What Is a Minimum Viable Product

Remember when you were a little kid and the night…

Navigation Menu

Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests..., provide feedback.

We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously.

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly.

To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation .

• Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

The final project for the IBM Course "Developing back-end apps with Node.js and Express".

BishoySedra/Online_Book_Review_Application

Folders and files.

Repository files navigation

Online book review server-side application.

Welcome to the Online Book Review Server-Side Application, the final project for the IBM Course "Developing back-end apps with Node.js and Express." This application allows users to manage books, write reviews, and interact with book-related data. It utilizes MySQL as the database and Sequelize.js as the ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) tool.

Quick Brief

The Online Book Review Server-Side Application provides a RESTful API for managing user accounts, books, and reviews. Users can register, log in, and create reviews for books. Books can be added, updated, and deleted. Reviews can be read, edited, and deleted. The application aims to provide a seamless experience for book enthusiasts to share their thoughts on books.

Getting Started

Follow these instructions to set up and run the application:

Prerequisites

Node.js : Ensure you have Node.js installed on your system. You can download it from nodejs.org .

MySQL : You will need a MySQL database server installed and running. You can download MySQL from mysql.com .

Installation

Clone the repository :

Navigate to the project folder :

Install dependencies :

Configure the database connection :

• Create a MySQL database for the application.
• Set your MySQL database credentials and other environment variables in the .env file.

Start the application :

API Documentation

For detailed API documentation and examples of how to use the endpoints, please take a look at the API Documentation .

• User Management : Register, log in, and manage user accounts.
• Book Management : Add, update, delete, and list books.
• Review Management : Write, edit, delete, and read reviews for books.

Technologies Used

• Node.js : JavaScript runtime environment.
• Express.js : Web application framework for Node.js.
• MySQL : Relational database management system.
• Sequelize.js : Promise-based Node.js ORM for MySQL.
• JavaScript 100.0%

Watch CBS News

What is Project 2025? What to know about the conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration

By Melissa Quinn , Jacob Rosen

Updated on: July 11, 2024 / 9:40 AM EDT / CBS News

Washington — Voters in recent weeks have begun to hear the name "Project 2025" invoked more and more by President Biden and Democrats, as they seek to sound the alarm about what could be in store if former President Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House.

Overseen by the conservative Heritage Foundation, the multi-pronged initiative includes a detailed blueprint for the next Republican president to usher in a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch.

Trump and his campaign have worked to distance themselves from Project 2025, with the former president going so far as to call some of the proposals "abysmal." But Democrats have continued to tie the transition project to Trump, especially as they find themselves mired in their own controversy over whether Mr. Biden should withdraw from the 2024 presidential contest following his startling debate performance last month.

Here is what to know about Project 2025:

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a proposed presidential transition project that is composed of four pillars: a policy guide for the next presidential administration; a LinkedIn-style database of personnel who could serve in the next administration; training for that pool of candidates dubbed the "Presidential Administration Academy;" and a playbook of actions to be taken within the first 180 days in office.

It is led by two former Trump administration officials: Paul Dans, who was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management and serves as director of the project, and Spencer Chretien, former special assistant to Trump and now the project's associate director.

Project 2025 is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, but includes an advisory board consisting of more than 100 conservative groups.

Much of the focus on — and criticism of — Project 2025 involves its first pillar, the nearly 900-page policy book that lays out an overhaul of the federal government. Called "Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise," the book builds on a "Mandate for Leadership" first published in January 1981, which sought to serve as a roadmap for Ronald Reagan's incoming administration.

The recommendations outlined in the sprawling plan reach every corner of the executive branch, from the Executive Office of the President to the Department of Homeland Security to the little-known Export-Import Bank. 

The Heritage Foundation also created a "Mandate for Leadership" in 2015 ahead of Trump's first term. Two years into his presidency, it touted that Trump had instituted 64% of its policy recommendations, ranging from leaving the Paris Climate Accords, increasing military spending, and increasing off-shore drilling and developing federal lands. In July 2020, the Heritage Foundation gave its updated version of the book to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. 

The authors of many chapters are familiar names from the Trump administration, such as Russ Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget; former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller; and Roger Severino, who was director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Vought is the policy director for the 2024 Republican National Committee's platform committee, which released its proposed platform on Monday. 

