Google Books
Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich tablets come with Google Books already built into the tablet. You can think of this as the Google equivalent to Apple’s iBook format. Google Books can be purchased through your Google Checkout account using the same Android Market you use to purchase apps.
Google Books is several things. It is a website (http://books.google.com) that lets you search a vast library of scanned books. At this site, you can shop for books and create your own public profile that shares a list of books you’re reading and reviews of books you’ve read. Google Books is also an app, and the Android version of this app taps into part of the Google Books website, but not all of it.
Launch the Google Books app by tapping its icon from your Home screen or from the app tray. Your view will depend on how you last left the app. If you were reading a book, you’ll return to that book. Otherwise, you’ll see the library. Google Books displays your books as large Book icons arranged in a curve. Swipe your finger left to right to navigate through the books in your library, as shown in Figure 17–1.
Figure 17–1. Navigating the Google Books library
Tap a book to start reading it. You can start as many books as you’d like, and Google Books will keep track of your progress in all of them. Books in Google Books are displayed as single pages when you hold your tablet vertically and double pages when you hold it horizontally. You can turn a page by swiping your finger or pressing the Volume Up or Volume Down button. Figure 17–2 shows the interface for reading a book.
NOTE: It may be a habit to tap the Back button on the bottom of your tablet to return to the main menu of an app; however, this usually doesn’t work in e-reading apps, and you’ll end up exiting the program instead. The Library button is usually on the top of the screen for e-Book readers.
Figure 17–2. Reading a Google Book
Adjusting the Reading Options
As shown in Figure 17–2, you tap the Aa button on the top of the screen to adjust your reading options. As you can see, there are quite a few choices (see Figure 17–3).
Figure 17–3 Reading options for Google Books
The first option, Show, is available for some older books. Google originally scanned books from libraries and used software to convert the images to text. This allows you to view easier-to-read electronic text or the original scanned image. Use this option if a passage appears garbled; be aware, however, that including this option causes a book to take longer to download.
The other options—Brightness, Text settings, and Line height—are a little more straightforward. Adjust your settings and tap the Done button.
Reading Books Offline
Google Books is a cloud-based reading app. By default, your books are stored online, which means you can read them anywhere you have access to a compatible web browser. However, that also means you’re dependent on having an Internet connection. Fortunately, you can make a local copy of your Google Books; follow these steps to do so:
- Open the book you wish to make a local copy of in the Google Books app.
- Tap the Menu button on the upper-right corner of the screen.
- Tap to check the box labeled Make available offline.
Buying or Downloading Google Books
You can buy Google Books either by tapping the Shop button from within the Google Books app or through the Android Market. Follow these steps to buy a Google Book from the Android Market:
- Launch the Android Market app from the Home screen or from the app tray.
- Tap the Books tab (see Figure 17–4).
Figure 17–4. Shopping for Google Books
You can browse for books by category; the Categories section is on the right side of the screen. Featured items are shown at the top, and you can browse New Arrivals, Top Selling, Top Rated, and scroll down to the bottom for Top Free books. You can also just use the Search button on the top of the screen to find books by title, subject, or author.
Once you find a book you’d like to purchase or download, tap the title; you’ll see a page resembling the one shown in Figure 17–5.
Figure 17–5. The Details page for a Google Book
The Details page for a Google Book looks pretty similar to what you see when downloading an app. You’ll see books by the same author(s), suggestions for similar titles, and reviews of the book. In this case, the reviews come from the Google Books website, public reviews, or Goodreads.com. Currently, there’s no way to review a book from within the Android tablet’s reader.
TIP: Goodreads (www.goodreads.com) offers an Android app you can use to share reviews and reading recommendations from within your tablet. It even has a built-in barcode scanner that you can use to inventory your physical book library.
If you want to purchase a book, you can tap the Buy button. Your purchase will be completed through Google Checkout. However, you can also try a book before you buy it; to do so, press the Free Sample button just below the Buy button. Most e-book stores now give you some method to read the start of a book before making you commit to a purchase.
Once you buy or try a free sample, you can start reading your book right away. Remember to enable offline reading if you plan on reading this book away from your data connection.
TIP: Google Books comes with a widget you can put on your Home screen to let you flip through and open your favorite books quickly.
Google Books Website
You can use your Browser app to open and read Google Books. You can also use your Browser app to search through books you don’t own by going to http://books.google.com. Google has an extensive library of scanned books in its database. You can even find passages within books; the amount of text you see in a given book depends on the agreement Google has with the publisher and whether the book is still under copyright.