Deseret Bookshelf LDS Books Reviews

by Ann's Husband, Glen

I want to like DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks. I don't like posting negative reviews. But what other way can we give input? Deseret Book is unresponsive to customer feedback.
The interface is cluttered, lacks logic and clarity. Unable to move books around to arrange the order of books. Interface alludes to ability to favorite books on your shelf, but unable to do it—or maybe I am just a ditz. Unable to completely delete a book; it stays on the interface in the 'cloud,’ (what if you downloaded a book you end up not liking?)
Including audio books in the same app without the ability to separate them to another list adds further clutter and vagueness. Suggest maybe have a separate app for audio books.
Suggest if Deseret is going to do a book app, just do it right. Do some looking at AppleBooks app to see how they succeeded in making a beautiful, sensible interface, and then at least emulate it. App needs re-doing. If unable to make DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks good, then suggest make all of Deseret's ebooks available on AppleBooks.

by Nicoleellens

I think DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks turned me from a 33-year-old into an 88-year old. I can not figure out how to use DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks. I was told if I got this I could sign up for the bookshelf plus 30 day trial and see if I like consuming books this way. So, I thought cool, I’ll probably love it, I have audible and chirp and kindle and iBooks, this is right up my ally. Nope. I can’t seem to access anything. When I see a book I want, there’s a button that says Free with Plus+. One might assume you could click the button and get it through that. Nope. That just creates a completely pointless pop up telling me it’s free with Plus+— obviously. Then there’s a learn more button, which takes you completely out of DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks to the DB website. WHY? What is DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks for???? Do I have to buy everything on the website first? If so, why have all the pointless buttons that take you nowhere?

Why would this not allow for in-app purchases? Why is this so absurd? Why do I feel like I need my grandchildren to explain this to me? They’re not even born yet! Oh man, this could take awhile.

by Deffense

Bogus marketing to take advantage of users, beware. First, you cannot purchase ebooks in DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks , you have to login to the web browser… what’s the point of DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks at that point. Second, they have deceptive marketing advertising “listen to this ebook for “FREE” with bookshelf plus… then you find out bookshelf plus is a PAID subscription, so not “FREE” then, when you try to sign up for “bookshelf plus” they tell you it’s actually $9.99 a month and not $6.99 a month. If you want the $6.99 price you have to be a magnum elite super charged hyperactive plus but they don’t explain at all what that means… and you won’t know what that means until you sign up for the trial and then at the end of the trial they will “send you an email explaining how to become a super duper stupider Eliete magnum plus max S+ squared member… the whole things smells like a Utah scam… beware…

by Evanayrb

DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks has a long way to go. The immediately glaring lack is any way to view content by genre. DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks has about a dozen categories in which it shows 25-ish available titles. Beyond that you better know exactly what you want because search is the only option. How long is the audiobook? No indication. It might be book length. It might be a talk. (In fairness, this essential information is missing from the Deseret website too. Unacceptable.) Is it abridged or not? Again this is not indicated in the description. I only found out when the opening told me the audiobook I had chosen was abridged. What I want doesn’t show up in the “chosen” categories so I want to just browse the collection for something that looks interesting. Sorry. Not available. I am in the 30 day trial. The poor app may be the decision maker in whether I continue into a paid subscription.

by Stewdaven28

The content is great, but DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks needs major improvements. When listening with headphones and using audio controls on Apple Watch or on my headphones, or even radio controls in the car DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks lets you pause just fine, but then you have to open DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks on your phone to play it again. This is not just sloppy programming, but downright dangerous when listening in the car. It says that you can download audiobooks to your device, but any attempt I made to do so failed, forcing me to use my data plan to stream it, or to stay only where I have WiFi access. The interface doesn’t let you see audio controls with cover art, and instead gives you these controls with a list of all chapters, making it very easy to accidentally skip to another chapter.

On a positive note, I do like that it displays how much time is left in each chapter, and that I have the option to download an mp3 copy of the book when I purchase it.