John McEntee, former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, is a senior advisor to the Heritage Foundation, and said that the group will "integrate a lot of our work" with the Trump campaign when the official transition efforts are announced in the next few months.

Candidates interested in applying for the Heritage Foundation's "Presidential Personnel Database" are vetted on a number of political stances, such as whether they agree or disagree with statements like "life has a right to legal protection from conception to natural death," and "the President should be able to advance his/her agenda through the bureaucracy without hindrance from unelected federal officials."

The contributions from ex-Trump administration officials have led its critics to tie Project 2025 to his reelection campaign, though the former president has attempted to distance himself from the initiative.

What are the Project 2025 plans?

Some of the policies in the Project 2025 agenda have been discussed by Republicans for years or pushed by Trump himself: less federal intervention in education and more support for school choice; work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults on food stamps; and a secure border with increased enforcement of immigration laws, mass deportations and construction of a border wall. 

But others have come under scrutiny in part because of the current political landscape. 

Abortion and social issues

In recommendations for the Department of Health and Human Services, the agenda calls for the Food and Drug Administration to reverse its 24-year-old approval of the widely used abortion pill mifepristone. Other proposed actions targeting medication abortion include reinstating more stringent rules for mifepristone's use, which would permit it to be taken up to seven weeks into a pregnancy, instead of the current 10 weeks, and requiring it to be dispensed in-person instead of through the mail.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that is on the Project 2025 advisory board, was involved in a legal challenge to mifepristone's 2000 approval and more recent actions from the FDA that made it easier to obtain. But the Supreme Court rejected the case brought by a group of anti-abortion rights doctors and medical associations on procedural grounds.

The policy book also recommends the Justice Department enforce the Comstock Act against providers and distributors of abortion pills. That 1873 law prohibits drugs, medicines or instruments used in abortions from being sent through the mail.

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade , the volume states that the Justice Department "in the next conservative administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills."

The guide recommends the next secretary of Health and Human Services get rid of the Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force established by the Biden administration before Roe's reversal and create a "pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department's divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children."

In a section titled "The Family Agenda," the proposal recommends the Health and Human Services chief "proudly state that men and women are biological realities," and that "married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them."

Further, a program within the Health and Human Services Department should "maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family."

During his first four years in office, Trump banned transgender people from serving in the military. Mr. Biden reversed that policy , but the Project 2025 policy book calls for the ban to be reinstated.

Targeting federal agencies, employees and policies

The agenda takes aim at longstanding federal agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. The agency is a component of the Commerce Department and the policy guide calls for it to be downsized. 

NOAA's six offices, including the National Weather Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, "form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity," the guide states. 

The Department of Homeland Security, established in 2002, should be dismantled and its agencies either combined with others, or moved under the purview of other departments altogether, the policy book states. For example, immigration-related entities from the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Health and Human Services should form a standalone, Cabinet-level border and immigration agency staffed by more than 100,000 employees, according to the agenda.

If the policy recommendations are implemented, another federal agency that could come under the knife by the next administration, with action from Congress, is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The agenda seeks to bring a push by conservatives to target diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives in higher education to the executive branch by wiping away a slew of DEI-related positions, policies and programs and calling for the elimination of funding for partners that promote DEI practices.

It states that U.S. Agency for International Development staff and grantees that "engage in ideological agitation on behalf of the DEI agenda" should be terminated. At the Treasury Department, the guide says the next administration should "treat the participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for termination of employment."

The Project 2025 policy book also takes aim at more innocuous functions of government. It calls for the next presidential administration to eliminate or reform the dietary guidelines that have been published by the Department of Agriculture for more than 40 years, which the authors claim have been "infiltrated" by issues like climate change and sustainability.

Immigration

Trump made immigration a cornerstone of his last two presidential runs and has continued to hammer the issue during his 2024 campaign. Project 2025's agenda not only recommends finishing the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but urges the next administration to "take a creative and aggressive approach" to responding to drug cartels at the border. This approach includes using active-duty military personnel and the National Guard to help with arrest operations along the southern border.

A memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that prohibits enforcement actions from taking place at "sensitive" places like schools, playgrounds and churches should be rolled back, the policy guide states. 

When the Homeland Security secretary determines there is an "actual or anticipated mass migration of aliens" that presents "urgent circumstances" warranting a federal response, the agenda says the secretary can make rules and regulations, including through their expulsion, for as long as necessary. These rules, the guide states, aren't subject to the Administration Procedure Act, which governs the agency rule-making process.

