Google Play Books & Audiobooks

Google LLC

In-app purchases

About this app

Dive into a world of stories with Google Play Books! Explore millions of ebooks, audiobooks, comics and manga – all in one app.

Key Features:

• Your library, anywhere: Enjoy books on your phone, tablet, computer or even in your car with Android Auto. Plus, you can download books to read offline.

• Earn Google Play Points: Get rewarded with Play Points when you purchase books. Note: Play Points availability, award levels and multiplier rates differ by country. Play Points isn’t available in all countries.

• Organise with shelves: Personalise your digital library with custom shelves to categorise your books by genre, author or any theme that you’d like.

• Smart notes: Jot down notes that sync with your Google Drive and can be shared for easy collaboration.

• No subscription needed: Buy only the books that you want, when you want them.

• Kid-friendly reading tools: Let kids explore word definitions and listen to books aloud. Note: Reading practice tools are available in English only.

• Immersive comics: Experience Bubble Zoom for a specialised comic and manga reading experience.

• Preview before you buy: Check out samples to make sure that it’s the perfect book for you.

• Hands-free reading: Control your audiobook with your voice using Google Assistant.

• Read your way: Customise your reading experience by adjusting the font, text size, brightness and more.

Millions of stories await on Google Play Books! Download now and start reading.

Ratings and reviews

The library, sorting, purchasing, and reading options are great. There is a big caveat, though. I am a highlighter, and the functionality is clunky. By far the worst of any reading app, and I use 6 on regular rotation. Dictionaries, downloads, etc. shouldn't need to be cleared to highlight. Holding my finger down and dragging across the text should be all that's necessary. I quite literally stopped reading my book to write this because of my frustration.

This app is a good place to keep and read my ebooks. I only have two problems with it; one, you can't manually sort books that are in a Shelf. And two, even though I have the "For You" notifications off, I still keep getting popups for price drops on books I don't want. Not going to be a crybaby bigot over it like some people, though. However, these few issues are not that big of a deal, so I gave the app five stars.

After the recent update, the option to permanently delete uploaded epub files is gone. To delete an uploaded book, I need to go to the website using a browser and from there I can delete the book. This is such a basic option to have, and it was working perfectly fine, but now I have to deal with this whole inconvenience. Also books that are 'hidden' can nowhere be found. There's supposed to be a 'hidden' shelf, but there's nothing even on a browser. Such a mess!!

What's new

Arriving in version 2025.1.10

• An improved ebook text selection menu

Arriving in version 2023.6.12

• Reading practice feature is now available in select books in Tools for beginning readers.

The microphone needs to be turned on to hear you, yet won’t keep anything that you say.