Ask Lemmy

Get a Kobo. They're awesome for reading. They feel like paper, like you're reading a real book. And it's pretty simple to sideload books. Plus you only have to charge them every few weeks, up to a month sometimes.

I find reading on my phone to be far easier than on paper due to dyslexia.

I use Libera FD, it's a combination eBook, PDF, document viewer that can scan your docs and form fit them to your desired font, size, and density.

As for getting books, annas-archive is my new best friend. I grab every weird fiction and horror I can get my hands on.

Moon+ reader as an app for reading on your phone. I've had it on every device since my Galaxy S. And the app is still maintained, receiving regular updates. Nice to be able to read a couple of pages when standing in line somewhere instead of mindlessly scrolling.

Anna's Archive or libgen for downloading epub, Librera Pro from F-Droid for reading.

PDF sucks, epub let's you configure everything like font, font size, space between lines and alignment to the left.

I pretty much prefer reading on my phone than physical book.

No, I read books on paper.

I enjoy reading on my phone when other people are around, for instance during lunch at work or at a park or something. If I read a normal dead tree book, I get people asking me what it is I'm reading, what it's about, WHY I'm reading, and so on. If I read on my phone, I'm just another Standard Phone Zombie and can be ignored.

I usually download an epub of the book and put it on my Kavita server, then read from my phone.

Paper. It’s unwieldy but there’s something about screens that doesn’t work for me.

No, that's why I bought a Kobo last year and it's been great. The phone is for audiobooks.

Yes. I've got a Kobo reader but mostly use the Kobo phone app to read the books I buy there. For my own files, eg from Project Gutenberg, I use ReadEra Premium, which is superior to the Kobo app. It can handle just about any format, including .mobi, which not even Amazon's Kindle app does now. I like it a lot.

Finally, there's Libby, the library app. I use it mainly to read the New Yorker magazine. You need to belong to a library first. Sign up to Libby and you can borrow from the library's collection. Mine allows you to borrow a book for two weeks, so I mainly stick to magazines.

I'm so used to reading on my phone now that I find print books cumbersome and limiting - I always have half a dozen books on the go and can't imagine carting around that many books.

I do almost all of my reading on my phone and have for more than a decade. There are many excellent book reading apps, but your source for material will probably limit those options. I prefer books in the ePub format when possible. PDF files also work fairly well, although they are not as convenient to read because they have built-in page breaks that don't correspond match up with phone screens. Standard ePub and PDF files do not include any DRM (copy protection), although there are variants which do.

If you buy books from Amazon you have to use their Kindle app (unless you use tools to strip the DRM). Borrowing books from your library is a great option, but that will also limit your reader options. Many use OverDrive, which has its own reader. Fortunately Kindle and OverDrive both work pretty well.

Personally, I use various tools to remove the DRM from the eBooks that I buy, then I convert them to ePub. I do believe in authors getting paid for their work, so I don't share them.

I prefer an e-reader, but I used my phone before I got one. It is nice to always have my books on me with the phone, but the e-reader is much more comfortable for long sessions.

If you're looking for free, I would suggest OpenLibrary, which has an android app: https://openlibrary.org/
I will say that the app/site is not fun to use. It's not intuitive and very poor in it's "rental" process.

Since I have an Amazon Prime account, I most often read books available for free that are included with Prime.

Yes.

Project Gutenberg website. They also have files you can download, but I prefer using the website.

I use an ereader that runs googke text to speach which makes any book an audiobook. I listen to about a book a day.

Moon Reader+ and Calibre. (There are some other suggestions for obtaining material listed that are great). I read 3-4 books a week, sometimes more.

Absolutely! I use the Libby app and a regular library card. They link up so you can read all the ebooks in your library system for free, just like checking a regular book out. Sometimes you have to wait for a popular book, which I usually try to appreciate as a rare exercise in patience but can be annoying of course. But it's actually free, no adds, simple to use.

I used to read books on a Kindle but I am trying to spend less times looking at screens, so I started buying physical books again.

My partner does and I have no idea how they stand it, for ebooks, my library works with my kobo so it's either that or epubs. I can do a tablet for ebooks but I find the phone way too small.

Libby is supported by a bunch of library systems on android, used KOReader for ebooks on android too.

I dont read books on my phone but I do listen to audio books off my phone.

My wife uses a Kindle. She also had the Barnes and Noble version of that. I think it was called a paper white.

FBreader on Android phone and Calibre on Linux to manage my library.

@CarlLandry357@lemmy.world

I do. Depending on the file format, I use either Librera (from F-Droid), basic text editors, or even any native PDF reader.