What do Trump and his advisers say about Project 2025?

In a post to his social media platform on July 5, Trump wrote , "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."

Trump's pushback to the initiative came after Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said in a podcast interview that the nation is "in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

The former president continued to disavow the initiative this week, writing in another social media post  that he knows nothing about Project 2025.

"I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it," Trump wrote. "The Radical Left Democrats are having a field day, however, trying to hook me into whatever policies are stated or said. It is pure disinformation on their part. By now, after all of these years, everyone knows where I stand on EVERYTHING!"

While the former president said he doesn't know who is in charge of the initiative, the project's director, Dans, and associate director, Chretien, were high-ranking officials in his administration. Additionally, Ben Carson, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Trump; John Ratcliffe, former director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration; and Peter Navarro, who served as a top trade adviser to Trump in the White House, are listed as either authors or contributors to the policy agenda.

Still, even before Roberts' comments during "The War Room" podcast — typically hosted by conservative commentator Steve Bannon, who reported to federal prison to begin serving a four-month sentence last week — Trump's top campaign advisers have stressed that Project 2025 has no official ties to his reelection bid.

Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, senior advisers to the Trump campaign, said in a November statement that 2024 policy announcements will be made by Trump or his campaign team.

"Any personnel lists, policy agendas, or government plans published anywhere are merely suggestions," they said.

While the efforts by outside organizations are "appreciated," Wiles and LaCivita said, "none of these groups or individuals speak for President Trump or his campaign."

In response to Trump's post last week, Project 2025 reiterated that it was separate from the Trump campaign.

"As we've been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign. We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy & personnel recommendations for the next conservative president. But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement," a statement on the project's X account said.

The initiative has also pushed back on Democrats' claims about its policy proposals and accused them of lying about what the agenda contains.

What do Democrats say?

Despite their attempts to keep some distance from Project 2025, Democrats continue to connect Trump with the transition effort. The Biden-Harris campaign frequently posts about the project on X, tying it to a second Trump term.

Mr. Biden himself accused his Republican opponent of lying about his connections to the Project 2025 agenda, saying in a statement that the agenda was written for Trump and "should scare every single American." He claimed on his campaign social media account  Wednesday that Project 2025 "will destroy America."

Congressional Democrats have also begun pivoting to Project 2025 when asked in interviews about Mr. Biden's fitness for a second term following his lackluster showing at the June 27 debate, the first in which he went head-to-head with Trump.

"Trump is all about Project 2025," Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman told CNN on Monday. "I mean, that's what we really should be voting on right now. It's like, do we want the kind of president that is all about Project '25?"

Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, one of Mr. Biden's closest allies on Capitol Hill, told reporters Monday that the agenda for the next Republican president was the sole topic he would talk about.

"Project 2025, that's my only concern," he said. "I don't want you or my granddaughter to live under that government."

In a statement reiterating her support for Mr. Biden, Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida called Project 2025 "MAGA Republicans' draconian 920-page plan to end U.S. democracy, give handouts to the wealthy and strip Americans of their freedoms."

What are Republicans saying about Project 2025?

Two GOP senators under consideration to serve as Trump's running mate sought to put space between the White House hopeful and Project 2025, casting it as merely the product of a think tank that puts forth ideas.

"It's the work of a think tank, of a center-right think tank, and that's what think tanks do," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

He said Trump's message to voters focuses on "restoring common sense, working-class values, and making our decisions on the basis of that."

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance raised a similar sentiment in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," saying organizations will have good ideas and bad ideas.

"It's a 900-page document," he said Sunday. "I guarantee there are things that Trump likes and dislikes about that 900-page document. But he is the person who will determine the agenda of the next administration."

Jaala Brown contributed to this report.

Melissa Quinn is a politics reporter for CBSNews.com. She has written for outlets including the Washington Examiner, Daily Signal and Alexandria Times. Melissa covers U.S. politics, with a focus on the Supreme Court and federal courts.

More from CBS News

2024 RNC begins on heels of assassination attempt. Here's what to know.

Who's speaking at the 2024 RNC? Here's a full rundown of people on the list

See full RNC roll call of states vote results for the 2024 Republican nomination

Biden orders Secret Service protection for RFK Jr.

