Ereader that lets you read book synopsis/info (like a back cover)?

[allanahk]

I have an old kindle at the moment and it just shows a list of books I have and the only info I can see is Title, Author, rough length (via those dots) and percentage read. One thing I miss about physical books is picking one off the bookshelf and reading the back cover so I know what it's about and what genre. My solution at the moment is to add a 'book jacket' page using Calibre, but to view it requires opening the book file on my Kindle and then it says 1% read which I don't like (and also I lose my place going through my library). I also generate a catalog using Calibre that contains info on all my books but again it's not ideal.

Are there any ereaders that have a book synopsis/info feature when browsing through your library?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by allanahk

Are there any ereaders that have a book synopsis/info feature when browsing through your library?

I believe all of them do now.

On my Kobo, the library shows the cover, title, author, series info, file format and size. Then there's three dots... Tapping those brings up a menu and one of the choices is 'View Details' Tapping that will give the synopsis/info.

My Nooks do something similar, I believe by long pressing on a book. I'm pretty sure the Kindles do the same.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I believe all of them do now.

On my Kobo, the library shows the cover, title, author, series info, file format and size. Then there's three dots... Tapping those brings up a menu and one of the choices is 'View Details' Tapping that will give the synopsis/info.

My Nooks do something similar, I believe by long pressing on a book. I'm pretty sure the Kindles do the same.

Just to be clear, I think this only works (for any of the readers) if the book was purchased from the matching storefront. Sideloaded books won't do this.

[allanahk]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Just to be clear, I think this only works (for any of the readers) if the book was purchased from the matching storefront. Sideloaded books won't do this.

Damn, I got excited for a second! I only sideload my books as I like to add custom metadata etc. Oh well

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Just to be clear, I think this only works (for any of the readers) if the book was purchased from the matching storefront. Sideloaded books won't do this.

Not true. Every book on my Kobos and Nooks is sideloaded. It does work.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

Just to be clear, I think this only works (for any of the readers) if the book was purchased from the matching storefront. Sideloaded books won't do this.

It works for my sideloaded books on my Kobo ereaders.

[FizzyWater]

Oops, well, that's good then!

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It works for my sideloaded books on my Kobo ereaders.

Addendum to this.

You don't get this if you copy epubs with embedded metadata via file manager (e.g. Windows Explorer).

It only works if you use Calibre to send to device since the Calibre driver writes the metadata directly to the Kobo's database.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Addendum to this.

You don't get this if you copy epubs with embedded metadata via file manager (e.g. Windows Explorer).

It only works if you use Calibre to send to device since the Calibre driver writes the metadata directly to the Kobo's database.

Yes it does. For sideloaded books, Kobo will read title, author, description, language, publisher and ISBN. If these are in the metadata of a sideloaded book, they will appear in the details page.

The KoboTouch driver can update all of these plus series, subtitle and published date. It does this because the firmware doesn't, plus, it updates the details if they have changed. Plus, it only updates the metadata for books already on the device and in the database.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Yes it does. For sideloaded books, Kobo will read title, author, description, language, publisher and ISBN. If these are in the metadata of a sideloaded book, they will appear in the details page.

The KoboTouch driver can update all of these plus series, subtitle and published date. It does this because the firmware doesn't, plus, it updates the details if they have changed. Plus, it only updates the metadata for books already on the device and in the database.

I stand corrected. I must have conflated it with something else (probably tags).

[barryem]

Calibre has a feature to include metadata as the first page of the book.

Barry

[Timboli]

Back at the end of July 2018, I started developing a program called Booklist To HTML. I did it for myself but mostly my wife, to assist with getting the details (Summary) of our huge shared list of ebooks from Amazon.

Basically you drag & dropped either an ebook folder from calibre, or just the OPF file, onto the dropzone in my program. The program then extracted the relevant details, and stored them in a list, which you could then, along with any others already listed, save to a web (Html) page.

The entries were sorted by Author Name, then Book Title. They also included clickable links.

The idea was something to quickly browse the summaries of our collections, and at the time, the PC as viewer for it seemed the ideal way to go.

Below is a screenshot example of a resulting html file. As you can see, it reads from left to right, then down. It also occurs to me, that I could have it just read downward with all the elements, and create EPUB and or MOBI versions of the HTML file.

While not the same as having the summary be part of the ebook, it never-the-less would give a quickly scrollable list of summaries, so perhaps better in a way.

You would also be able to edit the Summary, because often the OPF file contains no description, and so a visit to the ebook page at Amazon (etc), to copy and paste would be needed and supported.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by allanahk

Damn, I got excited for a second! I only sideload my books as I like to add custom metadata etc. Oh well

Fizzywater is incorrect. On a Kobo, you can have the descriptions of side loaded books. You just have to make sure the description is as you want it.

[BookCat]

This isn't exactly what the OP wants, but when I convert epubs, or any other format, to AZW3 for my kindle, I search for blurb by downloading metadata, choose the best, then choose a cover. After this, click the Structure Detection tab and put a tick in "Add metadata at beginning" then convert.

This puts blurb at the beginning of the ebook. But you do have to open the ebook in order to do this. Personally, I don't find this a hassle because my kindle is still fairly fast, and I use Collections.

I don't have wi-fi, which probably disables some kindle abilities.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by BookCat

This puts blurb at the beginning of the ebook. But you do have to open the ebook in order to do this.

If you're sideloading these books anyway (assuming you are due to what you said in the parts I stupidly cut from the quote), can't you just long press on a book or something similar to see the synopsis?

My Kobos and Nooks both do this, with no need to be connected to the internet.

I'm assuming you can, which makes me wonder what benefit is gained by adding the blurb at the beginning of the book.