Other than that, I feel that DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks leaves much to be desired. The Audible and Apple Books apps are much more like the interface that should be provided instead of this mess. Again, the content is great, and very uplifting, but DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks makes it quite difficult to enjoy the content when it needs so much work to make it worth listening to.

by Gpopsgirl2

I have had DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks for several years and though I love reading my books anywhere at any time, I haven’t seen an update to DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks in a year at least. The search feature is awful. My husband recently died, so I’m going through all our physical books to see what I have in my digital library (so that I can pass the hard copies to family, friends, or ward members who would like them), and when I search for thing, the picture of the book (especially ebook bundles) is so tiny I can’t see if my book is part of that bundle, or if the cover of the ebook is just a different version of the hard copy book cover. If I search for an author, it brings up a few books by that author, but then brings up several other authors. For me, the best part of DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks is just being able to read my books, but the search and other functions are apparently over my head. I’m pretty tech savvy, tho nowhere near as tech savvy’s as most kids these days, but I do wish DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks were a bit more user friendly and uncomplicated.

by Vomby

Was a 5 star if they would put the related content back and make it easier to search audiobooks on the website it would go back to a 5 star.
I have loved DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks with the Plus since I first heard about it in 2017, but.....it seems that every time they make an “improvement” to both DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks and the website it’s worse. The website used to separate out the audiobooks from the ebooks so it was easy to find now you have to click on every book they have for the Plus to see if it is audio or just ebook or you could go to “related” books in DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks or scroll down to the bottom of the page in DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks and see related books. They just recently “updated and improved” and that is all gone. Nothing in the “related” section in DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks and on the website it just comes up with their highlighted content that they want you to look at nothing at all to do with other books in the series or by the author. Very very disappointed!! Put it back the way it used to be and separate out the ebooks from the audiobooks for easier search-ability on the website!!!

by Cookcrazy

I am only giving DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks 3 stars because although it has great content, there are a couple of small things that if they fixed as far as function it would be nearly perfect.
First, they need a “report a problem” option for each book. I mostly use the audio option and many, many times have had problems with chapters being out of order or completely missing. Also, sound will go missing in sections. The worst is when the audio is stuck at double speed making it nearly impossible to understand what the reader is saying. If I could report the problem for the specific book I’m listening to for DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks , it would be helpful to all that are using DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks .
Secondly, the search option in DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks is dismally inadequate. I would love to be able to search the complete plus audio library for the specific genres I’m looking for. Not an option. I have to weed through dozens of titles to find one I haven’t heard or am interested in.

I do love the service, and like I said, I use it everyday. With these two minor fixes, it would be 5 star for sure.

by Jordan.hunt

This is a great app and service, but there’s no way to leave in app feedback, so this will have to work. Right now DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks doesn’t work well with headphone use, and occasionally the audio options glitch on the lock screen. Headphone play/pause buttons do not function properly, so pausing the audio without the phone convenient is a near impossible task. I usually just turn the headphones all the way off so the iPhone pauses for me. When unpausing, the button on the headphones must be pushed 2 times for some reason. It will play for half a second, then pause again, then play as normal. I have tried using several headphones and have the issue across various makes and models, and only have this problem with DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks. The other frustration is that on the lock screen it only shows skip forward/skip back as options, rather than skip forward/back 15 seconds like it does when DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks is open. Both fixes would be wonderful and are much needed.

by Forever_4

I like access to so many book options and the ability to change the background and text colors. (I prefer a black background with white text because it’s not so bright while reading.)

I don’t like the number of typos/grammatical errors I have found in the short time I’ve been using DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks . Not sure if these errors are in the printed versions, but they take away from the story and reduce credibility. It might be helpful to DB if the reader could somehow highlight and submit errors for correction as they are found. Otherwise, I’m not sure how DB would know where they are or that they exist.

I don’t like how the search option seems incomplete. When I search for an author, I may see a few books by that author, but not all. Then the list starts showing me books by other people. If there were an option in the search like “must contain” or “only this author” it might help get a better result. This would be good for the website as well.

The bookmark feature is a bit clunky. I set a bookmark at the beginning of each chapter when I reach it in case I have to stop reading for a bit. So, I remove the old and create the new. When I create the new there is a delay because it has a box for typing text (I guess for naming my bookmarks). It would be nice if I could just add a quick bookmark and move on. Maybe hold my finger on a word for 3 seconds and a bookmark option pops up that I click. Then it knows exactly where I left off.

by Jacione

Let me start by saying this is so much better than the Netflix sub I was thinking about buying. Having such a huge library of gospel knowledge to read or listen to is awesome, and I would recommend DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks as well as the DB+ subscription to anyone.

That said, this is a review of DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks , not the service it connects to. Overall it’s not bad, but a few things could be streamlined. Specifically, I’ve noticed that the “back” buttons move around a lot: if you are in one of the sections within the discover tab, and you open a book, the book has to be closed from the top right, but then the category has to be closed from the top left. Also, it would be nice if touching the tab you’re already in took you back to the beginning of that tab. Lastly, I would love to see a “now playing” more easily accessible.

