Hot on the heels of being featured by Google (huzzah!), we’re excited to announce our new app TBR.
TBR is a fast, elegant and modern place to track your reading. The books you want to read (your TBR, To Be Read), the books you are reading, and the books you’ve read. You can also organize your books into custom lists of your own choosing.
Get inspiration by reading Book News from our 1000+ curated book news sources. TBR contains a Book News browser, essentially a curated collection of RSS feeds, with links back to the original sources. Bookship will identify books in each story and easily let you save them, remembering where you found the book.
Don’t worry, Bookship isn’t going anywhere. Bookship will always be our home for social reading.
But let’s face it, not all reading is social. And keeping track of all those books on your TBR is (for most people) a jumbled mess. A big spreadsheet. Books piled by the bed. Notes on your Phone. Samples locked away in your Kindle. Why not keep them all in one place? Searchable, sortable, book covers visible, accessible any time.
As an added benefit, get inspiration by reading Book News from our 1000+ curated book news sources, including news about the books you’re reading right now!
TBR is $4.99 (or your local equivalent), available for iOS (iPhone, iPad and Mac) and Android. Get it here:
If you are a Bookship user, once you have the app, you can sign in with your Bookship credentials and your books data will be shared and synced between the apps. Or use a new sign in, if you want to keep them separate.
There’s also a web/browser version you can use on any device with a browser: https://tbrapp.co.
No secret to anyone that knows me, that I love books.
What might be a secret are the number of books-related projects I’ve made over the years. I thought it would be fun to collect them all.
The Hawaii Project
The one that started it all. After I left Telenav, after the goby acquisition, I wanted to work on books. So I built The Hawaii Project, a personalized Book Recommendation engine.
Using the recommendations engine from The Hawaii Project, I built an Alexa skill you can talk to, and get book recommendations. (Three years later, Amazon copied me and released their own What Should I Read Next … grr….). Get mine here.
BookTrap
BookTrap is a trapper / keeper for books you find on the web. It’s a Chrome extension. When you’re on a page and an interesting book is mentioned, hit the BookTrap button. We’ll scan the page and find the books mentioned, which you can then add to your account to remember them.
Book Roulette shows you an interesting new book each time you open a new tab in Chrome (or Brave!). Another Chrome extension. Get it here.
Codexmap
It’s defunct, but it plotted book locations on a google map.
Book Playlist
Build Spotify playlists for books. Featured on Product Hunt! (https://www.producthunt.com/posts/book-playlist). Since subsumed into The Hawaii Project.
Well, 2020 was weird for all the reasons you know. But in spite of having a lot of time on my hands, I read about the same number of books as last year (45 vs 41 in 2019). Guess I spent that extra time working.
Still, it was a great reading year, I’m happy with the quality of what I read. A lot of classic works, and only a small smattering of “comfort food”, thrillers and such. If you want see the complete list, it is here.
If I had to point to one book this year, it would be 1984, which I read on Bookship with my good friend Thomas. I’d not read it since high school 40 years ago, so for all intents I might as well not have read it. It’s devastating. It is a truly disturbing polemic wrapped inside a heartbreaking love story. Given the insanity of our election year, and the simultaneity of our truth-challenged President together with the frank and unrepentant censorship by his opponents, our high tech / media overlords, 1984 really hit home. Orwell nailed it, although he failed to see the rise of big media and that censorship might not (only) come from the State, but might also come from the private sector. (yes, yes, I know, technically only the government can “censor” – but Facebook and Twitter are the closest thing we have to a public square now – they must be held to a different standard than random/small private enterprises).
I love this quote from Orwell: “The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.”
I read deeply in the Homeric world this year, reading The Odyssey for the first time (in the new Emily Miller translation which is wonderful, and again reading socially with Thomas), and followed that An Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn is an Homeric scholar who took a history-based Homer sailing tour with his late father. What a wonderful story. I then moved to Ransom by David Malouf, a short, poetic retelling of the encounter of Achilles and Priam from The Iliad. The Odyssey was such great fun. And lastly, I read The Lost Books of The Odyssey by Zachary Mason, which is a series of “outtakes” – short stories – fake episodes from The Odyssey. These are often laugh out loud funny, and a real treat after finishing these other works.
Let me share a creepy excerpt from the “real” Odyssey, where Odysseus conjures the dead (Miller translation):
I drew my sword and dug a hole, a cubit widthways and lengthways, and I poured libations for all the dead: first honey-mix, sweet wine, and lastly, water. On the top, I sprinkled barley, and made a solemn vow that if I reached my homeland, I would sacrifice my best young heifer, still uncalved, and pile the altar high with offerings for the dead. I promised for Tiresias as well a pure black sheep, the best in all my flock. So with these vows, I called upon the dead. I took the sheep and slit their throats above the pit. Black blood flowed out. The spirits came up out of Erebus and gathered round.