Advertisement

21 Questions About Literature and Life in the 21st Century (So Far)

Written by THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOKS STAFF July 14, 2024

• Share full article

Literature has always reflected society, and as the Book Review’s survey “100 Best Books of the 21st Century” reveals, many titles on the list are intertwined with major events and trends of the young millennium. With that in mind, this beefy quiz — a group effort by several members of the Book Review’s staff — challenges you to show how closely you’ve been paying attention to books, history and pop culture the past few decades.

All the questions are multiple choice, so tap or click your way down the quiz. And when you get to the end and collect your score, you'll get a list of links for related reading and other digital ephemera. Are you ready, Player One?

Which National Book Award-winning novel features a grieving woman’s increasingly intimate bond with a Great Dane?

“The Friend,” by Sigrid Nunez

“White Teeth,” by Zadie Smith

“We the Animals,” by Justin Torres

“Runaway,” by Alice Munro

As mentioned in his 2019 memoir “Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing,” which device has Robert A. Caro used to write drafts of his monumental, multi-volume, as-yet-unfinished biography of Lyndon Johnson?

A MacBook Air laptop

A TRS-80 computer

A Smith Corona electric typewriter

A Linux-based Dell desktop

Although this novel about a traveling group of performers after a global plague was published in 2014 before the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world, the book’s sales jumped during the lockdowns in 2020 and in 2021, when its television adaptation was released. Which novel was it?

“A Manual for Cleaning Women,” by Lucia Berlin

“Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel

“The Fifth Season,” by N.K. Jemisin

“The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones

Jeffrey Wright received a 2024 Academy Award nomination for his role as a weary author dealing with industry racism in “American Fiction.” Which novel was the inspiration for the film?

“The Late Americans,” by Brandon Taylor

“The Unsettled,” by Ayana Mathis

“Erasure,” by Percival Everett

“Symphony of Secrets,” by Brendan Slocumb

Quick! Who is Carel Fabritius?

A 17th-century painter whose depiction of a small bird gives “The Goldfinch” its title

A 19th-century chemist whose research is described in “The Emperor of All Maladies”

A 20th-century motorcycle designer in “The Flamethrowers”

A 22nd-century actor turned cult leader in “Station Eleven”

The Statista data-analysis company projects that the global video-game industry will reach a revenue of more than $282 billion in 2024. Which novel is about three friends in the video-game business?

“The Argonauts,” by Maggie Nelson

“Detransition, Baby,” by Torrey Peters

“The Great Believers,” by Rebecca Makkai

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” by Gabrielle Zevin

Jonathan Franzen notably was disinvited from the Oprah Winfrey show after expressing discomfort with his novel “The Corrections” being chosen as her book-club pick. For which novel did he eventually make it onto her show and hug it out with the host?

“Crossroads”

“The Twenty-Seventh City”

Which Broadway show, adapted from a book, won the 2015 Tony Award for best musical?

“The Color Purple”

“Doctor Zhivago”

Which king is on the throne of England in most of Hilary Mantel’s epic trilogy about ambition, power, loyalty — and, of course, politics — that started with “Wolf Hall” in 2009?

Edward VIII

Charles III

Isabel Wilkerson’s 2010 historical study “The Warmth of Other Suns” won the National Book Critics Circle Award and has even inspired dance productions. What was the book about?

The midcentury exodus of Black writers to Paris

Climate change’s effect on rural areas

The migration of Black people from the South to the North

The Tuskegee Airmen in Italy during World War II

Reviewers praised Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit From the Goon Squad” for the innovative ways it told a linked set of stories. One chapter was famously presented as what?

A series of text messages

A manga comic

A transcribed hypnosis session

A PowerPoint presentation

Lawrence Wright’s 2006 book about the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. What was the title?

“The Looming Tower”

“In the Shadow of No Towers”

“Falling Man”

“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”

Which best-selling novel begins with this sentence: “When I think of my wife, I always think of her head”?

“Trust,” by Hernan Diaz

“An American Marriage,” by Tayari Jones

“Veronica,” by Mary Gaitskill

“Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn

“Pachinko,” Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel that was a finalist for the National Book Award, is about a Korean family’s experiences before and after immigrating to Japan in the early 20th century. But what is “pachinko” itself?

