THE DESCRIPTION:
Stanza is a plain, fast functional program for reading e-books.
THE GOOD:
Stanza gives you access to a lot of books that are in the public domain, including all of Shakespeare, Jane Austin, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. You can also buy e-books at a variety of online sellers. Books include an “about the author” (usually from wikipedia), access to reviews on GoodReads, and a link to the website where the book came from. Book listings also give you the option to buy a printed edition. You can search in the text, convert text back and forth between customizable day and night themes with a yin yang swap button, and change your font, as well as text and background colors. While reading, you can adjust font size with standard pinch and spread zoom.
THE BAD:
There is a limited selection of free contemporary books – mostly mass market thriller/romance stuff. If you’re looking for high quality free content, 19th century is about as new as you’re going to get. The controls aren’t that intuitive (for example, page turning is a click instead of the more common drag), so you have to look at the settings before you read. Page counts are listed by page number/total pages, and then by percentage into the book, but each chapter is counted as a separate book. You need to have access to the internet to download books.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Stanza is fairly bare-bones, but in terms of actual functionality, compares favorably to other free e-book apps, including eReader Pro and BookZ. It’s a handy app to have, especially because it’s free.
