Free Books
reviews and complaints

I have studied Buddhism for over 30 years now. Does that statement make me a spiritual narcisis (Sp?) Anyway, this app is pretty cool for the money. I haven't listened to it for a long time yet but, from what I have heard, it is pretty good. I usually listen to the spiritual stuff and so far, so good. If you factor in the cost, this is a great app. I am also a disable Navy Veteran and apps like this one, and other apps like it, says it only covers stuff from the 1927 and back but that is not the case. This app has "State of the union addresses" from presidents as recent as Pres. Obama. I served under Pres. Carter and is in Iran Hostage rescue task force. This app covers stuff like that.

Anyway, co app!

This app is impressive in the breadth of the books that it offers. I was especially excited to see editions of books in thier origional languages. I love being able to read Beowulf in the origional Old English as well as in translation. However, this app provides no way to turn to a specific page other than a crude slide bar. This makes it impossible to read anything other than short, light works such as essays. Who wants to flip through an 800 page poetry collection cover to cover? Or how about navigating 500 pages of Kant without even any form of contents. Until the developers add a search system, bookmark system, index, or, at the very least, at table of contents, this app is usless to me even for most light reading.

I love this app! I would have paid considerably more for it, as it's value is quite frankly, priceless. For less than $2, I now have a vast library of classics that would have cost me a small fortune to obtain on my own. I find the app very comfortable to read, as I can change the font size and hue of the page quite easily. I noticed that some reviewers had a hard time not being able to scroll, but it does not bother me at all. I just got the app a few hours ago, and I've already read The Diary of Eve & The Diary of Adam by Mark Twain, and am settling into Moby Dick now. Thank you so very much to the inventors of this app for sharing it with the world so affordably. What an amazing and priceless gift; the gift of classic literature! Thank you again!

This app ROCKS! I have had none of the technical problems others have reported. I actually find myself reading much faster with this app than in general. I love that you can e-mail the book to yourself.
The only change I would like to see is a way to jump directly to the beginning of a chapter or at least screen/page numbers listed in the table of contents. Bookmarks, highlighting, note-taking capabilities might be useful features as well for students.
PEOPLE: Public Domain means there will only be books on here that are availible to you without having to pay royalties to an author or publishing company. The authors are dead. Youight find Harry Potter or Twilight added to the public domain in like 100 years. If you are looking for current best sellers go elsewhere.

Noticed on the iPhone that when in portrait mode whenever there is a paragraph that doesn't end on the very last lower line of the screen due to word spacing or hyphenation when turning page about 10-15 words are missing ex book) war of the world by HG Wells using the smallest text page 4 of 460 (4/460) the last line is not the combined sentence of the next page . For you to see the full sentence you have to put the phone on Landscape mode. Then even on landscape mode if the last sentence is not used on the lower line you must put it to portrait ... This happens ever ten pages or so in every book ... MAJOR TURN OFF  PLEASE FIX I'M SURE IT'S AN EASY FIX it's a layout issue please repost the same errors you will see what I'm talking about in my example in case you can't follow

I am entralled with this app. Haven't read this much in a long, long time; and since there are so many classics I haven't read yet I'm not at all bothered by their older publishing date. I'm also pleased with the ease of navigation, the use of the slide bar for longer jumps through the text, the ability to adjust font size and the ability to see how many pages along you are.

BUT there is one major annoyance. As I read through the Tarzan series I notice that many of the chapters are missing their final paragraphs. (Comparison of the text of Tarzan of the Apes with the 101 Classics app confirmed this.) Context clues fill in the gaps, but these are the places where key narrative observations tend to be delivered. I shouldn't whine for a dollar, but it's irritating to start a new chapter going "Huh?" much of the time.

Plus I love this app so much I want it to be perfect.

I've always read a great deal and since my retirement began, one of life's pleasures is to me a veritable treasure with stacks and stacks and even more stacks of places to visit, people both high born and low to meet, mysteries to solve, jungles to learn what a fight for survival can be.

