Gutenberg Project Reviews

Have used for years with great pleasure. This morning it stopped working: will not load catalog, and close when attempt to open current book being read. Attempted to reinstall with no change.

I used to be able to search the Audiobooks by Genre, but now you have to know what you are looking for which makes discovering new authors in your favorite category impossible. Please fix this.

They got rid of the useless black
background in the search box ( with black script) but now it won’t search at all most attempts .

Is a favorite app going to go the way
of FREEBOOKS ? Time and tell .

Functionality excellent but too many ad interruptions.

Author Heinrich Mann
Outrages app interruptions from Facebook!
No star - should be a rating option.
Inge

GutenbergProject used to be pretty good. I mean, it was glitchy and would often lose my place in the middle of a 500 page book, which was a huge pain. But I could live with it. But now reading is limited unless you get the paid version. Um, no. I will not pay somebody to read free, public domain books. Deleting GutenbergProject as soon as I hit send.

why does this application not allow you to read the description of the book? It jumps ahead right away to the body of the book. And there's no way back to see the description. This is a major flaw. I would like to be able to read about what the book is that I am looking at.

This used be to a decent app. But now search doesn’t find anything but error 404. But on the website it finds what I’m looking for? Needs to be fixed!

Every time you touch the screen wrong it flips the page around and sets you back to page one. Bookmark seems to work OK, but every time you use any in app function it sets you back to page one. Then you have to leave the book, remembering to say no when it tries to get you to bookmark your progress on page one), and re-enter the book to get back to your bookmark.

Initial 2107 purchase:
I am quite satisfied with the font size and page color. It is easy to find books and the downloaded library is eye catching but I can't seem to adjust to the pages turning options.

Turning pages is done in a curling motion (like a power point presentation) with a choice of 3 speeds OR the page turning can be a flip. The flip is having the page do a complete turn around, like being skewered through the center and it slowly flips around until you can see the back of the page. I have tried both methods at all 3 curling speeds. The developer is very earnest and eager for me to like the "improvements" but personally, the page turning options offerred are a distraction.

In all other respects this is a very good app. I would encourage you to try out the free version and see how you like it's performance.

Update August 2018
Note: The developer responded to me three times to try out the various improvements. I suppose I may be a faster than normal reader and the wait as each page flips or curls eats into my reading time and interupts my focus on the story. I hope a less stylized page turn option (like the swipe in Kindle and iBooks or the continuous scroll in PDFs) is made available in future updates.
But other than stylized page turning, this is a good app.

Update Sep 2018:
The developer responded to my updated reviews twice more so I decided to go with the in-app offers to see if it would improve page turing options. I now have two Himalaya Soft icons that behave the same. One has the word "pro" on it. The other doesn't.

I received a combined Apple receipt for $2.99 for the Gutenberg Book Reader Pro app and another for $2.99 for the Gutenberg Project, Unlimited Reading app. I am at this point somewhat confused. I would prefer just one app that will meet my needs of finding, downloading and reading Gutenberg publications. I decided to delete both of the apps which offer the exact same page turning options. They both have a stand alone library which is not sycned between them.

I found I can download the Gutenburg books directly from the website and send them to be read as PDFs in my Kindle app. With the Kindle app, I can tap the side of the page and it transitions instantly to the next page without a curl or flip. It takes more time to locate and download but to me the reading experience (especially page turning) is well worth it.

New to using. I either missed it or there is no way to favorite and build a library for future reading/listening?

I crossed my fingers and looked in GutenbergProject Store just HOPING there would be an app which included SOME of project Gutenberg's titles and audio from their full website ...I am sooo excited to find this DEDICATED app with seemingly ALL of their wonderful content! Thanks ever so!!

Thank you PG for this incredible gift. I went from being a tv potato to an avid reader. The most used app on my iPad by far..

I was initially skeptical of the claim but was amazed after testing it. Some of popular books are available in both human-read audiobooks and in text-to-speech, but I find the voice of Ava in tts is more than adequate for most of the books.