Like I said, none of this would stop me from recommending DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks to anyone, but there are just a few things that could make using DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks feel more natural. Keep up the great work!

by Witchywoman98

It has so much content and I love that... I can’t handle how annoying it is to listen to an audiobook, which is basically all I use it for so my frustration is strong . Sometimes it will just pause at random, or I have to click the play button once , wait for it to register my request and then it pauses again.. so I have to press play again.. i have to have DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks open for it to register my Bluetooth a request to play. the way that the books are set up as individual chapters would make sense if you’re reading an ebook but not audio. I don’t want to download it chapter by chapter. I want the book. Especially when I go back to a previous chapter and then the book leaps around to where it think I am. It’s a wonder that I’m continuing to use this considering the glitches of DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks, but I like what I have access to... just not the vehicle it’s coming in.

by N Lungren

I can’t play or pause the audiobook with my Bluetooth headset controls. I have had a Jabra Elite 25e and Skullcandy Ink’d + Active Bluetooth headset and neither of them worked well with controlling the play and pause functions. I always have to pull my phone from my pocket to push pause or play.

The downloading of audiobooks is terrible. I select the “download all” option and it never works. It will download the first chapter then some other random file and after the first audio file is played it would jump to the next downloaded file, which could be many chapters later.

I have listened to nearly 70 audiobooks via audible, overdrive, and Apple Books apps and all work flawlessly with my Bluetooth headsets. I’m grateful for what DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks provides but I hope you can fix these issues so I can enjoy using it.

by EmilyRPetersen

I love the variety of books found here! I enjoy the resourceful books to the novels offered here. I’m constantly listening to audiobooks. (I’m an Audible listener too.) I highly recommend DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks!

Dear Deseret Book App Developers;
I do have TWO requests to improve DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks . 1. Please make a sorting system for us Users of our books; “All our book Titles in alphabetical order”, “Not Started”, “Started”, “Downloaded”, and most importantly “Finished”. I wish could tell which books I have read and those I have not! With so many books in my library now, I have a hard time distinguishing between them. It would be nice to see the difference at a glance.
2. As an iOS iPhone user, (and the only place I listen/use DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks ) I would appreciate an improvement on the 30 seconds back and 30 seconds forward button on the Lock Screen. For example, when my book is playing and it goes to lock screen I can see the book title crawling and with the controls underneath. Currently, the arrow buttons mean skip back or forward by chapter! Please adjust the back button to be 30 seconds back and 30 seconds forward; instead of back and forth by chapters. I have rarely wanted to go back in chapters! (It can get me so lost in my book!!) If I do want to go back by chapters, it’s by deliberate choice by going to the table of contents.
Thank you SO much for all your hard work on making such a great app for us! We love it!

by DarthRicktor

Overall I really like DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks, it makes it easy to keep my large library of gospel-related books always on hand and easily accessible. The selection of available books is great and reasonably priced. My only complaint is that most of the books I have read (mostly from my iPhone or IPad) contain grammatical errors, miss-spellings and very poor hyphenation. It’s like an editor never looked at the e-editions. While this is annoying, it’s not the fault of DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks rather with the publisher of the e-books. DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks lets one save several study sessions so you can switch between different books. You can highlight text passages easily, look up word definitions, and create bookmarks easily. I also like how each book cover is nicely displayed on the home page. I highly recommend DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks,

by Substitute 8

I’ve had DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks since it came out and it has gotten better over the years. I have Plus also and enjoy that except I would like to see the ebooks put onto Plus a lot sooner than most of them do. The audio for books come out sooner than the ebooks in most cases. I do listen to fiction when I walk because I need to concentrate and I can’t when I’m listening to doctrinal books.
I wish that they would fix little bugs they’ve had for a long time. I’ve had DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks since the beginning and in many ways it has improved, but I can’t get bugs fixed. It does take quite a bit of time to get bugs fixed.

by MusicalMaestro_21

I really love DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks! Having access to a huge selection from the Deseret Book library, across a broad scope of genres, makes it an invaluable resource. Particularly, to me, because of the audiobooks. I’m a busy mom with four young children and rarely have the time to sit and read a book. DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks makes reading so much easier for me! Most especially the books of religious nature, as those are rarely available via audio at my local library. To me, DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks is well worth the subscription price. The main issue I’ve ever had with DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks is that when my screen is locked, if I pause a book (remember: kids), in order to play it again, I have to play, pause, play. But it’s a trivial bother. I still use DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks nearly daily.

