Make your Android phone read books to you!

Update: Please see newer updated post with new video here instead: https://salmannaqvi.com/2020/04/29/how-to-get-books-websites-and-other-documents-read-out-loud-to-you-from-your-android-phone-and-pc/

I’ve read over 150 books in the last 4 years! How? I haven’t actually ‘read’ them, but have had them read out to me by my smartphone. I listened to these books while driving, riding the subway, exercising, and during other idle times. Many of these, I read even two or in some cases three times. This included various genres: fiction, psychological, technical, spiritual, business, etc. Here is a video showing how to set up your Android phone to read books to you:

Sure, you can use Audible to have books read to you, but, despite a library of 150,000+ books, it doesn’t have too many books that I am interested in reading. And of course, Audible requires payment on a per-book or subscription basis.

Basically, you need three Apps, linked below and PDF version of whatever you are interested in having read out to you. In the video, I go over some of the minor quirks of setting up these applications.

You can also convert any Amazon or Barnes & Noble book into PDF using an application called Calibre. See details on that process here. It’s a little tricky the first time, but, a breeze for any subsequent books after that.

If you are looking for classics, many of which are available for free in public domain, one of the best places to get started is Project Gutenberg – https://www.gutenberg.org – which has an impressive library of 50,000+ books available for free!

ezPDF Reader Pro – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=udk.android.reader&hl=en

IVONA Text-to-Speech HQ – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ivona.tts

IVONA Amy UK English (Voice Data) – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ivona.tts.voicebeta.eng.gbr.amy

Enjoy and happy reading!