Eucalyptus by is a client for of nearly 30,000 titles, where readers can find such smut as the and the collected works of Havelock Ellis. What sets the app apart from most of its competition is how it takes the cold, forbidding, and ugly type so typical of public-domain e-books and makes it gorgeous.
The app's presentation and interface is reminiscent of ( Macworld rated 3.5 out of 5 mice ), but with a much larger selection for readers to browse and download. The experience is as close to that of a real book as the iPhone will allow. You flip pages rather than scroll vertically or horizontally. The pages resemble paper. After awhile, you almost forget you are reading on a screen.
When you launch Eucalyptus, the app will take you to the Get Books tab, where you can peruse the latest recommendations on a simple but stylish bookshelf or search for books on your own. And it is probably the best Gutenberg search engine I've come across. Type in a few letters and up pops potential matches. A search for "sex" (Don't blame me! Apple made me do it!) produces more than two dozen books by title and subject and suggests authors with the word in their names.
The Eucalyptus interface also bears a strong resemblance to iTunes. When you find a book that interests you, tap the title and an "index card" with the title, author, Gutenberg eText number, and other information pops up. You tap Get Book and another (redundant) green button appears to download it. Eucalyptus also lets readers organize and browse easily alphabetically by author and title.
Here's what Eucalyptus does not do: It does not let you import your e-books. It does not let you import e-books from other e-book sites. It does not let you purchase e-books from online retailers such as Fictionwise. And because the app relies on the tagging embedded in the Gutenberg texts, it isn't always possible to jump from one chapter to the next. (I noticed this with certain books, but not all. I wouldn't say mine was a representative sample, but I did download and browse through more than two dozen books for the purposes of this review.)