csBooks

Note: The application can be had for free from the Microsoft Store until the 11th of February. After this date, interested users will be required to pay 14.99$.

Marketed as "a smart solution to manage all your PDF, EPUB, and MOBI files," csBooks is a modern, Electron-based Microsoft Store app that easily holds its own against some of the best e-book readers out there.

For starters, it has all the right tools and features for the job, it has a modern, clean-looking GUI, and it can be installed on a wide range of OSes out there (such as Windows 10, fedora, ArchLinux, and macOS).

With the general concepts out of the way, let's talk specifics. As mentioned at the start of the review, it supports the three most popular e-book formats out there: ePUB, MOBI, and PDF.

It provides a clear and easy way to manage your book library, no matter its size. For example, you can import files as well as the contents of whole folders via simple drag and drop actions. You are provided with two view-modes (Card and List View), and you can sort all your books by titles and types.

The app is also capable of auto-extracting the thumbnails for your books, and the on-click info bar allows you to effortlessly check out each book before you start reading.

Even though the app will hardly impress you visually at first glance, it's clear that a lot of thought has gone into its development. For example, the app remembers your reading position so that next time you want to read you can start from where you left off.

Of course, a good reading app should also have a dark theme to help reduce your eye strain while reading in poorly lit environments. csBooks makes no exception and provides you with two GUI themes.

Last but not least, csBooks comes with support for Librivox, one of the best free platforms for audiobooks. You can listen to your favorite audiobooks online, and even download and listen to them later via csBook's compact audio player. The audiobooks are also sortable and searchable.

To conclude, csBooks is one of the best e-book readers/managers currently on the market. While it doesn't look the part, it more than makes up for its plain GUI by offering users a plethora of useful options for reading and listing to ebooks and audiobooks alike.