The Gadgets Page

The Amazon Kindle iPhone Reader is great for the latest books on the market, but what about all those awesome public domain books? Project Gutenberg has thousands of ebooks available for FREE. Is there a way for me to read them on my iPhone as well? Yes there is, thanks to Stanza:

• Stanza: a Revolution in Reading | Lexcycle

I downloaded Stanza’s free iPhone application [iTunes Link] and within minutes, I had Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens on my iPhone and ready to read. I have been watching the Masterpiece Theater version of Little Dorrit and I realized that I wanted to read the original work when I was done. If I had paid for it on the Amazon Kindle app, it would have only cost me eighty cents, so it doesn’t save me much money. For those who want to read the classics, however, Stanza is available for free.

The user interface is a little different than the Amazon Kindle app. Instead of swiping a page to change it, you tap on the right side to go to the next page or tap on the left to go back. If you tap in the middle, you get the settings.

One thing I loved about the settings is that in addition to being able to change the size of the font, I was able to choose from a wide variety of custom themes. The one I chose was “Ancient,” which makes the pages look old. I thought that was perfect for a classic like Little Dorrit. There is also a night mode, where you can read white letters on a black screen.

With free books available from over fifteen different sites, there is plenty to read out there that isn’t just the classics, including technical books from O’Reilly, romances from Harlequin and a world of self-published eBooks.

After spending a year’s worth of book allowance in one month at Amazon, it’s nice to know that there is plenty more for me to read, even when I run out of money.