No machine can replace the feeling of reading on paper. Touching a comic, turning its pages, smelling it... this whole part is considered almost a magical ritual. This is undeniable, but the digital comic reader, like Cover - Reading comics has its advantages. For starters, you can take them with you wherever you go and you can save a lot of space with a digital version of your favorite stories, because if you're a good reader, you're probably in danger of being buried under a mountain of comics.

How does it workCover?

The Cover system is based on a library to which you must add comics. The tool catalogs and sorts them into a gallery, allowing you to access them very quickly. From there it works the same way as reader, with an excellent browser that allows us to change the viewing mode (full screen mode, night mode, width or height adjustment...) to customize our reading experience and make reading easier. Marvel, DC, Super Humor... there's room for all of these publishers in this comic book reader for Windows 10 (also works on Windows 8). But perhaps the most remarkable part of this Cover, unlike other comic book readers, is its function for reading manga comics, as it inverts the page order so you can read in a traditional oriental style.

The application will be unlocked on all your devices (mobile phone, computer, tablet) with one purchase.

What formats are supported?

It can also open files with the following extensions:

• JPEG.
• CBZ/ZIP.
• CBR/RAR.
• 7Z/CB7.
• EPUB (images only).

Hello friends!

I notice the beginning of a new month solely thanks to the reminder from the calendar “Write a blog post.” Along with it comes the realization “Wow, it’s already been a whole month?!”
In August, I was able to catch up on things I hadn’t read and even met new authors.

I read it

Let me start, perhaps, with a book that I would like to forget.

• "The V Girl" Mya Robarts. They promised a coming of age story in a dystopian future with a romantic twist. The result was a boring story, written in a primitive language, with flat characters and a seemingly tragic, but for some reason not causing excitement, background. I quit halfway through. The book was on sale for $1, which was about the same amount of fun.
• "Woman in a Cage" Jussi Adler-Olsen. Scandinavian krimi. That rare case when the name in Russian corresponds to the original, and the English one was taken out of thin air. Not a bad detective story, if you close your eyes to some weakness of the original premise. After it, everything is built logically, but the initial motivation of the criminal raises questions. The review will come out a little later. You can no longer buy a paper book in Russian, you can download it.
• "451 degrees Fahrenheit" , Ray Bradbury. I listened to an audiobook from Audible, the new version (wrote). Five hours of immortal classics with a wonderful voice acting by Tim Robbins - perfection in its purest form. The book is from 1951, but is more relevant than ever. It is somewhat frustrating that only men are the opposition to the system, but the book passes the Bechdel test (albeit with difficulty).
• "What the Wind Knows", Amy Harmon. A recently published book (in March 2019), also from the sale section. This time it was a dollar well spent - the book is very cute. Of course, this is purely entertaining literature in the genre of romantic fantasy: time travel, unhappy lovers, that’s all. The plot structure is reminiscent of Gabaldon: the heroine accidentally ends up in the past, with Harmon in Ireland, with Gabaldon in Scotland; there he meets “nobody”; returns back to our time, and here the plot diverges somewhat. The narration is multi-layered, there is a first-person account of the main character, parallel to inserts from the diary of “nothing”, which at a certain moment converge at one point, and then (spoiler) split up again. It's a quick read and an interesting book with its immersion in the recent history of Ireland and its struggle for independence from Britain. The book has not yet been published in translation, but you can buy other books by the author.

