i love to read, but I can't always get to a library or bookstore. That's why I'm thankful for Glassbook's free Glassbook Reader 1.1, which allows me to read books on any PC. The Glassbook Reader is a 6MB download from bookstore.glassbook.com/store/getreader.asp. It does a good job of reproducing the look of the printed page, including fonts, justification, and font-smoothing (see below). You can bookmark your place, rotate the display 90 degrees to view books in portrait mode on your laptop or desktop PC, and download multiple free books from Glassbook's Web site (bookstore.glassbook.com/store/free_title_list.asp). The list of free books includes Willa Cather's My Antonia, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Stephen King's Riding the Bullet. The reader will even replace your copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader if you want, since Glassbooks are created in Adobe's Portable Document Format. Of course, Glassbook would like you to buy books from its site, which you can do from within the reader itself. Prices are about the same as for hard-copy editions.

By Scott Spanbauer