Google Play Books' first beta includes a Custom Shelf setting

Google has released a beta version of its Play Books app for the first time. This interesting new update confers some novel features compared to its normal counterpart. It has been implemented by Dan Kimberg, a software engineer who has recently moved to this subdivision of the Play Store ecosystem.

Kimberg asserts that the new beta has been developed with feature requests submitted by users (himself included) in mind. To date, the most prominent of these is the option to set up customized shelves within a library. The Play Books Beta has also reportedly made searching for books faster, and also allows for sorting according to criteria like author, title, price or last opened.

It also now has a Ready to Read shelf, on which unfinished e-books are found. A user can switch to this new beta stream by visiting play.google.com/books while signed into their Google account, going into the Settings on this page and activating "Beta Features".