• "Difficult Women" Roxanne(huh?) Gay. A slightly uneven collection of short stories with a provocative title. In fact, the heroines are not difficult at all, but simply with their own human weaknesses and oddities, like all of us. Some stories are more compelling, some less so, but they are all extremely honest and frank. I remember “Water, All Its Weight,” about how a girl from birth was haunted by water in all its forms—literally. It was dripping from the ceiling, even though she lives in an apartment, clouds were gathering in the sky when she left, and the awning in the restaurant was leaking. I would say that some of the stories are written at the intersection of genres - elements of magical realism are woven into clearly autobiographical details from the life of the writer herself. A good start to get to know her work.
• "Broken Knight" L. J. Shen. Are you starting to recognize dollar books by their covers? Hint - they all have a portrait on them. This is the third in the August collection. Like the first one, from the category of books “Why am I reading this?” There are many scenes 18+, if you remove them, then the book turns into a young adult story about unhappy love with tossing and suffering against the backdrop of a family tragedy, at the same time, all the heroes are children of oligarchs. I didn’t have any luck with the book, but it has an incredibly high rating on all sites. I don't understand how to explain this. Some kind of mass phenomenon.
• "Northern lights", Philip Pullman. The first book in the author's trilogy, based on which HBO will release a TV series in the fall. To be honest, I read it purely so that I could later watch the film adaptation with a clear conscience, but I ended up blinking and already on the third book. Before starting (for some reason I thought it would be something like Lewis's Narnia), I read a bunch of reviews, and I didn't really want to start the book. Then an offline recommendation from Olya from the courses was added to the virtual reviews, and it turned out that Pullman was never Lewis or even Rowling (although the trilogy is compared to the Harry Potter universe), but a completely different anti-religious bird. I’ll finish reading everything and tell you about it, but in general I advise everyone to read at least the first one before the series premiere!

Read statistics

Books read:

Hudlita:

Women writers:

5 out of 7 USA, 1 Denmark, 1 UK.

Books by decade:

I'm reading

Actually Pullman's third book, "The Amber Spyglass". She opened Dostoevsky, and closed it the same way (even though she had to, she had to).

I’m slowly reading a collection of poems by Emily Dickinson:

But reading poetry in English is not something you lazily skim through. I was inspired to turn to Dickinson’s work by a poem quoted by Andrew Solomon in “Far From the Tree”:

I felt a cleaving in my mind—

As if my brain had split —

I tried to match it — seam by seam —

But could not make it fit.

The thought behind, I strove to join

Unto the thought before—

But sequence ravelled out of Sound

Like balls - upon a floor.

I couldn’t find a translation into Russian, but in general we have the poetess’s poems in different publications, for example, a translation next to the original. Interpretations differ, in Solomon this verse is given in the chapter about schizophrenia, and the meaning, in his opinion, is “plunging into madness” (not all of Dickinson’s poems are about this, she wrote about everything).

I plan to read

It's completely unpredictable. I would like to add non-fiction to this orgy of vanilla and tears, perhaps I will return to Solomon, or to the historical deposits in the closet.

Links

A variety of girls share their books that saved them in difficult situations. Each had its own level of difficulty - the death of a parent, and, on the contrary, the birth of a child, separation from a partner, etc. In my opinion, it is very valuable to read about books that pull other people out of the abyss of loneliness and fear:

And I found a way out - through the home library. She grabbed Fenimore Cooper. Probably because I thought: this is something teenage, something naive, something that will make me feel like that dreamy child. Without passions, without strain, without any “Dostoevism” and without the terrible reality in the next room. I don’t know how it happened, but in this terrible year, when my mother was dying little by little, I also little by little read books about the famous Natty Bumppo, aka St. John’s Wort, aka Pathfinder, aka Hawkeye and Leather Stocking. In general, I went on the warpath with him, threw mental tomahawks at very real enemies, was transported from this world to the shores of the Hudson and Ontario, drove across the prairies and with pathos compared my little unhappy life with the very difficult history of the conquest of the continent. I wanted to read, as if without reading: to kill time and thoughts in my head.

Barack Obama (oops) shares what he read over the summer. There is nothing political there; on the contrary, most of the list is hoodlit:

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s epic fictionalized look at Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power, came out in 2009, but I was a little busy back then, so I missed it. Still great today.