A tile-based game played by four players around a table

A pinball-like arcade game sometimes used for gambling

A modern version of the card game whist, but with a smaller deck

A board game played with four wooden sticks that act like dice

This century has seen a turbulent uptick in mass migration and asylum seekers around the world. Which 2017 novel used speculative fiction techniques to explore global refugee issues and emigration?

“Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid

“The Power,” by Naomi Alderman

“Shadowbahn,” by Steve Erickson

“The Burning Girl,” by Claire Messud

In Junot Díaz’s “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” — which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award — the main character Oscar is obsessed with nerd culture, including comic books. Which of these novels was all about the midcentury rise of the American comic-book industry — long before Marvel movies filled the multiplexes? (Hint: This book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001.)

“The Last Samurai,” by Helen DeWitt

“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” by Michael Chabon

“Cloud Atlas,” by David Mitchell

“Pulphead,” by John Jeremiah Sullivan

“Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical illustrated book about her childhood, was originally published in French in 2000 and 2001 before the English translation was released in 2003. But even without reading the book or seeing its 2007 film adaptation, where or what was Persepolis itself?

A site in Jordan with a temple carved into a canyon

A fantasy village that appears once every 100 years

The ancient capital of the first Persian (Achaemenid) Empire

A Zoroastrian city on the east end of the Silk Road

Which one of these novels was NOT part of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet?

“The Lying Life of Adults”

“The Story of a New Name”

“The Story of the Lost Child”

“My Brilliant Friend”

This meteorological event runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 every year and is also the name of Fernanda Melchor’s beautiful and brutal 2020 novel. What is the title of the book?

“Mercury Retrograde”

“Hurricane Season”

OK, Nobel watchers, this one’s for you: Which of these 21st-century books was NOT written by a Nobel laureate?

“Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage”

“Never Let Me Go”

“The Years”

Which 2005 book, at nearly 900 pages and written using research material from six languages, is one of the first modern histories to cover all of Europe — a continent that continues to have its own political upheavals to this day?

“Postwar,” by Tony Judt

“The Global Age,” by Ian Kershaw

“Modern Times,” by Paul Johnson

“The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” by Paul Kennedy

• General Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry

Smart Nanotextiles: Wearable and Technical Applications

ISBN: 978-1-119-65478-0

August 2022

Nazire Deniz Yilmaz

This groundbreaking book comprehensively reviews the utilization of smart nanotextiles in various application areas by referring to requirements specific to various application fields, sharing the findings of some of the latest research efforts and state-of-art smart nanotextiles technologies, as well as providing insights relating to challenges and opportunities facing current and future smart nanotextiles.

This book covers the emerging and exciting field of nanotextiles and their many applications. Smart nanotextiles form a novel group of materials that are utilized/can be utilized in an array of application areas, such as biomedicine (health monitoring, controlled drug release; wound care, and regenerative medicine), communication, sports, fashion, energy harvesting, protection, filtration, civil and geotechnical engineering, transportation, and so on, including wearable and technical fields.

Whereas textiles provide a convenient platform for smart functionality, nanotechnology assures that the favorable characteristics of the textile structure are not impaired by the smart functioning components. Furthermore, based on the superior characteristics of nanostructured components in comparison to macromaterials and micromaterials, nanomaterials provide augmented smart functionality. However, despite the immense research efforts that have been devoted to smart nanotextiles, most of them have not yet transcended the commercialization stage due to high cost, difficulty in large-scale production, low reliability, and potential detrimental effects of nanomaterials on human health and the environment.

The 12 chapters comprising this book are all written by subject-matter experts from around the world and discuss the next-generation products along with their challenges and opportunities.

Researchers, technologists, industrial engineers, and postgraduate students in the fields of textiles, intelligent materials, electronics, sensors, actuators, biomedicine, fashion, filtration, transportation, civil engineering, environmental engineering, communication, sports performance, and materials science, who have an interest in smart materials, nanotechnology and wearables.

Nazire Yilmaz obtained her PhD degree in Textile Technology Management program from North Carolina State University (NCSU), USA where she has also worked as a teaching assistant. Currently, she is an associate professor in the Textile Engineering Department at Uşak University in Turkey. She has published more than 30 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, 13 book chapters, and eight conference papers, and holds a patent. She is the editor of Smart Textiles: Wearable Nanotechnology (Wiley-Scrivener, 2018).