by CarefulMomma

We are a retired couple, and Bookshelf Plus meets our needs in so many ways. Listening to audio books helps me feel informed and entertained. My husband enjoys listening while working in the orchard or riding his bike. We are able to keep up with new publications from favorite church speakers and authors; I also like knowing that any work of fiction will be clean and non-offensive. The book list is long and readers are (for the most part) excellent and easy to listen to. DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks has all the functions we need, and a year’s subscription has been a killer deal...we’ve listened to dozens of books for the price of three hard copies. We highly recommend.

by KnightPont

Amazing app. Love being able to easily listen to and read great LDS books. I use it almost every day. The main issue is with downloading content to listen to later when offline. When I click and download an entire book it never works when I go to listen to it offline on the plane etc. It downloads, but then says it is buffering and wants me to download it again later on. Please fix this and then you will have a near perfect app. Overall though, 5 stars and great work. Can’t wait to see it get even better and I hope they offer more audio versions of books on the book shelf plus monthly plans.

by Moringa4thehealthofit

Blessed with a Black Friday invitation to subscribe to DB for $3.99 a month until March, I jumped at the opportunity...and I’m sad to confess that I fully intended to cancel before paying $9.99 afterwards. I will cancel my other subscriptions before I ever let this one go. I have been richly blessed on a daily basis to spend my days being fed by the Spirit through a greater understanding of The Atonement, Forgiveness, Personal Revelation, and so much more by hearing vs. reading. (And I LOVE to read!) DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks works great, the content is exceptional, and this subscriber has no intention of canceling her subscription! Download it, and then let the Spirit impress upon you as to which book you would benefit to listen to at this moment of your day! Go and Do!

by Bec654

I really like DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks . I like that I can search for audio books right from DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks . I like how easy it is to choose new items to add. I wish there were a way to show me which books I have read/listened to and which I have not. Over time it will get easy to forget. I like how Audible, for example, says finished next to the books I’ve listened to. It keeps it organized as well as gives a nice feeling of accomplishment. Also, several times while listening, the audio would jump back several chapters. It doesn’t have a very user friendly ‘bookmark’ and I found myself searching for where I was.
I’ve been mostly happy with DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks but would love to see improvements in the coming updates.

by MnJPS

On more than a couple times now I have purchased books, ebooks or audio, and they NEVER show up in my app no matter how many times I reboot app, logout and back in or reboot my iPad. When I call customer service I’m told “Delete app and reload” - I have 232 Books, many are audio, so I not only have to reload ebbs, but I must reload ALL AUDIO CHAPTERS - large files and many of them. My internet is only 10MB/s.
Can’t they fix the software?
As I said, I love the access to the materials and having so many books in my hand, But I think twice now about buying ANY additional books. I also usually write NO review before I write a negative one. I don’t want to have to think twice when I want a new book. The price of reloading is getting too high to risk.

by TuckerHans

I love DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks! I find I am either listening or reading all the time. I love the selection of books available, and the quality of the books. I love that we have access to the new and best sellers as well. As much as I enjoy DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks, I am also frustrated by it. It has taken me a long time- more than 6 months to understand how to use it. It could be a lot more user friendly. Most frustrating is when I accidentally touch the screen wrong while reading a book and loose my place- often I end up at the end of the book. There are no page numbers to aid in the recovery either. It can take a very long time to figure out where you were.

by Hildi B

I have been using Deseret Bookshelf for over a year now. I love it! I have been able to listen to and read so many more books than I normally would. I love that I don’t have to go to the library or try to find room to store more books. I can get lost in a book while I clean house or drive in the car which makes the day so much more up lifting. The audible books are really special. I love it when the authors give voice to their own book as I can feel the sincerity of their story and words of wisdom. Best of all, DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks makes my love of reading more affordable! I have recommended DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks to all of my friends and family!!

by Baby*bobbie

We love DeseretBookshelfLDSBooks. So many great options both audio and ebook with the subscription. Absolutely worth it! So many hours are spent here and it has good wholesome content. Love love love.
Only 2 complaints- but they aren’t enough to lower it to a 4 star review- 1- I wish the organization were a bit clearer/user friendly, it’s difficult for me to remember where to find what I want 2- when I swipe down on the home screen of the iPhone to search for apps it can’t find this one even if I type “Deseret” or “bookshelf” may seem silly but that’s how I find/use my apps.