List of new products coming out in the fall. Perhaps not everything will be interesting, but you should definitely learn about these books. Michelle Obama's autobiography (oops), the iconic "I Love Dick" from Sasha from No Kidding Press, where I took classes, and Betty Smith's modern classic "Joy Comes in the Morning":

Almost forty-year-old Chris, an unsuccessful artist and filmmaker, one day meets a charming cultural theorist named Dick and instantly falls head over heels for him. She begins to write him heartfelt letters and involves her own husband Silver in the process of seducing him. Dick does not react to provocations, but for Chris this is no longer so important - she turns her own obsession into a project to study herself and her views on life.

And finally, an interview with Jo Nesbø, in which he talks about the creative process:

Nesbø has two conflicting sides, and they are also responsible for the tension and suspense in his thrillers. On the one hand, he is a free anarchist. “There is and will not be any censorship in my head.” On the other hand, he is always focused and precise, like a mathematical formula. “I am the captain of a ship,” the writer explains, “and it is important for my readers that I know where I am going.” Now the captain is free sailing. Nesbø is divorced and is rumored to be very popular with the ladies. I think he got rid of the waterbed.

Until next month!

The realities of the modern economic situation are such that not all book lovers can afford to assemble a good library of printed publications, so, willy-nilly, they have to turn to more accessible sources, namely the Internet. Reading from a screen is not the best option, but you don’t need to spend money on expensive paper books. E-books are most often distributed in FB2, EBUP and MOBI formats, but there is a separate genre of literature that uses its own format. This genre is comics.

CBR - what is this format?

The content of comics is represented mainly by graphics, they practically do not use fonts, almost all comics are sets of images. It is clear that it is inconvenient to distribute them in this original form, so the CBR format was created for them. Actually, to be honest, CBR is not so much a format as it is an extension that tells the reader application how to process the file. CBR stands for Comic Book RAR Archive and is a regular renamed RAR archive, and if you open the CBR and RAR files with the Notepad++ editor, you will see that they have exactly the same headers.

Another popular comics format, CBZ, is “built” in a similar way, which is a renamed ZIP archive.

The contents of CBR and CBZ archives are a collection of JPEG, PNG or GIF images sorted in a specific order, which may be broken if the archive is unpacked. If you still need to extract, just rename the file extension CBR to RAR, and then open it with the WinRAR archiver.

To view comics, you need to use special reader programs that do not violate the order of the images. So, let's see how to open the CBR format.

Best Programs to Read CBR Files on Windows

There are a lot of applications for viewing files with the CBR extension, both running on Windows and Android. Let's get acquainted with the most convenient and functional ones.

ComicRack

This free CBR reader on your computer is great because it allows you to not only view CBR files, but also organize your libraries. The application supports opening comics in several separate tabs, viewing metadata, seven viewing modes, rotating and scaling images, auto-scrolling, creating bookmarks and workspaces, viewing comics in a separate window, using a virtual magnifying glass, changing the rating and type of pages, as well as exporting them to graphic file.

In addition, ComicRack boasts an impressive arsenal of various settings. In the reader settings, you can adjust the brightness, contrast and color of the image, control the behavior of the application while reading, and enable or disable the use of visual effects. Minus – support for the Russian language is partially implemented.

Popular program for reading comics on Windows. Unlike ComicRack, it does not have such a wide range of functions, but it is more convenient. The program supports several reading modes, the Leap Motion function, auto-scrolling (slide show), displaying page thumbnails, automatic color correction, using a virtual magnifying glass, scaling using different algorithms, exporting pages to graphic files, creating bookmarks and printing. It is possible to view in full screen mode.

CDisplay Ex is equipped with a convenient interface in Russian; scrolling is done using the mouse wheel, arrow keys and buttons on the control panel, the contents of which can be changed in the general settings. The disadvantage of the application is that files cannot be opened in separate tabs.

YACReader

In terms of functionality, this program for reading comics and manga on Windows is similar to CDisplay Ex. It is just as simple and convenient, but it also has some features. For example, viewing page thumbnails in YACReader is implemented in 3D format (the function is called page flow). It supports scaling and rotating pages, saving them to a graphic file, creating bookmarks, there is a magnifying glass, and several viewing modes are available.