I now can listen to any of the 50,000+ books when I cannot find time to sit down to read,on the bus, doing chores...

I have pd for two(2) life-time subsrptns in last few years while using my Apple iPhone4s. For Christmas present my daughter purchased my new phone an Apple 8s+. My Gutenberg Project Apps were transferred when memory was swapped out but the life-time credits were no where to allow my downloading. And I see the price has gone up. The price is fair for the value but I really do not wish to continue this dance annually.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

Gratefully, I received the response awaited. In error I assumed I was being charged for the service repeatedly. I was wrong to my delight.
On whole there is no way GutenbergProject deserves anything less than five stars for the incredible service to literature of all genres. For that alone it remains the most valuable app on the internet.
Thank you for the courtesy of a rapid
response. wt

Not only can you easily search and download the available books that you are interested in, but the reader will organize the chapters of the book and create a nice looking table of contents. Nice & beautiful presentation or layout. Easy to read. The best.

Tried a few Gutenberg Apps. This is the only one that lets me enjoy the reading. My suggestion is download a few apps and find the one that works for you. This is the best app by a large margin from my own experience.

Works well. Beautiful page turning,

The list of book recommendation is very helpful.

The simple introduction to each book and a link to Wikipedia is absolutely delightful!

I always wanted to read the best books ever published. But books are just like trees in a forest, most are of little value. With GutenbergProject I get some of the best book recommendations. The list alone is worth the effort of downloading!

*** Updated review: I see nothing GutenbergProject does that a dozen other reading apps don’t do as well or better, for free.

In response to a message from GutenbergProject developer that animation speed changes have been added to options, I took (or rather wasted) the time and bandwidth re-downloading GutenbergProject and a book to try the revision. Even the faster curl animation takes too long (on a current-model (not obsolete per Apple) iPad using the latest iOS as of today, Aug 29, 2018,) and rather than offering an option to eliminate the animation, it seems I have only options to curl way way WAY too slowly, way too slowly, or to flip... too slowly. Yuck. (See original review below for my concerns about this.)

Also... I just noticed there’s apparently advertisements in GutenbergProject that is designed for the reading of out-of-copyright books?

No. Thanks. But no. I’m not paying to eliminate what should not be there in the first place, from an app that is still unusable even after being “fixed”.

So I’ll just stick to my other, better apps, and I’m not wasting another second on GutenbergProject or revising this review again. ***

Original Review: Needs a “just go to the next blasted sodding page without pausing to show a stupid stinking animation of a page flipping” option. Completely unusable as is. There are two options in settings in this version:
Flip, which takes the page image and causes it to appear to rotate around a vertical line down the middle of the screen, with the new text appearing inexplicably on the other side, (the page has not two, but apparently infinitely many sides, however many pages are in a book,) and...
Curl, in which a realistic-looking page is peeled down from the corner, which while not as offensive to the sensibilities as Flip is, nevertheless...
TAKE TOO MUCH TIME TO EXECUTE EVEN ON A NEW AND RECENT, FAST IPHONE.
It isn’t that I begrudge a couple seconds here and there, I don’t.

It’s that the time wasted on this stupid animation that you can choose between, but NOT simply turn OFF, takes me RIGHT out of the book. Imagine watching a movie that FROZE every 60 seconds for a second or two. It would be MADDENING!

“Get to th... ... ... e CHOPPA!”

“Oh my god i... ... ... t’s DIP!!!”

“You had me at he... ... ... llo.”

“Hou.. .. .. ston, we have a problem.”

You’d turn the movie off and pick up a book to read.

Unless picking up a book to read meant using GutenbergProject, because the page flip or curl pause would make you hurl your phone or tablet across the room, and go back to watching the halting, stuttering movie.

Interface could be better.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but I believe every title available can be downloaded to a computer then either side-loaded or uploaded to a real, professional e-reader app, like Kindle or Nook.

No real reason to bother with this, unless you have issues with the others and want an app that reminds you what those others were like in beta before their first release.

Just amazing, audio books, and read-along with each reading word highlighted.