Why your books got a world of their own

Until now, your books lived in Entertainment next to films and shows. You could see your Kavita or Komga library and check that things had arrived. What you couldn't do was sit down and read.

QM Reader, new in 1.3, is for that. It's a third world, next to Entertainment and the Command Centre, and its main job is simple: open the app and carry on with your book. It's in the closed beta now, so some details may still change.

Why a separate world

Films and shows are about browsing. You scroll posters, pick something and press play. With a book you almost always know what you want already: the one you're halfway through. A reading Home should put that book first, show where you actually are in it, and keep everything else out of the way.

Putting that inside Entertainment would have meant squeezing a reading app into a screen built for posters. It gets its own space instead: its own tabs (Home, Library, Browse and More) and a slider at the top of Home to get there. On a Mac you pick it at the top of the sidebar.

Where the books come from

In 1.3, QM Reader reads from BookOrbit and Grimmory, and titles from both sit together in one library. You can sort, filter and search it, browse collections and series from both servers, and set a book's read status. BookOrbit also brings star ratings, personal notes, highlights and reading stats.

If you don't run a book server, turn QM Reader off in Settings under Media & Reader and it's gone. Your other book connections, such as Audiobookshelf, Kavita and Komga, stay where they were.

Reading

EPUB and PDF books open in the app's own native reader. You get paged or scrolling layout, your own text size, spacing and margins, and themes all the way to true Black for reading in bed. The fonts include OpenDyslexic. A book you've opened is kept on the device, so it opens faster the next time.

Listening

BookOrbit audiobooks play in a proper player with speed, a sleep timer and chapters. A mini player follows you around the app, playback carries on in the background, and your place syncs back to BookOrbit.

Finding the next one

Under More, Discover shows books you don't own yet: trending titles, charts, genres and new releases. It uses a Hardcover API key that you add yourself. With BookOrbit connected, it also suggests more from authors already in your library.

When you find something, request it through BookOrbit. Search by title, ISBN or author, pick a release yourself if you want to, and sort out held imports from your phone. It's the same idea as requesting a film: the request goes to your own server, and the book lands in your own library.

The full list of what's in 1.3 is on the what's coming page.