As you may know I live in Hawaii, and I read a number of great books about, or set in, Hawaii. In the Time Before Light by Ian MacMillan is excellent. It is historical fiction set around the time of first contact in Hawaii, and follows the life of Pono, a kanaka maoli, a native Hawaiian. It is by turns riveting, brutal, romantic and educational, especially about old Hawaii. Wonderful storytelling that doesn’t sugar-coat anything. The book club I am in also read a modern sci-fi novel called Bones of Time, by Kathleen Ann Goonan, which is mostly set in Hawaii, and we read Reclaiming Kalakaua, a reconsideration of the life and reputation of David Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii, based on contemporary accounts from Hawaiian sources.
During our time back east, we did a lot of road-tripping around the country. During one trip we visited Michelle’s folks, who live near Mt. Vernon, and I’d never been, so off we went. It was fascinating, and that together with it being an election year caused me to want to read more about our country’s founding, and Washington in particular. This led me to David McCullough’s 1776, which was equally fascinating and highly recommended. Then we went on a road trip to Chicago to see my son. During that trip Michelle and I listened to the audiobook for 1776, and followed it with John Adams. Boy were our founders interesting people! We combined all of this into some fun visits to Revolutionary war sites, including an inspiring visit to Valley Forge (in this COVID year it was a great reminder that persistence is rewarded), and Fort Lee in New York, which factored heavily in the early days of the War. This led me to George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade, a recounting of Washington’s spy ring (yes, he had one). And from there, I read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which surprised me in how well and literately it was written, in addition to being passionate about the War cause.
Speaking of spies, sadly, we lost John Le Carré (David Cornwell) this year. While I found his politics sometimes tiresome, his writing never was, and I re-read (for the nth time), his masterpieces A Perfect Spy and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Read them if you have not.
Also as part of the book club I am in, we have been making an effort to read more works by women and by authors from under-represented communities. In the spy genre, I *loved* American Spy, I felt (in a very small way), a taste of what is like to be a minority. I loved this quote from Jennifer Wilson in her review:
As such, Wilkinson does not graft the matter of race onto the spy novel but rather asks us to think about how being a minority is, in a sense, an act of espionage, a precarious state marked by shifting identities, competing loyalties, and a constant threat of violence.
We also read Americanah, which had a similar revelatory aspect, as well as often being laugh-out-loud funny.
At the beginning of the year, I finished up one last piece of Iceland reading, from my trip to Iceland: Smile of the Wolf, by Tim Leach. The early parts of Smile of the Wolf capture the grim beauty that is both the Icelandic terrain and the pagan northern world view. It mirrors the classic Icelandic sagas in many ways, but where the saga characters are usually pretty opaque, we get inside the heads of the characters and get a detail and color the sagas don’t provide, yet the cadence and speaking voices can be suitably terse or blunt. It’s transporting. Like a time machine to 10th century Iceland. Full review here: https://www.viking2917.com/smile-of-the-wolf-review/. The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker, a late December read, is also one of the better Viking novels I have read, and I’ve read more than a few….
Some books I really enjoyed this year: The Last Good Kiss, a darkly funny thriller by James Crumley. The Good Shepherd (and associated Tom Hanks movie!) by C.S. Forester, which I read socially with my friends Thomas and Lynn on Bookship – which then led to reading the first book in the HornBlower saga, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. Which then led us to read The Game of Birds and Wolves about the female sub hunters in England during WWII. Really good fun all around.
Lastly I re-read a number of science fiction classics this year: Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (who is in our Meet the Author program on Bookship!!!), The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin, and (in anticipation of the not-yet-forthcoming movie), Dune. All of them amazing books even on a 3rd or 4th re-read.
Last night from midnight to 2am, I listened to eight passionate, innovative teams sharing their journey through the Purple Prize, an indigenous innovation competition in Hawaii where I am a mentor (BTW join us for the finals online!).
Even though it was late, the passion of these innovators meant I never got the least bit sleepy! Purple uses the now-common fast pitch format common to many accelerators – 5 minutes to introduce your company to potential investors and stakeholders. The fast pitch is really an art form – a performance art form. As both a performer and a consumer of this art form, I wanted to share a few thoughts on how to give a great performance. It is a performance, by the way – be yourself, but the “big stage” version of yourself. Passionate and confident. And practice!
