Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
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Title: The best apps for reading, tracking and listening to books

Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2025 12:00:47 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/the-be...

Ask me what IΓÇÖm reading at any given moment and IΓÇÖll probably rattle off
at least three titles, not to mention comics and the occasional textbook I
may also be chipping away at in the background. Reading multiple books
simultaneously might sound chaotic (at least, people always tell me it is),
but there is a degree of organization to it all: each book in my pile of
current reads is in a different format. I'll have one physical, paper book,
an ebook and an audiobook in progress at a time, so I always have something
on hand to read no matter where I am.

While I used to carry around a dedicated ereader, I've shifted more toward
using my phone for the job these days, especially since getting a foldable.
Consequently, I've tried out a bunch of different apps for reading and
logging my books. These are the ones I like most.

Libro.fm

Audiobooks have really grown on me over the last few years, almost entirely
replacing podcasts as the thing I'll throw on when I'm cleaning, taking a
walk or going for a long drive. While I tried to make do at first by only
borrowing audiobooks from the library, I quickly found that the extremely
limited selection from my library system coupled with really long wait times
just wouldn't cut it if I wanted to stay up on new releases. After
researching all the options, I settled on Libro.fm, an audiobook platform
that shares a portion of profits (about half, according to a 2022 interview)
with independent bookstores. And even better, you get to pick which bookstore
to support with your purchases.

I wasn't expecting to find my favorite local bookstore ΓÇö a tiny shop in a
small town in New York's Hudson Valley ΓÇö on Libro.fm, so I was pleasantly
surprised when it turned up in the search. With that, and the fact that all
audiobooks from Libro.fm are Digital Rights Management (DRM) free, so you can
actually download the files and do with them as you please, I was sold. You
have a few options for buying audiobooks through Libro.fm: you can subscribe
for $15 per month, which gives you one audiobook credit and a 30 percent
discount on all purchases; you can buy credit bundles to save on purchases
without a subscription; and you can purchase individual titles at their full,
non-member price. There are also plenty of free books to choose from.

Bookshop.org app

The moment I found out that Bookshop.org had launched ebooks and an app to
read them on, I made the site my sole destination for buying digital books
and haven't looked back. Just like Libro.fm, Bookshop.org lets you choose a
local bookseller to support with your purchases. It's been doing this for
physical book sales for the last five years ΓÇö and according to its tally
has raised over $38 million for independent bookstores in that time ΓÇö but
until now, there hasn't been a similar option for ebooks. The new app is a no-
frills ereader app where you can browse the Bookshop.org catalog to save
titles to your wishlist (purchases have to be made on the site) and read all
the ebooks you've bought. There are some things I'd love to see it gain in
the future, like comics and the option to display pages side by side for
reading book-style on a foldable, but it's a great start as it is, especially
if your primary concern is supporting small businesses.

Right now Bookshop.org's ebook service doesn't sync with any of the
mainstream ereader devices, so you're locked into reading on Android, iOS or
a web browser, but the company said it's working on Kobo integration and we
could see that happen before the end of this year.

Libby

Libby, aka the library app, is my app of choice for older, less in-demand
ebooks and audiobooks, or for when I don't have anything particular in mind
and just want to browse the catalog to see what jumps out at me. It lets you
link multiple library cards, meaning you potentially have a huge pool to pull
from, and since you're borrowing books rather than buying them, it's entirely
free. Libby also connects with Kindle, and you can have your titles
automatically sent to your ereader. Some Kobo devices support OverDrive (the
distributor behind Libby) too.

While using an app may not be quite as satisfying as perusing the stacks IRL,
I really like Libby's tag system, which lets you organize your borrowed books
and To Be Read titles in whatever way works best for you. You can have a
dedicated TBR tag, or create several different tags to group things by genre,
mood, etc. Libby is also a great place to find magazines.

Moon+ Reader (Android only)

Moon+ Reader is the best app I've used yet for instances where I have the
actual file for a book or document. It supports a ton of different file types
ΓÇö including ePUB, PDF, AZW3, MOBI and many more ΓÇö and allows you to
highlight and annotate text, in addition to offering auto scroll and text-to-
speech so the text can be read aloud to you. It's really customizable, too.
You can choose things like font, font color, background, margin width, line
spacing and more for each document, and save the final build as a theme so
you can use it again later. Designwise, the app feels almost like a relic of
a bygone digital era, organizing all of your books in a skeuomorphic virtual
bookshelf, and I love it. There are a few style options for the bookshelf
too, or you can turn off the bookshelf and just see your books in a standard
grid.

There's both a free and paid version of the Moon+ Reader, and this is a
situation where getting the paid version (Moon+ Reader Pro) is actually worth
it. It's a one-time purchase of $10, and going that route will get rid of ads
and open up more customization options. In addition to importing your own
files into the app, Moon+ Reader has Project Gutenberg integrated so you can
directly access that library of over 75,000 free books.

The Storygraph

Naturally, I need a way to keep up with all the reading I'm doing, and that's
where The StoryGraph comes in. The StoryGraph is a data-focused app for
keeping track of everything you're currently reading, everything you've read
and the ever-growing list of titles you want to read. It even allows you to
mark books as "did not finish." I love that I can have five in-progress books
logged at a time, and can even update each entry to note how far along I am,
which is nice for those I'm dragging my feet on completing.

When you leave a review, you have the option to be really detailed about it,
going beyond a star rating and a blurb. Reviewers can indicate whether the
book would appeal to readers who like a particular mood, with over a dozen
options. You rate the pace and answer basic questions about the plot and
characters, like whether there's character development or if the characters
are even likeable. There's also the option to add content warnings.

Where The StoryGraph really shines, though, is in the stats. There are tons
of actual graphs built into the experience to show you a comprehensive
breakdown of your reading habits, from the genres, moods and pacing you
prefer, to how much fiction you've read versus nonfiction. You can set
challenges for yourself, like a yearly reading goal, and you'll be shown a
Reading Wrap-up at the end of the year. It'll tell you how long it takes you
to finish a book on average, and compare your reading stats to previous
years.

There is a mild social component to the app, but it's tucked away in its own
tab and not shoved in your face, which I appreciate as someone who tends to
shy away from those things. If you want, though, you can participate in or
create readalongs, start buddy reads and book clubs (and even write out a
code of conduct for the latter) or just see what other people with similar
interests to yours are reading. The StoryGraph team also really seems to take
users' feedback into consideration, and is constantly adding new things to
the app and tweaking existing ones to improve the experience, which is always
nice to see.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/the-be...
listening-to-books-120047705.html?src=rss

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