As bookworms, we're all too familiar with having to bring less clothes on vacation because we’ve already hit the weight limit with half a dozen novels in our suitcase—not to mention the day-today struggle of forgoing small purses for the sake of having a good subway read (but the local is so slow!). But luckily, the answer to all our nerdy prayers has arrived: an app called Scribd.
Scribd has taken the notion of a library membership and refashioned it to better suit our technology-driven world. The app gives you access to over 400,000 Ebooks, audiobooks and comics for the flat rate of $8.99 a month. But this isn't like the Kindle or iBooks apps: On Scribd, after the monthly fee, there is no cost per book—meaning you can devour as many books as you fancy without making a dent in your wallet. A paperback book or Kindle edition usually costs around $9, so reading just one book a month on Scribd is money well spent.
The all-you-can-read buffet of e-reads is not nearly as overwhelming as it sounds. The search bar allows you to look for a particular read, or you can scroll (or flick, if you are on your phone or tablet) through the catalog of books by category, publisher, or best-seller. The app will also recommend books based on the ones you have already added to your library. Seriously, before long it will know you better than your best friend (there is no hiding your penchant for romance novels from it).
One of the sweetest elements of the app is that anyone and everyone can publish their work on it. And it doesn’t have to be a full blown novel to make it on the site: You can self-publish anything from recipes to poetry to school papers to sheet music. Who knows? You could end up becoming the E.E. Cummings of the technology age.
The options are (almost) limitless on Scribd. When you no longer have patience for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s will-they-won’t-they relationship in Pride and Prejudice, you can flick over to Bling Ring and get your fix of badly behaved teens and celebs. One of my personal favorites is digging through the cookbook section—talk about some serious food porn. There are also a huge catalog of audiobooks to choose from for when you just need to hear a good story.
I used to live by the motto, "Never date anyone who doesn't have books in their apartment." But now, I think I won’t be dating anyone who doesn’t have Scribd on their phone.