But I also have a few physical books, one of which (Mark H. Williams "Lilith: Woman, Goddess, Demoness", Brazilian Portuguese translation I purchased from a physical library in São Paulo) was the only one so far I managed to read entirely, from cover to cover, in mere days.

Not that I didn't read the other books I purchased (such as a Brazilian Portuguese translation of Kybalion or a Brazilian book from a Luciferian school I was once a member of), it's because this specific book was the most spiritually important to me back when I purchased it, I was too obsessed in learning more about Her, so I focused on reading. I found other books about Her (non-fictional books, because there are lots of fictional novels involving Lilith and I'm more interested in real texts, grimoires, especially involving real rituals), but the physical versions would need to be imported and, well, I'm certainly going to import one day, when I get to get a job/income, because those books are priced in dollar while my everyday reality is priced in Brazilian Reais (USD 1 is approximately BRL 5.20, but then there are also importing fees which likely depends on the mood of whoever bureaucrat from Receita Federal is dealing with the package I'm trying to import).

Until that happens, I'm quite limited to finding and downloading books (that is, when I manage to find those specific books for downloading, because many of the books I'm interested in reading are so rare that they don't really have downloadable versions). Sometimes they come as epub, sometimes they come as pdf, sometimes I manage to find them on sacredbooks as txt, so the file format determines where I'm going to read: epub in Librera, pdf on either Waterfox browser (PC) or any Android PDF reader (such as mupdf mini), txt in any text editor (such as KDE Kate on PC, or a simple text editor I got from F-Droid).

I've read on my phone quite a bit. On Google Books but also with an app such as ReadEra (on Android) in order to make use of https://gutenberg.org/ and https://standardebooks.org/. You can also get library books digitally.

That said, I would recommend a Kobo if you can afford it.

yeah i occasionally do this with epubs from shadow libraries. it's not foss but i use Lithium (com.faultexception.reader) for it. only works for epub, but it's very lightweight/fast and not privacy invading. there's a pro version but the free one seems to work fine, and i couldn't find any cracked versions. having my volup btn for next page is very useful for one hand reading in mass transit.

My wife does, she went through like 15 of them in 2025.

She just uses the Kindle app on her phone.

My local library uses overdrive for ebooks, which you can check out and either download for kindle, download as epub, or read online in your internet browser. I usually download to an eink reader, but if I'm reading on my phone I use the read in browser option.

Suggestion: if you plan to read on your phone, look in the settings to set the background and text color of whatever app you choose to something that doesn't strain your eyes.

Technically, Manga and manhwa ARE Books. So, if I round it up, I read books on pirating sites.

I have a kindle, but I do occasionally read on my phone through the Kindle app. That being said, I get the EPUB version of books from https://annas-archive.li/

The books I tend to consume on my phone are in the form of audiobooks via Libby from the libraries I have access to. My local library also has Hoopla, but the app feels more clunky and overwhelming and it costs the library more so I try all other options before turning to Hoopla. I do most of my book and manga reading an e-ink android device.

I prefer how text flows on my device's stock reader more (Neoreader for Onyx/Boox devices), but KOREADER is a very cool project and the community for plugins is phenomenal. It's available on tons of devices from the big name eink devices (Kindle via modding, Kobo, Pocketbook) to arm linux based gaming handhelds via portmaster. It's like the rockbox of reading software lol

I also want to bring up the Queer Liberation Library. I don't know if this is a useful resource for you specifically but it is there. Wait times tend to be longer compared to my more local libraries, but I find it to be a great curation and it's an invaluble resource for those who need it!

Komikku is my tachiyomi/mihon fork of choice for manga that's scanlated (or if I can't bother torrenting), but if I need image dithering I swap to neoreader after downloading.

Congrats on wanting to get into reading more btw! /genuine

I use Cantook on my phone and skip the account setup. I convert Kobo books and other ebooks using Calibre to Epub. I like Cantook because there's a setting to use the volume buttons to turn pages.

I used to before I got my ereader. IMO the way to do it somewhat comfortably is, get an app that lets you display epub files in dark mode (light text on black background), and turn the brightness down until the text is visible but doesn't strain your eyes. Unfortunately PDFs do not play nice with any reader software so you're going to want to look for other formats, or convert them and put up with conversion artifacts.

It is a bit of eye strain (pixel 9a) However, I have tried with koreader which kinda makes it like a ebook, also on a tablet. It's still an eye strain. I have however on occasion use librerareader and used the text to speech to 'listen' to ebooks.