The convenience of a Kindle without any of the extra cost
. Plus, browsing Amazon doesn’t have the same magic as wandering through a bookstore.
What I wanted was the convenience of an e-reader with the curation of a bookstore. If it could be as affordable as a library without forcing this pajama gremlin to go outside, all the better. I texted this exact spiel to a fellow bookworm a while back. When I was done kvetching, she texted back three words. “Just download Libby.”For the uninitiated, Libby is a free library app powered by OverDrive. You can borrow or put holds on magazines and books of all sorts from your local libraries.
It sounded perfect on paper, but I was skeptical. This wasn’t my first ebook rodeo, and the app didn’t solve my main issues with libraries. It still had long waitlists for popular titles and imposed arbitrary loan periods. Libby sat on my phone for a few months, unused. And then, in the summer of 2021, my mom was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
It royally sucked. Books had always been my refuge, but they became increasingly unavailable to me. When you’re a caregiver, it’s not practical to lug tomes likearound to various appointments, and there’s not a lot of time to leisurely browse at bookstores. Plus, I was broke from covering my mom’s medical bills.It started with audiobooks to drown out my thoughts when driving to my mom’s. Libby works with CarPlay , and unlike Audible, it was free.