Getting Chinese eBooks

There are a few popular Chinese apps through which you can get a lot of eBooks in Chinese very easily.

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Apps in China

1. 微信读书 allows you to get free eBooks or paid eBooks in Chinese. Notably the app allows you to “compete” with your friends and see who reads the most number of hours in a given week. The gamification nature give you further incentive to read. Another great feature is that the app rewards you for reading. Every half-hour that you spend reading with the app, it rewards you the equivalent of 1 Chinese yuan of digital cash which you can use toward the purchase of eBooks. In my opinion, 微信读书 is the best visually designed app of all the apps listed here, especially when it comes to typography and readability. The only downside is the seeming lack of proofreading. You’ll come across a lot of typos in their books.
2. 当当云阅读 has a larger selection than 微信阅读。If for some reason you cannot find a book on 微信阅读 you’ll likely find it on 当当云阅读。It does not reward you for reading the same way 微信阅读 does, but the prices are fairly reasonable. The only downside is that it doesn’t have the Song font (the equivalent of the serif font in English) which makes it somewhat harder to read.
3. 豆瓣阅读 is also a popular reading app. However, it does not offer text-to-speech features as 微信阅读 and 当当云阅读 do, which means you can’t select a portion of text and have it read to you aloud. Also, if you use the 思源宋体 font, the word spacing feels a bit too tight. A great app otherwise. The pricing of books is also very reasonable.
4. Amazon.cn (China) Kindle books. If you are able to pay renminbi through Union Pay or Alipay, you can buy the books through amazon.cn. Once you buy, you can read your purchase through the Kindle app or on a Kindle device. But please note your account with amazon.cn is separate from your international Amazon account. So if you want to access your purchase from a Kindle, you need to log out of your international Amazon account and login to your Amazon.cn (China) account.

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International Apps

The popular apps below all carry a selection of Chinese books. The selection might be somewhat limited, but they could be much easier to use for you since you might already have set up payment methods with them. Also they are not subject to censorship by the Chinese government as the apps from China are.

1. Google Play Books. Example item: 鲁迅《呐喊》 for $7.98
2. Apple Books. Example item: 鲁迅《呐喊》 for free.
3. Amazon Kindle (international). Example item: 《鲁迅散文集》for $7.49

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Do you have other apps to add to the list? What's your favourite Chinese eBooks app?

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