Longer than an “elevator pitch”, shorter than a real VC pitch, it’s tricky. In just a few minutes you must concisely explain what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, why you will be successful, and what you are asking for (and not much else in 4 minutes!).
The first thing is to remember your audience. Assume they know nothing (and about you, it’s true. They know nothing. Assume nothing. Start at the beginning). On a demo day they’re likely to hear 10 of these pitches, or more. They’ve never heard a word about your company before. Their phone will buzz. Their attention will wander. Your internet/zoom will get glitchy at the wrong time. People can only consume so much information in short time. Avoid “cognitive overload” – keep it simple. Less is more. Nuance is not your friend here.
Here’s a formula:
Start with a story
Use your story to introduce your product. Simply and explicitly.
Explain how you make money. Simply and explicitly.
Explain how the world will be different when you are successful. Finish strong.
No more than 1-2 slides per minute. 5 minutes ~ 5-10 slides.
Your presentation should arc from the general down to the specific and back up to the general. Let’s unpack this a bit.
THE STORY
Your very first words need to bind people to you and your mission, and explain what you are up to. People remember stories. Please, read Mike Troiano’s https://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/how-to-tell-your-ventures-story. They won’t remember market positioning or value propositions or any of that other stuff. Tell them a story. They’re looking for a reason to like you. Give it to them. Get their attention with a story, an insight, an experience, a feeling. Don’t waste your first words on anything but your story (don’t make jokes about being last, or explain how nervous you are, or anything else).
I build Bookship, a social reading app. Here’s how I introduce myself and my product. My very first sentences, verbatim.
“Hi, I’m Mark. When my son was 16, I got him a copy of Dune for Christmas. Like most gift books, it sat on the shelf unread for a decade. A few years ago he told me he was going to read it (he’s grown now). I said, “I’ll read it with you”. What followed was a month of genuine engagement with my son. Priceless. I had a similar experience with my daughter shortly thereafter, (different book) and I said to myself, “I’m going to bottle this experience into an app so other people can get that same feeling”. And that’s how Bookship was born.
Notice: almost nothing about the product or features – it’s about the feeling, the emotion, the experience. Even better, the story is actually true. If you don’t have a good true story, remember Rule 19.
As Simon Sinek says, Start with Why. Your “why” might be a story, or it might be some phenomena or metric that speaks to you. Last night I heard the spark of many interesting stories. But often these sparks were buried in the middle of the presentation. I want to share them (with permission) because the stories are powerful, and to use them to illustrate how to make the most of them – by starting with them.
Sheila at MAGHugs is building a system for teachers to share positive news about things students did with the student and their parents (“I see you. You are valued“). Halfway through her presentation, she showed a slide with metrics illustrating the psychological challenges students face, starting with drop-out rates and culminating with a gut-wrenching statistic that every day 8 students commit suicide. Now I’m paying attention – what can we do to change that awful statistic? I’d advocate a pitch narrative that goes something like this: “Hi, I’m Sheila, and I was an educator for N decades. I can tell you many of our students are in trouble. Did you know that every day …… so, we’re building a system for positive feedback for every student through virtual hugs.“. That’s a narrative that grabs my attention and no matter what else she says, I’ll remember what she’s trying to do.
Polu Energy is building an innovative new power generation system. After hearing about the extremely powerful scientific team behind the company, and the general approach to the business, around slide 5 I learn that when salt water and fresh water come together, they make electricity. WTF? Really?? I had no idea. I’d suggest that as the opening line. “Hi, I’m Tate. Did you know that when salt water and fresh water come together they make electricity? We found a way to harness that at industrial scale. We’re Polu Energy. Blue energy from water…“. I immediately get the crazy insight that led to this company. I’ll remember that, and I want to hear more.
Preston & Gabor at Box Farm Labs are building a home hydroponics appliance. A Keurig for plants. Three or four minutes in, I hear that they started with a NASA project to grow plants in space in an automated way for long space voyages. That’s crazy shit. Hit me between the eyes with that in your first sentence. Hi, We’re Preston & Gabor. We learned how to grow plants in space for NASA, and we want to bring that to your kitchen. OK, that sounds pretty cool. Tell me more!
People remember stories. As Sinek says, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it“. But don’t belabor it. You don’t need four slides of “why”. You don’t have time. One slide. Less is More.
PRODUCT
Your Story should lead to your product. “Because of X, we built our product Y“. Explain Y (your product) in two or three sentences. Simple enough a high schooler can understand it. If you sell Carbon Offsets to Hawaii Visitors so local farms can plant food trees, like Kanu Offsets does, tell me that, just that simply, and at the beginning, so I am ready for everything else you tell me. That’s a mission I can get behind.
