Ways to Read Books On ipod

September 19, 2010 10:22 PM

Have ipod touch--would like to read books on it!

What is the best way of reading books (fiction) on my ipod touch? Where do I purchase the books? How do I get them on the ipod? What app do I use to read them?

(I am not interested in a Kindle or an ipad, btw.)

posted by The ____ of Justice to Technology (16 answers total)

I like Stanza. It's a good program with nice options, you can load texts from your computer via wireless or buy directly from the program.

The program itself reads epub (open standard) and ereader format -- and the Ereader store has the best DRM I've heard of (not server dependent). The Stanza desktop program converts txt, pdf, doc, most other non-DRM formats easily.

The ipod app itself is free, and I use it on an ipod touch.
posted by jb at 10:29 PM on September 19, 2010

As for where to get texts -- I like ereader.com because it is not server dependent. You never have to be online to access the files, and you still have access even if the company shuts down their server. The DRM is based off of the number of the credit card you use to purchase the books -- you can put them on multiple machines, so you can share them with your family. You just input the credit card number again.

Fictionwise carries ereader books, and I think Stanza connects to their catelogue directly. It also connects to manybooks.net, which has Project Gutenberg texts for free. But most of the time I put books on from my computer, via Stanza desktop, and that can handle txt (as Project Gutenberg books are) as well as several other formats.

Stanza
posted by jb at 10:36 PM on September 19, 2010

If you want to buy e-books from Amazon, but are not enamored of their Kindle device, you can use their Kindle App for iPhone / iPod touch.
posted by RichardP at 11:11 PM on September 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

Upgrade to iOS 4 then you get iBooks for free. Sync downloaded ePubs with iTunes or buy books straight from the built in store.
posted by yaemes at 11:19 PM on September 19, 2010

Additionally (or as an alternative, depending on your reaction), I just got MegaReader the other day and it's fantastic : for copyright free books (1.8M of them).
posted by peacay at 11:30 PM on September 19, 2010

For older public domain books, there is Project Gutenberg.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 12:37 AM on September 20, 2010

iBooks.
posted by Biru at 5:13 AM on September 20, 2010

Nthing Stanza. I use Calibre to convert old ebooks I already own to the epub format.
posted by dragonplayer at 6:07 AM on September 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

I like ereader. You can seamlessly get many of the Project Gutenberg books (free, public domain) via the manybooks.net link from ereader.

I recently got into P.G. Wodehouse and there are lots of his books there.
posted by mbarryf at 6:41 AM on September 20, 2010

One of the benefits of the Apple iOS devices is that you can buy and read books from all of the major ebooks companies, and they all have software for iOS:

Amazon Kindle (already mentioned)
Barnes & Noble Nook
Apple iBooks
Borders eBooks
posted by mattholomew at 7:24 AM on September 20, 2010

I'll also stick up for eReader - it's easy to find tons of free books in the .pdb format, or to convert your own text files to that format, you can upload from your own server, and Fictionwise (the home base of the app) has a huge selection.

You can set your own color scheme for both day and night reading, and the font & layout choices allow you to customize your reading experience to a pretty fine degree.

You can also freeze the aspect to landscape or portrait, perfect for reading on your side while laying down.
posted by Aquaman at 7:32 AM on September 20, 2010

There isn't one. There's three: Stanza, Kindle, and iBooks. Stanza is a terrific reader but doesn't let you shop from the two best online bookstores, Apple's and Amazon's. For those you need the other two apps.

There's no reason not to get them all, really.
posted by chairface at 8:08 AM on September 20, 2010

I've tried Stanza and iBooks. Both work well. iBooks will do PDFs now too, which can come in handy. I have also messed around with Calibre for conversions and it seems look well.
posted by Gainesvillain at 8:24 AM on September 20, 2010

iBooks is pretty sluggish on my iPod touch 3rd gen 8 GB. It was terrible on 4.0 but now it's approaching usable in 4.1. It's probably fine on 4th gen/3rd gen >8GB, but Kindle is much better if you're stuck with an obsolete device.
posted by zixyer at 10:49 AM on September 20, 2010

I love stanza too.

The Classics app is occasionally free, but so good it's worth the $2.99.

This free books app looks cool too.
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:25 PM on September 20, 2010

Response by poster: Wow, this is excellent information, everyone. Thank you so much! Now I can read in bed while spouse is sleeping...

They are all best answers, really...
posted by The ____ of Justice at 2:05 PM on September 20, 2010