Addabook

Addabook is the reading journal platform that provides a place to reflect and track your reading, all while supporting independent bookstores and fostering community connection. Our mission is to deepen the connection between readers and the books that shape their lives.

This is a place to gather your thoughts after that last great read and document your insights, without pop-up ads intruding your space or infinite scrolls pulling you away from what’s important.

Here, you can discover new books beyond what’s trending or propped up by algorithms. It’s a more human way to find your next read, with thoughtful recommendations from independent booksellers, reading groups, non-profit organizations, and more – bringing you closer to a community of readers and sparking conversations (in the real world).

There’s a whole world of stories waiting to be explored, and we’re here to help you find – and reflect on – your next great read.

Reflect to Remember

We believe that writing about books is more than just a way to broadcast an opinion—it’s a way to savor the journey. You don’t need to write a formal critique, summarize the contents, or fit your impressions into neat, pre-determined categories.

We encourage you to use your Notes as a way to reflect on what a book meant to you, document your own insights, and capture the passages that made you stop and linger or laugh out loud. Doing so will not only let you relive the highlights of the book, it also helps you remember it. By slowing down and giving space for your own reflections, you get more out of the reading experience.

Connect in Community

While reading is a solitary activity, sharing your thoughts about a book with someone else is an opportunity to really connect with someone. But we’re skeptical that online, asynchronous forums provide the best platform for that. Having a live discussion with someone else who loved a book as much as you did is an opportunity to learn and to connect on deeper level.

So while you will find reading lists from book clubs, indie bookstores, and nonprofits, you won’t find social media features like infinite scrolls, replies, or “likes” on the site. We encourage you to seek out events and places that provide opportunities to connect meaningfully over books.

Buy With Purpose

We want to contribute to places where books thrive and inspire meaningful conversations. When you buy a book through one of our Bookshop.org links, a portion comes back to us to help sustain our work on the site. (Look for the Addabook logo in the top left of the Bookshop page.) Your purchase also supports a network of independent bookstores, places rooted in community rather than scale or profit. (And book recommendations provided from our bookstore partners are linked to their own Bookshop accounts, so they get the proceeds from those purchases instead of us.)

This is our way of backing the scrappy underdogs of the book world. These are the small businesses that make our society better by serving readers, not shareholders. (*The largest book review site, Goodreads, is owned by Amazon, a monopolistic force in the U.S. book market owned by one of the wealthiest people in the world.)

No Aggregate Ratings

Is it unthinkable to have a book site without aggregated 5-star ratings? Well, we’re doing it anyway. Boiling down the experience of reading a book to a particular number is pretty hard to do. Not to mention, people have different impressions of what each number means (Does 3 mean ‘would recommend’? Or is 3 a close to a failing grade?) Even more importantly, one person’s take on a book does not mean that it will align with your own. Readers are unique and will have a distinct impression of the book that is different from anyone else’s.

That’s why we don’t do numerical or aggregate ratings. We do offer a scale if you’d like to use that for tracking your own books, but it’s not required for a book to be included in your Notebook or Collection. We think personal reflection is more important than numerical assignments. And we think recommendations from trusted sources are more meaningful than an aggregated number from the masses.

Discovering Your Next Book

We are a little wary of feeding the AI machine to generate book recommendations. We’re not technophobes (after all, we’re running a website!) But we do think that the algorithms in AI have the proclivity to create echo chambers and actually reduce discoverability. We hope our site creates more of an environment of walking through the stacks of a library or catching a glimpse of what someone’s reading on the train and saying, “Ooh, that looks interesting. Is it any good?” Or, like getting a thoughtful recommendation from a bookstore owner or a good friend. Some of the best reads come from those unexpected finds that break us out of our usual patterns. We invite you to browse through the lists and explore the Discover page. Don't be afraid to try something out of the ordinary.

Who We Are

Addabook was created by us, just a couple of people who really enjoy reading and have a low-key obsession with bookstores. (And dogs. We also love dogs.) The site started as a passion project to help us keep track of our reading and jot down notes from the books we finished so that we could better retain what we read. At the same time, we found ourselves getting sucked into activities that we didn't actually get much value out of (ahem, social media and doom scrolls). “We should really read more” became a frequent refrain.

After attending a silent reading night and seeing the magic that can happen when people are connecting in real life about books, we knew we needed to make Addabook something for others, too. So we set out to make the platform we wanted for ourselves, with a community component – a real-life community where people connect with their local bookstores, nonprofits, and reading groups over the books they love.

Contact Us

We are just getting started on this journey, so if you have questions or feedback, please do reach out! Depending on the volume of messages, we may not be able to return every email, but we will read every one. Email us at: [email protected].