People can only take in so much – don’t make them work for it. Remember cognitive overload. If you want to give more detail (and you should!), do so – but only after you’ve given me a one sentence summary of what your product does, that I can internalize.
BUSINESS
Explain how you intend to make money. Tell me like I was in high school – simple and straightforward. The fancy term for this is business model. It’s surprising to me how often I hear a pitch where it’s unclear who pays for the product. For example, consider products sold into an educational context – who pays for it? The student? the parent? the teacher? the principle? the school district? Don’t make me guess. If you aren’t sure yet, that’s ok – just say so. But in a short pitch, ambiguity is more your enemy than error. If you are vague, I’ll assume the worst. But if you are precise but wrong, well, no harm no foul. Every startup makes mistakes and learns. Better to present with conviction, while offering up the chance you may learn and change in the future.
CLOSE STRONG.
The arc of your presentation is:
here’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Here’s what we do.
Here’s how the world will be different when we are successful.
You move from the mission to the product to the business to the vision. General to specific to general.
I’ve seen so many pitches (not last night though!), that end in a morass of details and business plans and profit margins and …. don’t do this. Close strong. Explain how the world will be different when you are successful. Leave me with a clear memory of who you are and what you stand for.
You will face some temptations when you build your pitch:
You will be tempted to tell me everything you know.Don’t. Make sure I get a clear understanding of what you do. The details can follow.
You will be tempted to cram everything onto the slides.Don’t. Complicated diagrams and paragraphs of text in 12pt font will never be understood. You might as well not show them. Big font, simple pictures, simple diagrams. There will be times later to deliver all that wonderful detail and learning you have done. Now’s not the time.
You will be tempted to glam things up – use large words and jargon to make your initiative sound sophisticated, even if it’s straightforward. Don’t. Simplicity is your friend here. Simple is good.
You will be tempted to use metaphors and generalities.Don’t. I love me a good metaphor, but in 4 minutes it’s too easy to be misunderstood, or not understood. Simple and explicit is the ticket.
Recently I had the chance to jointly read Dune with my son Erik, Evicted with my daughter Kristen, and (gulp) Thucydides with a dear friend in Utah and one of my nephews. I reconnected with people I care about in a really meaningful way. I read books I wouldn’t have otherwise read and got more out of the books I would have read anyway. It was like our own private book club.
Reading is better with friends.
Social media is awash in book-related content. Goodreads and Facebook reviews, Instagram photos (check out #bookstagram for a cuteness overload), #fridayreads on Twitter, the list goes on. But there’s no good place to share the complete experience of reading a book.
Sure, I can write a review on Goodreads when I’m done — and it will be lost in the ocean of other reviews there. And it’s after-the-fact anyway. By the time I’m done reading, I’ve forgotten most of my special moments or insights. Sure I can post on Facebook — but nobody has any context for why I’m posting, and it’ll be lost in the sea of noise that is Facebook. I may not even be friends with the people I want to share with.
Reading a book together is a unique way of strengthening a relationship or getting the most of out a book. It deserves a purpose-built, books-aware experience, where you can share your thoughts and reactions as they happen, not two weeks later when you’re done with the book. An experience that creates companionship and context while you’re reading. An experience that helps you learn from other readers.
Introducing Bookship.
Bookship is a mobile app purpose-built for sharing your reading experiences with your family, friends and co-workers. Perfect for your book club, or just staying in touch with your friend across the country. Better still it creates a reason for you to stay in touch with them! And it’s as easy as snapping a picture or posting a note.
Reading is better with friends. Bookship is a mobile app for sharing your reading experiences with your family, friends and co-workers. With Bookship you can invite fellow readers to read along with you, whether they’re reading via a physical book, an ebook, even an audiobook.
With Bookship you can invite friends, family and co-workers to read along with you, whether they are reading a physical book, an ebook, even an audio book. Post and react to comments, thoughts, photos/videos, quotes, links and questions, all in an easy-to-use chat-style interface. Get notified when others post and keep in sync with them while you read by sharing your location. Dogear passages with a quick photo with your phone, even have Bookship extract the text from the page you took a picture of!
Whether it’s reading a great novel with your best friend across the country, a business book with your co-workers, or participating in a neighborhood book club, Bookship enriches your reading experience and your relationships.
Bookship is available now for iOS and Android, and it’s free to start. Get it here: https://www.bookshipapp.com
