IF you’re a book lover who has a smartphone and you’re not ready to spend the $260 you might on an electronic book reader, try starting with an e-reader app. Best of all, they’re free.

Image The Kindle app for the iPhone.

KINDLE FOR IPHONE

Read e-books from Amazon without buying the Kindle e-book reader. The Kindle mobile app for the iPhone and iPod Touch lets you buy books from its e-bookstore, which has more than 360,000 titles. You can increase the text size, create notes or highlight content on the device. You can also read in landscape or portrait mode. If you do have a Kindle, you can seamlessly read the same book on both devices. Available at the App Store from Apple. An app for BlackBerrys is in the works.