Barnes & Noble NOOK

Review by eFreeware

Most reading apps ask you to bring your own files or hunt down free classics. Barnes & Noble NOOK starts from the other end: it is the reading and listening app for a bookstore, and it opens onto a catalog the developer puts at more than 4 million eBooks, graphic novels, comics, manga and magazines, plus over 300,000 audiobooks. Anything you buy from Barnes & Noble turns up in the app on its own, so the shelf and the store are the same place.

That makes the app's audience fairly clear. If Barnes & Noble is where you already buy books, this is the natural way to read them on a phone or tablet, and the numbers suggest plenty of people have made that choice: over 10 million installs and a 4.4 average from 175,925 ratings. If your library lives elsewhere, the app is still free to try, but its focus is the Barnes & Noble store.

It has been on Android a long time, arriving in July 2010, and the most recent update in March 2026 was limited to bug fixes and performance improvements. There is no charge for the app, no advertising and no in-app purchases.

A bookstore shelf that syncs itself

The daily job here is browsing and buying, and the app leans on Barnes & Noble's own booksellers for it. New releases, bestsellers and promotions are surfaced in the app, along with recommendations the developer describes as curated by its expert booksellers. Genres run from contemporary fiction, romance, mystery and thriller, classics, sci-fi and fantasy through manga, kids, young adult and non-fiction, so there is a route into most subjects and age groups.

You do not have to commit money to sample the catalog. There are more than 75,000 free eBooks and over 10,000 free audiobooks, and both formats can be started as samples before you decide. A Wishlist holds the titles you want to come back to, which is a sensible place to park a recommendation you are not ready to buy.

The part I would value most is the syncing. Books, bookmarks, notes and highlights follow you between devices, so a book started on a phone can be picked up on a tablet without losing your place. Barnes & Noble purchases appear in the app automatically, which removes the download-and-import step that standalone readers often require.

Reading and listening on your own terms

The reading view is adjustable in the ways that matter over long sessions. Font style, line spacing, margins, page animations, background color and screen brightness can all be changed, and there are multiple page styles to choose from. Notes, bookmarks and highlights can be added as you go, and favorite highlights can be shared to social networks. Search works inside the book, and a built-in dictionary handles unfamiliar words without leaving the page.

Audiobooks get their own set of controls. Narration speed can be adjusted, and a sleep timer coordinates listening with your schedule, which is the sort of feature that matters when a chapter runs longer than you intended to stay awake. Android Auto support means the same library can be played in the car, which the developer presents as safe listening while driving.

Storage is flexible: content can live on the device or in the cloud. Custom shelves let you organize the library rather than scrolling one long list.

One account, several readers

Profiles are the feature that separates this from a single-person reader. Family members can share one account while keeping their own experience, and eBooks, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers and comics can be shared across those profiles without a second purchase. Each profile keeps its own place in a book, along with bookmarks, highlights and notes, so two people reading the same novel do not overwrite each other's spot.

Child Profiles give parents control over what each child sees, which is the piece that makes a shared account workable in a household with younger readers. The app also supports Android assistive technology, including screen magnification and TalkBack, for blind and low-vision users.

What you need before the first book

Setup is light. The app is a free download for Android phones and tablets, and content bought from Barnes & Noble appears in it without any manual transfer. There is no purchase needed to start reading, since the free eBook and audiobook catalogs and the sample system are available from the outset.

Profiles work by sharing a single Barnes & Noble account. Beyond that, the app asks little of you before you can open a book.

A good fit for Barnes & Noble regulars

This app makes the most sense for people who already buy from Barnes & Noble and want a single place to read and listen.

It also works for anyone who wants a large free catalog to browse, with tens of thousands of free eBooks and audiobooks and samples for the paid ones. Readers who want fine control over typography, or who listen in the car, will find the settings and Android Auto support cover the basics well.

The catalog is the bookstore's own, so the experience is built around shopping and reading within Barnes & Noble rather than managing files from elsewhere. For someone whose library lives in that store, that is the point rather than a drawback.

The case for installing it

Barnes & Noble NOOK does the job of a bookstore app and a reader at once, and does it without charging for the app, running ads or selling in-app purchases. The catalog is wide, the free sections are substantial, and the syncing of books, bookmarks, notes and highlights across devices is the feature that keeps a library usable over years.

The adjustable reading and listening settings, the sleep timer, Android Auto support and the family profile system round out a package that covers most everyday reading needs. The recent update added nothing beyond bug fixes and performance improvements, so there is no new feature to weigh here.

If you buy books from Barnes & Noble, this is the app to install: it keeps your purchases, your place and your notes together, and the profiles make it work for a household rather than a single reader.

What's new

• Bug fixes and performance improvements.