bet
It’s not GUI (no icons, no widgets) but I have for many years preferred
Search Based Launcher (Minimalistic home-screen) https://f-droid.org/packages/com.vackosar.searchbasedlauncher/
It uses the text names of apps for launching them, and allows both hiding and renaming apps. Renaming is helpful for dealing with e.g. “Voice” being both Google Voice and Voice Audiobook Player.
after Google shut down Reader, I took my OPML (list of subscriptions), and switched to a FOSS local RSS reader; import my OPML and carry on. I’ve switched software occasionally; right now I’m happy with Feeder (from f-droid).
Getting my news is something I care about too much to entrust to someone’s server; I’m happy with it purely local.
Search Based Launcher, Feeder, Antennapod, K-9 email, and Browsers: Firefox (default), Iceraven (for Singlefile addon), Bromite (on the rare occasions when I choose to let the site run Javascript on my phone), Tor Browser. Also, more recently Tusky (Mastodon) and Jerboa (Lemmy).
And Termux for local dev work, and a Debian proot within it to run calibre for ebook reformatting.
Termux. It allows me to script file management, automate backups, run calibre for ebook format conversion (in a Debian proot), ssh to other servers, interact with git, use LaTeX and pandoc, do local rust development…
I’m in a similar situation. My Pixel3 is the only phone I have that can install a banking app, but my Nexus 6 still gets monthly security updates via LineageOS. Since Google wants me to repla e phones every few years, when one of these dies, I’m getting an A14 5G. On a cost per year of running everything including apps that block custom ROMs, Pixels are far too pricey. I think they envy Apple their pricing, but don’t do support.
And as long as I’ll have to get a phone, I want newer radios.
Jerboa. When my previous preferred discussion forum decided to erect a paywall, closing out third-party apps, I came here; and searching for Lemmy on f-droid got me Jerboa. For a while, the app was spontaneously exiting, but before I was driven to try another, it seemed to have gotten fixed.
If what you want is the recorded performance of someone reading a book, then yeah, librivox for legal audiobooks, and other commentors have other amswers that are on-topic. But DRM-free ebooks — text things, like epubs — can be read aloud by good ereader apps. I like Moon+ Reader Pro from Google Play, and Cool Reader from f-droid. For me, the emotionless robotic reading of TTS engines is more like a hands- and eyes-free way to enjoy the author’s words as written; I find listening to someone performing an audio reading of the book a different experience.
Before ebook reader apps learned about TTS I used to take my txt ebooks, feed them through flite (Festival Lite), then convert the resulting audio to ogg vorbis and load them on an iRiver PMP to play during long drives.