Let us not forget the opportunities to read of virtually of place near and far and the stories which reveal our greatest heroes and the odious swine who would harm everyone without our Cops, Frontier Marshal's and Rangers and certainly the young who were and are sent to fight and die for old men's Peckish natures.

What a tremendous wealth, in a moment's effort, one can read always of the who, the what, the where, when and how of the world and even beyond. And You offer it FREE ! What a truly great gift, for in books you give us the whole world in every scenario! Thank You, Indeed.

PPartri727.

You can read about all sorts of stuff

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I use to ride 25 miles every weekend

There really are books about the real life of football players

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Like the great collage team LSU
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Romance ❤️

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Yea I still a good love story..,,
Or something like it ...

Maybe this will help for all of you. Some time ago, I looked up copyright laws for books. The law is that books of any kind exist in copyright, meaning third parties CANNOT sell them without author consent, for the authors life plus around fifty years. Therefore, one cannot post eragon without written or legal consent. I'm turning into an author. Honestly, selling my story for a mere two bucks, and not only for my book but for others as well, is so unattractive for me, that I would absolutely object. Authors want money for their hard work.

Classics means something here. Classics were books written that had a big impact on people at the time, as far as I can gather. In about a hundred years, twilight and Harry potter, very popular books, will perhaps become classics sold on an app for iPhone 12 or whatever. They are actually free for they have entered public domain, meaning the copyright is gone and anyone can possess these books.

Obviously, one can buy these books in some museum or library for money because some books are so old their bindings are likely destroyed or something.

Newer books will never legally enter this app unless an author says ok. Some may argue that a certain app called... I can't remember the name. It starts with a c and has lots of fan fiction. Including scanned in eragon or other books like that. These. Are. Illegal. It would be giving away your hard work for free.

In conclusion, the app is titled classics so of course eragon and others are not there. They are not classical. Classics are original and not based on anything previously written. This app is a good deal for classics lovers.

I love this app. Granted, I understand that it is probably best intended for a specific target audience; a.) folks who enjoy reading and b.) folks who especially enjoy reading the types of books that are freely available through the Project Gutenberg archives.I have had a life-long passion for 18th and 19th century classic literature, and began reading books on my iPhone several months ago through another app (not mentioned here) that maximizes its appeal through an especially graceful interface. Enjoyable as that app is, its catalogue is quite limited. That's where Free Books takes the stage.The Free Books app's signature offering is quick and simple access to nearly 24,000 titles from the Gutenberg library. That's a lot of reading. There are also a lot more than just old classic titles there. The archives are host to a wide range of titles and topics of interest to almost anyone interested in great reading. And while the interface may not be a srobust or graceful as competing apps, the sheer quanity of content that it can conveniently access is truly commendable.Unfortuantely, I don't get the chance to read anymore nearly as much as I would like, so I don't typically carry books around with me. But with my iPhone, I can open up this app and quickly access great content to suit whatever mood I'm in. And all the content is FREE! On top of the 99 cent cost of the app itself, this is truly a great investment as far as I'm concerned.And the interface also has some really nice bonuses going for it. It doesn't distract with extra bells & whistls or blinking lights. It simply presents the content the user wishes to access, and it does it quickly and efficiently. It also allows for basic customization through viewer options to suit viewing needs, and helps make the content much easier to read. Plus, while the app doesn't really make reference to built-in bookmarking functions such as what might be seen in competing apps, Free Books bookmarks your books automatically by opening your books to the last page you were reading when the app was last used. Very handy.Additionally, the built-in search function and genre categorizations make it easy to find and access content in the archives to quickly find something that suits the user's tastes. When a book has been accessed and downloaded, flipping pages is incredibly quick and simple. There is also a slider bar to rapidly navigate to any particular section in the e-book.And finally, there is the clever addition of the email option, which lets you email the ebook to your computer for storage or reading on a bigger screen through your computer. Just type in the email address, and within moments the .rtf file is waiting in your email inbox. Slick.I really appreciate the philosophies that seem to have driven the development of this app, and I know that I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of it.Did I already say that I love this app? "I love this app."Thanks, Spreadsong, Inc.