Among the additional functions, it is worth noting the presence of a built-in translator. In the viewer settings, you can specify the path to the folder with comics, replace the background color, select a mode for the page flow function, adjust image parameters, and set hot keys. As in CDisplay Ex, you can only open files in separate windows; working with tabs is not supported.

How to open CBR format on Android

Perfect Viewer

One of the most popular CBR reading programs for Android. It also supports CBZ, CB7 and LZH formats and has a wide range of functions. When you first launch the application, you are prompted to perform basic settings - select reading and display modes, specify the reading direction and folder with comics, configure general behavior, and decide on gesture control zones. These zones represent separate areas of the screen, by touching which you can control scrolling, calling up menus, etc., each zone can be configured individually.

Perfect Viewer supports the use of anti-aliasing filters, color correction, brightness, contrast and color adjustments, and automatic scrolling. There are a lot of settings, you can quickly switch between them. The reader is free, does not contain advertising, but there is also a donate version with additional functions.

ComicScreen – Comic Viewer

A simpler application for reading comics on Android than Perfect Viewer. In addition to viewing CBR and CBZ files, the program supports color correction, inverting colors, cropping individual pages, adjusting brightness, capturing screenshots and scaling. There are several viewing modes - full screen, image arrangement in width or height. Among the advantages of the application, we can note a well-developed gesture control system; among the disadvantages is the display of advertising banners, which can only be gotten rid of by switching to the paid version.

That's all for now. You now know how and how to open a CBR file, choose the method that is most convenient for you. In our opinion, the best option would be to use simple reader applications like YACReader for Windows and Comic Viewer for Android. These programs are simple, but at the same time have all the necessary functions and settings to ensure comfortable reading of comics. Of course, you can do without third-party applications by changing the CBR archive extension to RAR and unpacking it, but in this case no one can guarantee you that the order of the pages will not be broken.

The user can often find files with such formats on the Internet. Usually in them graphic materials are stored. Comics, manga and the like are often distributed in this form. In fact, these files are ordinary archives with certain material inside; they can be unpacked or viewed using special applications. There are several such pseudo-formats:

• CBR- renamed from archive in RAR format;
• CBZ- from the archive in ZIP format;
• CB7- from the archive in 7-Zip format;
• CBT- renamed from archive in TAR format;
• C.B.A.- from the archive in ACE format;

Caliber app

This is a free and open source application called Caliber E-Book Management allows you to view e-books, and can also convert one format to another. The utility can also easily open comic files with the CBR or CBZ extension.

After downloading the application and running the file, a system window will still pop up asking you to select a program. To prevent this from happening, you will need to take several steps. First you need to launch the program and go to settings section.

Next, go to the Interface section and select the item responsible for Behavior. In the right column, the user can select those extensions that will automatically open in this program. Here you will need to select the items that you plan to view through the application. However, this only applies to the list of books; to add a file to it, you must grab it and drag it onto the program window.

In the case when you want the data to be opened the same way as always, you should right-click on the file with the required extension, and then select “ To open with" and click on the application. You should check the box at the bottom of the window. This action will have to be carried out for each format, however, then it will become much easier to open all such data.

A Comic Viewer

A good application for viewing comics, can read them directly from archives, convenient library and navigation through it, multiple viewing modes, as well as page enlargement. Saves a cache of the previous screen, allowing you to quickly return back.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aerilys.acr.android&hl=ru

Komik Reader – Free

The free version of the program, which can turn pages with a swipe, can enlarge images and remember reading progress.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.komik.free&hl=ru

Manga Searcher and Manga Reader

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pulinzhir.ssmanga

SCViewer

Can do the same as previous programs. Can control color, allows the user to leave bookmarks. Automatically flips manga when turning the phone, convenient enlargement of pages.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cattowersoft.scv&hl=ru

Opening comics on MacOS and iPhone

Here we will talk about a couple of applications that will allow the user to read comics on Apple products.

