Apple picker In my last article I talked about how conveniently, cheaply and luxuriously you can read comics. But today I will introduce you to an iPhone application that brings you (no exaggeration) tens of thousands of books (they are talking about over 100 books). This iPhone app is called Stanza.
Stanza has only one mission: to provide e-books. It is divided into two categories, free and paid. There are nine different sources of books in the free category (including Project Gutenberg, but more on that later), one of which is directly Czech (PalmKnihy.cz). There are 5 sources of electronic books in the paid category.
The disadvantage of buying books is that the "paid" category in the Stanza application is actually just a catalog of books, for which you will be redirected to a designated page on the Internet. So I don't find it very convenient, like for example with the already mentioned comics, where you can buy directly from the application.
Also nice about the whole apps is that no registration is required (at least for the resources I tried). I always just clicked "Download" and within seconds I had my book in my library. Even the control while reading is very pleasant. For the next page, just click on the right third of the display while reading, for the previous page it is the left third, and the tool is used to open information about the current page, chapter and also to "leave" the current reading. To darken or lighten the display, just slide your finger up or down.
When reading, you have a bar at the bottom that shows which part of the book you are currently in. You can thus find out how much you have already read without any further unnecessary clicking. In your library, you then have a list of books, or their covers (can be downloaded directly from the application) as well as wheels that graphically show you how much of each book you have already read.
Many environment setting options are used for more pleasant reading. Font color, background (maybe an image), brightness, font size, etc.
Gutenberg project
I don't want to go into detail about what Project Gutenberg (hereafter PG) is, you can find a nice article about it on Wikipedia. But in short, I will tell you that this is a project that provides us with thousands and thousands of books completely free of charge. Today there is talk of more than 25 books.
PG doesn't have its own app for iPhone OS, but that's okay. All the books are provided to us by the Stanza application. You can download the books directly from the application and there is no need to register anywhere, click through to the Internet browser, or something similar. All free, fast and convenient.
PG is divided into several dozen languages, including Czech. But you will only find six books in this section, so it probably won't satisfy you.
PalmKnihy.cz
PalmKnihy.cz is a Czech project that has been running for over ten years. Its database contains over 3 books, the vast majority of which are in Czech. Don't be fooled by the name, the books are indeed available for iPhone OS as well. Language is definitely an indisputable advantage, because a large part of Czechs read mainly in Czech. You can also find many books (for example) from compulsory reading for high school graduation.
Verdict
I would say that the Stanza application is definitely a perfect program, both in terms of processing and purpose. I didn't find a single fault with it and everything ran exactly as it should. Finally, one can comfortably read on the iPhone for free, pleasantly and in Czech.
[xrr rating=5/5 label="Rating Tomáš Pučík"]
In addition, you can also read pdb, txt, doc, etc. in Stanza.
And how to clean .pdb? As far as I know, it must be converted via the Stanza program on the PC, and this is only possible after one book. I have several books in .pdb and transferring them one by one to the stanza is a pain. Do you know any way to get bundles of books in .pdb format to the iPhone?
I would just like to add that there is a "counterpart" on the PC that allows you to convert and then get any book into Stanza on the iPhone (it needs to be in .pdf format, etc.), so we are not only linked to sources directly from the web. Only then is Stanza a truly exclusive application!
Thanks for the tip, #Stanza is really interesting in combination with palmknihy.cz
Has anyone tried installing more catalogs than just PalmKnihy.cz? I didn't succeed
Yes, I also have most of the books in PDB, but Stanza cannot read this format accurately. Some trick?