Read an innovative new novel in app form by bestselling author Iain Pears, and get motivated to learn some new skills with top app of the month for iPhone/iPad and Android.
iPhone and iPad: Arcadia
Ebooks aren’t anything new, but this novel by bestselling British author Iain Pears is unique, as it was written as an app. This means that the copy in bookstores is the ported version of the novel and the online version is the original, quite the role reversal. From an early point of writing Arcadia, Pears believed the novel would be overly complex and tried to think of a way to “make [his] readers” lives as easy as possible by bypassing the limitations of the classic linear structure.”
The finished novel (or app?) has 10 interweaving story lines, and the unique design of the app allows you to read the storylines in whichever order you please.
Read more about Arcadia and why Pears chose to write it in app form on The Guardian.
You can download the app and start reading for free, however there is a point where you will have to pay $4.99 to unlock the rest of the text. Available for iPhone and iPad.
For any interested in the novel who don’t own an iOS device, you can get the good ol’ paperback on BookDepository for $24.
Android: Mastery
It’s never too late to learn a new skill, but staying motivated can be difficult. Some skills will start rewarding you straight away, such as learning to bake (yum) but others, such as learning a musical instrument or a new language, can take months to start rewarding you.
Mastery makes learning a new skill easier by tracking how much time you’ve spent on your skills and levelling them up as you go along.
It might sound silly, but it’s an excellent tool for motivation. By showing you how much time you’ve spent learning a skill in an appealing graph, as well as the satisfying feeling of levelling up, you might find it easier to push through the rough patch of learning a new skill. You can also reward yourself by spending coins you earn by learning your skills on your custom defined rewards, such as watching an episode of a TV show, making motivation even easier.
Mastery is available for free on Android.