Comic Zeal. A convenient application that allows you to download free comics in English when you press the appropriate button. To add pictures you downloaded yourself, you need to drag them into the application folder. It has a user-friendly interface and a beautiful bookshelf where you can sort comics by author or series.

SimpleComic. The utility allows you to work with pictures in normal mode. Simple viewing of manga, rotating and enlarging the screen, auto-saving where the user stopped and adding bookmarks.

FFview. Ability to work in two-page mode, regular library, available voice control.

ComicBookLover. Automatic adjustment of page size, the ability to enlarge it, special modes for reading different comics. Can export a single page to a different format. Allows you to create various lists and collections.

Comic CBR and CBZ Viewer extensions for Google Chrome

If the user does not want to install programs, then he can download the extension to Chrome for the same purposes. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/comic-cbr-cbz-viewer/

A simple application that allows you to view comics, there is nothing superfluous. It is possible to view both from a computer and from cloud storage.

CBR (Comic Book Archive) is a RAR archive containing picture files, in which the extension has been renamed. In most cases, this pseudo-format is used to store comics. Let's see what software you can use to open it.

CBR can be launched using specialized applications for viewing electronic comics. In addition, many modern document viewing applications support working with it. Also, given that CBR is essentially an RAR archive, it can be opened with archiving programs that support working with this format.

Method 1: ComicRack

One of the most popular applications specifically designed for viewing comics that works with the CBR format is ComicRack.

The CBR can also be viewed by dragging it from Windows Explorer at ComicRack. During the dragging procedure, the left mouse button must be held down.

Method 2: CDisplay

The first dedicated comic book program to support CBR was CDisplay. Let's see how the procedure for opening these files occurs.

Method 3: Comic Seer

Another program for viewing comics that can work with CBR is Comic Seer. True, this application is not Russified.

Unfortunately, there are no more options to view a new comic on Comic Seer.

Method 4: STDU Viewer

The application for viewing documents STDU Viewer, which can also be classified as a “reader,” can also open CBR objects.

There is also an option to view the e-comic in STDU Viewer by dragging it from Conductor into the application window in the same way as was done when describing the method using the ComicRack program.

In general, we must state the fact that, despite the fact that the STDU Viewer application works quite correctly with the CBR format, it is still less suitable for viewing electronic comics than the three previous programs.

Method 5: Sumatra PDF

Another document viewer that can work with the format being studied is Sumatra PDF.

It is also possible to open it by dragging it from Conductor to the application workspace.

Sumatra PDF is also not a specialized program for viewing comics and does not have specific tools for working with them. But, nevertheless, the CBR format displays just as correctly.

Method 6: Universal Viewer

Some universal viewers can also work with the CBR format, which open not only documents, but also videos, as well as content from other areas. One such program is Universal Viewer.

There is also the option of dragging an object from Explorer into the application window. After that, you can enjoy watching the comic.

Method 7: Archiver + Image Viewer

As mentioned above, the CBR format is essentially a RAR archive containing image files. Therefore, you can view its contents using an archiver that supports RAR and an image viewer installed by default on your computer. Let's see how this can be implemented using the WinRAR application as an example.

Of course, for viewing comics, this method using an archiver is the least convenient of all the listed options. But, at the same time, with its help you can not only view the contents of CBR, but also edit it: add new image files (pages) to the comic or delete existing ones. The WinRAR program performs these tasks using the same algorithm as for regular RAR archives.

As you can see, although a fairly limited number of programs work with the CBR format, among them it is also quite possible to find one that would best meet the user’s needs. It is best, of course, for viewing purposes to use specialized software for viewing comics (ComicRack, CDisplay, Comic Seer).

If you do not want to install additional applications to perform this task, you can use some document viewers (STDU Viewer, Sumatra PDF) or universal viewers (for example, Universal Viewer). If there is a need to edit the CBR archive (add images there or delete them), then in this case you can use an archiver that supports working with the RAR format (WinRAR).