Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you’ve finished just to stay near it. The Books app allows you to do exactly this, while making the reading experience as fun as possible.
The Books app is the default ebook and pdf reading app on iPhones and iPads. It enables you to add your own books and pdfs, buy and download them from the inbuilt store as well as arrange them into collections for easier management.
Reading Now
The app opens in the Reading Now section, which displays the current and recent books you’ve been reading, as well as an Explore and All-Time Bestsellers section for getting additional books. You can also add books to your Want to Read list and they’ll appear under the Current reading books.
Current and Recent books, with Explore and Bestsellers.
Tapping the user icon at the top right displays your purchases, notification settings, redeeming a gift card or code to use in the Book Store, and a link to view the account settings.
Account screen options.
Library
This is where you’ll find all your books and pdfs, both bought in the Book Store and added manually to the app. There are two viewing options, Grid and List, and you can sort your books by:
- Title
- Author
- Recently Added
- Manually via drag and drop
Library view with grid and list view.
Books are arranged into the following default collections:
- Want to Read
- Finished
- Books
- Audiobooks
- PDFs
- Downloaded
Book collections, and adding books to collections via the Edit button.
The Edit button at the top right enables you to select multiple books and either share, delete or add them to your collections. Tapping on the menu button next to each book displays a load of options including:
- Sharing the book.
- Adding to want to read.
- Adding to a collection.
- Marking as finished.
- Removing it.
- Copying the book.
- Shortcuts you’ve created in the Shortcuts app.
Single book menu.
Book Store
The Books app provides an inbuilt store where you can buy ebooks and add them to your library. It’s divided into two sections.
Fiction & Literature
- General Fiction
- Poetry
- Short Stories
Non-Fiction
- General
- History
- Philosophy
Inbuilt Book Store.
Search
You can search for both books and audiobooks in the Search screen. You’ll also get to see your recent searches as well as trending searches near your location.
Search screen, with recent and trending searches.
Reading Experience
When you tap a book it opens and displays a clean reading experience.
Reading in portrait and landscape.
Tapping anywhere on the screen displays a progress bar of how much you’ve read the book, as well as the following options:
- Back button for exiting to the Reading Now screen.
- Menu for displaying the:
- Table of Contents. You can tap on any title to jump to that section in the book.
- Bookmarks, which lists all your bookmarks.
- Notes, for accessing any notes you’ve made. These can then be shared via email.
- Font Options, where you can change the:
- Screen brightness.
- Font size.
- Font used in the book.
- Theme. You can choose either white, sepia, grey or black.
- Night theme.
- Reading view. You can choose between page turning or scrolling view.
- Search, which enables you to search for any text or page number in the book.
- Bookmark button. This bookmarks the current page and adds it to the Bookmarks section in the menu screen.
Book navigation and reading options.
iPad App
The Books app for iPad has all the features of the iPhone app, with the advantage of displaying more info on the bigger screen.
Reading now view.
Library screen.
Book Store.
Conclusion
If you’re still reading this then that means you probably already enjoy reading. Which means I probably don’t have to tell you that reading is simply magical. It’s the only thing in the world that allows you to go and live inside another brain for a little while, see what it sees, feel what it feels, and then leave again. You can achieve all this and more with the Books app.