Serial Reader vs Minimalistic Reading List
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Serial Reader
Read classic literature in daily, manageable segments. This app breaks down over 900 books into daily issues, each readable in 20 minutes or less, helping you build reading habits and tackle lengthy classics. Customize your reading experience with various themes, fonts, and sync options.
- Daily book installments
- Over 900 classic books
- Serialize your own EPUBs
- Sync with Goodreads/Readwise
- Word lookup
- Reading streaks and badges
Read full descriptionHide full description
Read classic books in daily bite-sized bits! Serial Reader helps you fit more reading into your busy life. Choose from more than 900 books — or add your own! — and the app delivers a new issue from the book every day. Build great reading habits and tackle daunting classic books. Each daily issue can be read in 20 minutes or less, making it easy to fit reading into your spare time! Picked as one of Apple's Best New Apps and Best New App Updates. "This free app will make you ridiculously well-read in 20 minutes a day" — Mashable "For those who are intimidated by thick, leather-bound tomes, Serial Reader is a good way to break it all down" — The Washington Post • Read hundreds of popular classic books for free • Large variety of themes & fonts • Serialize your own EPUB books • Sync to Goodreads and Readwise • Lookup words with quick dictionary & Wikipedia access • Earn fun badges and track your reading streaks Plus, with the Serial Premium upgrade: • Read tomorrow's issue early • Sync your reading across multiple devices • Save quotes & notes while reading • Save books to Read Later • Pause delivery of new issues • Pick specific delivery days and hours for new issues • Custom app icons "Serial Reader’s subscription format makes it a little bit more fun to crank through the classics" — Lifehacker "A useful tool that makes it easy in our modern world to make classic books part of your reading diet" — MacStories More than 900 books available in the app with new titles added each week. Every book is free to read! A preview of available books: Most Popular • Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen • A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens • The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald • Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky • War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy • Les Misérables - Victor Hugo • The Time Machine - H.G. Wells • The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde • The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway American Lit • Moby-Dick - Herman Melville • Little Women - Louisa May Alcott • My Antonia - Willa Cather • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Adventure • The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas • Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson • Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe • The Odyssey - Homer • King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard Romance • Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte • Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy • Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare Science Fiction • The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne • A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs Horror • Dracula - Bram Stoker • The Dunwich Horror - H.P. Lovecraft • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley • The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe • The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers • The Wendigo - Algernon Blackwood Mystery • The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle • The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie • The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins Biography • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass • Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup Children's • Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll • The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame • Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery Fantasy • The Well at the World's End - William Morris • Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany • The Wood Beyond the World - William Morris Philosophy • The Republic - Plato • Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes • Rights of Man - Thomas Paine Nonfiction • Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft • On the Origin of Species - Charles Darwin • The Federalist Papers • The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels Westerns • Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey • The Virginian - Owen Wister • Gunman's Reckoning - Max Brand Religion • King James Bible • The Dhammapada • The Quran Build great reading habits and finish classic books in days with Serial Reader!
Minimalistic Reading List
Organize your reading with this minimalist app. Scan barcodes, search by author or genre, and categorize books into 'Reading,' 'To Read,' and 'Finished.' Discover popular titles and get reading tips.
- Scan book barcodes
- Search by title, author, genre
- Categorize into Reading, To Read, Finished
- Create personalized genre groups
- Explore popular books and reading tips
- Purchase books via integrated links
Read full descriptionHide full description
Explore, save and organize all of your favorite books with Minimalistic Reading List. With the world's most comprehensive book repository you’ll always find the book you are looking for. The app is designed from a minimalistic perspective which makes the app extremely simple to use and gives you incredible user experience. To add books to your reading list you simply: - Scan the barcode of the physical book to get directly to the book page and then you simply add it. - You can search for a specific book, author, genre and even author and then browse until you find the book you are looking for. - By adding books manually your Minimalistic Reading List can contain every book in the world. Your reading list will be divided into three categories - Reading, To Read & Finished If you are like me and love different genres, you can create personalized groups based on genres or in any other way you want. It’s extremely simple to create groups you simply: - Set the name you wish the group has. - Add all the books you want and then save the group, that’s it. In the explore section of the app you’ll get an understanding of what the other users are reading, reading tips through the book of the week, you can browse by category. The Popular section shows the top books that the community is reading right at this moment. I created Minimalistic Reading List because I still believe that it’s important to read and I wanted to make it easier and more fun by bringing like-minded people together. For us who read a lot, it will eventually become a bit expensive to purchase every book so I have included some links to the magnificent invention - The Kindle. Through the partnership with The Book Depository you can purchase books from your reading list at a very competitive price. They also offer all of us free and fast worldwide shipping! To purchase a book you simply press the “Purchase Book” button and you’ll be redirected to the correct book page on bookdepository.com. I’ll keep updating the app to make it even better and here are some features that will be available soon: - Filtering book searches by language - Progressbar on for the books you’re reading Terms & Conditions - https://bit.ly/2N5Aat6 Privicy Policy - https://bit.ly/2oVXLo7
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Serial Reader at 95% against Minimalistic Reading List's 0%. Serial Reader also leads on rating (4.8 vs 1.5) and ratings volume (4.1K vs 2). Minimalistic Reading List's advantage is update cadence (every 10 days vs every 3 months) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.6). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Serial Reader sells 5 one-off in-app purchases and Minimalistic Reading List sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Serial Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 1.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Serial Reader has 4.1K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 95% of Serial Reader's written reviews are positive against 0% of Minimalistic Reading List's.
Serial Reader ships an update every 3 months, Minimalistic Reading List every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Serial Reader | Minimalistic Reading List |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (4.1K ratings) — better | 1.5 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 95.2% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4.1K — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 29 MB | 27 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Michael Schmitt | Carl Henningsson |
Customer experience
Serial Reader
Minimalistic Reading List
Bugs and requests
Serial Reader
Reported bugs
2 issues- App crashes when changing fonts
- Issues with new chapter delivery not working
Requested features
4 requests- Add more modern/non-classic book options
- Improve sync functionality across devices
- Allow more customization of reading experience
- Provide flexible delivery schedule options
Minimalistic Reading List
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Serial Reader
- Tip Jar - Essay$1.99
- Serial Premium$2.99
- Tip Jar - Short Story$4.99
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Tip Jar - Novel$9.99
- Tip Jar - Epic$14.99
Minimalistic Reading List
- Full Access Subscription7 Days trial$0.991 Month
- Lifetime Access$12.99
Questions
Is Serial Reader free?
Is Minimalistic Reading List free?
Which has better reviews, Serial Reader or Minimalistic Reading List?
Do Serial Reader or Minimalistic Reading List have ads?
Which is updated more often, Serial Reader or Minimalistic Reading List?
Other comparisons















