Books app not working since update to iOS 13

SOLUTION! -- I was getting this same screen after updating to iOS 13.4.1, found this thread, and tried everything mentioned here without success. I started thinking about what had changed and realized that I'd turned on "dark mode" during the upgrade process. I turned that off (in Settings->Display and Brightness), quit books and restarted, and it moved on to the next screen where it takes a few minutes to update your library. Once that was done, I was able to turn "dark mode" back on and could still access my library afterward. There's obviously a bug in the update process that causes it to crash when dark mode is on when it rebuilds the index for your library. Hope this helps everyone!

I just got mine working. Go into the Settings app, scroll down to Books, and turn off Syncing > iCloud Drive. That immediately caused it to start working. I tried turning it back on, and Books started freezing again.

Exactly same problem. A Multi billion dollar company should never make such mistakes. Once they do, they should provide the solution right away. I’ve been scrambling to fix this for so long. Yet nothing again

I am having a problem with the same symptoms. I can get to books by long-pressing the app icon from the home screen, but selecting a book from within the app causes it to freeze. I’ve reset my iPad and restored from backup — the problem persists.

Having the same issue with Books after updating to iOS 13. Turning off Syncing > iCloud Drive did not work for me.

I am seeing the following prompt: "Uploads and downloads from iCloud will require an internet connection." I am connected to the internet and all other apps, mail, and browsers are working.

I am having this issue on my brand new ipad and nothing i do will make this screen go away. I restarted my ipad and the books home screen showed up for a second before this screen came back. I have a WiFi only ipad, and was hoping to read pdfs of plays on my ipad using books. I am connected to WiFi

The books is not gone it’s back up in the cloud ☁️ for accessing. Books, pdf or files can never be lost in the books app unless deleted by the user. Turn off the device power off than turn it back on. Click on book app. Sometimes when betas are installed on Apple device it depends on storage space which might affect the app of books causing the error to occur. If processed contact Apple support the app from App Store is great to have help on had for pretty tough errors.

Unchecking iCloud Drive syncing made Books unfreeze.

Once it was unfrozen, I re-enabled it and now synced PDF's can be clicked on, they open and scrolling in the Library section is possible once more.

Thanks for the tip!

Same problem, and it’s driving me insane. Books became completely unusable and I can’t access most of my [big] library. Spent hours chatting to Apple Support, nothing they suggested helped. Turning Drive on and off doesn’t help either. Badly done, Apple. Same thing happened to my Voice memos. Wish I never upgraded to iOS 13, and definitely wish I never accidentally turned on iCloud syncing for Books.

I have a lot of books in my library on my desktop. Since probably iOS13 I have been unable to see any books at all on my elderly large iPad2 and most books on my smaller iPad. But nothing new can be persuaded to move to the one of these that allows me to read books. Result, that I am now unwilling to purchase (or acquire by any means, it turns out) books, since one iPad is now useless for that and the other will not accept any changes in the library. I can see very many books on the desktop but nothing transfers by any means suggested on help pages.

I do not want stuff in the cloud for several reasons, the biggest of which is that the ability to read books is most useful when there is no available wi-fi connection. So all routes to a suction via the cloud are irrelevant. There is no problem transferring photos or mail or any other material that I'd want shared across platforms - this is quite clearly a book-related problem.

On the larger iPad I get to see a screenful of books in the library, for about the 30 seconds it takes for the books app to crash and return me to the home screen.

Having been an Apple user since the early 80s, I found this desperately disappointing. The iPad as a reading medium was so good I got rid of a lot of paper. This position makes me feel that was a mistake.

Self-evidently, no posted help yet seen fixes my problems.

Since iOS13 my older iPad has shown zero books rather than the expected 2000+. I just tried, today, switching the source machine from my desktop to my laptop (they share the library, so I don't foresee problems). It appears to work, in that the iPad is showing books once more.

As I tried to write elsewhere (but couldn't edit my posting to make proper sense) I have no interest in using the cloud, since book reading is in highest demand when there is no need for a cloud connection, something I can easily do without much of the day.

My remaining problem, as yet unsolved, is that new additions to the library are not appearing on even the iPad that has been working well as a reading device. Perhaps I need to try the same adjustment, which I'll attempt tomorrow, even if the end result is that all I clear out the whole library and replace it. There are probably some more direct routes to achieving that.

Having the same problem, restarting the device is not a workable solution multiple times per day, and turning off iCloud Drive and turning it back on again made it look like all of my books disappeared, which is horrifying given that there is no option in Books for "redownload entire library."

The books repopulated after a minute...but they still won't open.

I like the "reading now" feature but not at the expense of being able to, like, read anything now. Ugh.

This changed the app's behaviour but didn't fix the problem for me. In the last 20 minutes, since trying this suggestion, the app has gone from useable for about 5 minutes, to a blank screen, Reading Now and Library flashing alternately and repeatedly with no content, to crashing, or not starting up. I tried turning of all Books app Notifications but it's made no difference. For what it's worth this iPhone has had a fresh download and restore of iOS 13.3 yesterday and network settings reset. The Books app remains unfit for purpose.

SOLVED!! (hope it also works for others!)

I've been having this same problem for a few months. When opening the books app, I get the notice; "Uploads to and downloads from iCloud will require an internet connection." I've tried changing several setting in iCloud and Books on my iPhone. Nothing allowed me to open the Books app.

The only thing that works is turning off wifi in settings (or swipe down from top right to open Control Center and de-selecting wifi). If I do this, the Books app works as expected. I'm using iOS 13.3 on my iPhone Xs Max.

Hope Apple gets this figured out soon! I also hope this helps someone having the same problem because this is just a temporary fix!