I did not have the previous version of this app, but it sounds like if I did, I'd have liked it better. Vers 2.0 keeps bouncing back to the library and the bottom menu is black so you can't save your place in the book. VERY frustrating! I won't use this app until it's updated again to fix the bugs.

Doesn't pull even half the books I want, crashes, and, look, I understand what "classics" means, but hey, classics have been written well after 1923 and im pretty sure the ad for the app was extremely vauge. 0 stars if I could. Tech support decided to tell me I must be dumb. F$&$ing A$$holes!

Its a great idea but it doesn’t work. It crashes every ten minutes and losses your page rendering it practically useless and extremely frustrating, unless you have the patience to find where you left off because it doesn’t mark your page. To have over 20,000 books for two dollars sounded to good to be true, and it most certainly is.

This app's icon disappeared from my iPod Touch and I cant access it any more. The device says it's installed, as does iTunes, but it's unusable. Apple Store Genius Bar couldn't figure it out; I tried restoring, resetting, syncing...everything. Worst is Spreadsong doesn't respond to its Helpline. So now I gave my money and have nothing. Grrr!

I would very very much like to see sum newer books and books for pplz under 20!

Books like:

-eragon trilogy
-rangers apprentice series
-diary of a wimpy kid series
-twilight series (most popular book out, and all of dem for free, imagine hom many you'll sell )
-choose ur own adventure series
-where's Waldo (?)

Stwuff like tat and you'll sell LOTS more

Some of the most famous titles by great authors are missing such as the great gatsby by Fitzgerald. Why? Most of their books are pre-1923 so if you're looking for anything after that year, good luck. Not only that but majority of books by non-American authors are in languages other than English with no English versions of the books. Terrible. And DEFINITELY NOT worth paying any money for.

It was a really great app until I got the new upgrade, ever since then it has been telling me that it needs to reformat the books before I can read them. The only problem is that the books won't format. I waited like 15 minutes for one book to format, and it just wouldn't take! I have now moved to the free version of this app. It is really good, the only downside is that it shows a commercial every time you load a new book.

This has the makings of a really excellent but has a couple of very serious flaws. There is crying need for a bookmark feature; it's currently impossible to keep your place in more than one book. Likewise lack of search function is a serious problem. Most distressing-sorting books by authors first name is idiotic. Recent updates have concentrated on flashy grapics which add very little to the apps utility. Keep your eye on what is functional.

I really liked the earlier version of this app - I actually read Les Miserables on my iPhone 3GS using it. I had just started another book when I upgraded to new version. It lost my place in the book. I eventually found the page again, but it's been a constant struggle to keep it. When it isn't bouncing out to the search function or the library, it's misaligning the screen images and there's a black bar where controls should be. Maybe it works on the iPad?

Too bad. A great concept. Truthfully, some of the content is as advertised. But, for example, no Thoreau? The poetry selected is dismal, as best, and if you're expecting to read it as it was written, in actual lines, forget it. It's all stacked up like prose.

Why all the copies of the same book?

Too bad, too, that the table of contents in the books is not 'live', so that you could click on 'Ecclesiastes' in the bible and go directly to that book.

Disappointing.

The app worked as advertised when I started some months ago. Decent selection of books out of copyright. Some that I read when young so it was fun re-reading these stories.

But for the last month my shelves have been mysteriously empty. I start the app and it never loads a library. The little activity/waiting icon on my iPhone 4 running the latest OS just spins fruitlessly as long as I am willing to let it.

All my other apps work as usual. I tried to open the app today and got this survey request instead. Hence the low rating that otherwise would have been 4.5 stars.

What's going on guys?

I am very disappointed with this app. I expected a normal screen size book such as comes with a typical iBooks selection or Kindle selection. The size of the page appears to be more suited for an iPhone than an iPad. When choosing 2x size the page then fills the screen but the text is not fitted to the screen it is merely 2x size and blurry.I was looking forward to classics available with a normal page viewing size. The Three Muscateers for example goes from the normal book page count of about 700 pages to almost 3000 due to the reduction in word count per page!Don't waste your money as I have.