SAN ANTONIO – Now that you’ve cleaned out all of the closets and watched all of Netflix, how about reading a good book?
E-books and e-readers put thousands of free options at your fingertips and you don’t even have to venture out of the house.
“What folks may not know is that you don’t necessarily need to buy either an e-reader or a tablet to start reading e-books,” said Nicholas DeLeon, tech editor at Consumer Reports.
You can use your laptop or even your smartphone for the various e-reading apps, although those devices may be harder on the eyes for books.
If you do want a new device, Consumer Reports gave top ratings to the Amazon Kindle e-reader.
“(It has) incredible battery life, the screen is really legible,” DeLeon said. “If you want more flexibility, a tablet is more well-rounded. The flipside there is a tablet can be more expensive.”
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2019 Tablet costs around $330 and is a good choice, according to Consumer Reports.
If you can’t or don’t want to visit your local library in person, you can visit virtually. The San Antonio Public Library and Bexar County Bibliotech offers various apps where you can choose from all kinds of media, and all you need is a library card or number.
Libraries are encouraging readers to go digital with apps like Overdrive and Libby. You just choose what you like and a digital download is sent to your device for a set number of days. The apps work on laptops, too.
If you prefer to listen, try Hoopla, where your library card gets you access to audiobooks, music and movies.
If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you can get free e-books by using Prime Reading and the Kindle app.
Also, check out the Library of Congress online and Project Gutenberg, a free website that makes digital copies of old books that are no longer copywrited available.