Stanza: Free, Electronic Book Reader for the iPhone

Recently I’ve been using Stanza, a free electronic book reader for the iPhone, during my morning commute. While I’m not quite sold on reading books electronically, so far my experience has been pretty pleasant. If reading on an iPhone is this way, I can only imagine how much better the experience would be on something like an iPad.

While Stanza provides access to a lot of bookstores (including O’Reilly Ebooks), what I love most is how many libraries they have available offering free books. Access to Project Gutenberg is built in to the app, which in and of itself contains about 30,000 free ebooks.

Here’s a nice demo of the application, which shows you how to navigate through your library and how to add new books.

Currently I’m reading I, Robot by Cory Doctorow, whose fiction I’ve heard about but never picked up. Seems fitting that I’m reading it as an ebook, in a way. His story is made available through a Creative Commons license, which is why I’m able to read it for free.

If you’re interested, you can read the story online, even if you don’t have an iPhone. If the text size isn’t to your liking, a tool like Readability might help.

Also in my library is a collection of the Grimm Fairy Tales. I honestly don’t plan on buying any books, but who knows – maybe that preference will change after I read more things electronically. For now, I’ve got access to vast amounts of free books, and don’t see myself at a loss for things to read on the train.

Related:
Asking a Stranger About Their Amazon Kindle
CreativeCommons.org
Project Gutenberg