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.
So, I’m working on my nearly-finished first release of my book tracking app, TBR.
Did I mention I had shoulder surgery back in January? I’ve been doing rehab exercises every day, three times a day, since January. It’s become something of a habit. But I keep reminders, because otherwise I get caught up in things and forget. I started with the simple iPhone todo list app, but awhile back I switched to the Not Boring Software’s Habits app. A game-like experience for forming habits, or as the founder Andy puts it, the World’s Most Satisfying Checkbox. And it kinda is…. animations, 3D models, and sounds. And it’s pretty. Just won one of Apple’s App Design Awards.
Face-palm. My app has no sound! (for that matter, neither does my existing app Bookship). Duh.
I’ve never done it before, so I startreading. In my head, my app is making bookish noises like a page turning, etc. As I read I learn that audio UX has similar design styles to visual design, and “Skeuomorphism” (things sound like / look like what they are), may not be the best approach for sound ux. And more importantly that sound design is another path to creating a compelling brand.
Just as there is a place for visual designers, who can create something beautiful and connective, the same is true for audio. There are firms that do nothing else, for example.
OK well I’m not ready to belly up to the bar and hire a composer, and my needs are pretty modest. So, I go digging for sound effects. Well. There’s a lot of them, and a lot of places to look. I poke around a bunch of sites (Freesound, SoundSnap, Mixkit, Artlist.io etc), talk to my son-in-law game developer, who recommends Pond5 and reminds me to make sure I get licenses for everything. “Free is free, but sometimes it’s worth paying”.
I poke around and prototype with 5 or so free sounds from different sources but realize they don’t hang together – individually good, but all different and kind of random, and the possibilities are overwhelming. I realize I need to take a step back and think about what I want.
What is this sound for? What am I trying to convey? What is my brand about? And then look for a package (a sound pack) of thematically consistent sounds.
Well, to me, books are about learning, and being transported; a means of adventure, and a place of peace and escape from all the noise out there. Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, your job, etc. ad nauseam. I want something tranquil, restful, non-invasive, almost kind of Zen. Yeah, that’s it. Zen. I start building a soundboard, googling and listening, of some concepts that have the feel I might want.
Turns out Not Boring’s Habits used a composer named Thomas Williams. Mostly games, but some utility apps and even some short films. Here’s a soundtrack he made for a game, it’s actually nice to just listen to.
Nice. Since I’m thinking Zen, I start googling for Zen sound effects, and stumble upon Ableton, which is audio editing software, and reading their blog. I find this article. Mentions a Japanese composer, Sugai Ken, who does field recordings and integrates nature sounds into his music.
Yeah. A lot of natural sounds, pings and echos, things that could be at home in a quiet app about books. I take that as a vector and run with it.
After about a million listens to random chirps and squeaks and pings (my wife says, “What the hell are you doing over there?” :)), I stumble on a fewthings that feel promising.
After letting it sit for a day, seeing how the sounds feel after a lot of listens, and prototyping a bit, I feel like this one is the answer: Sound Ex Machina’s UI Sounds Musical. I found it on Artlist.io, when I go to buy it it looks like it’s $10 a month to subscribe. Fine. Go to subscribe, realize no, I need the premium version @ $15/month to get the rights. OK fine. Go again to purchase, get something that says, “Oh you want SFX?” That’s $20/month. Just enough annoyance and friction in the process to make me go looking elsewhere. I try to find their real website and see if I can buy it, it says “Down for Maintenance”. A few days later it still is. I wonder if they’ve gone under…anyway in the meantime I find a direct purchase on itch.io. Even better, the Artlist package only has ~30 sounds, but this “real” package has 300, and for about the same money. I go for it. At which point I learn that the sounds I bookmarked on Artlist have Artlist-specific names, so I have to go match up the ones I’ve chosen against the 300. No big deal, just realize, if you like a package of sounds, look for the original if you can – more sounds, better pricing, etc.
The other bit of advice all the blogs give is, don’t do too much; it gets overwhelming or irritating pretty quickly. I try to restrain myself to key actions and errors.
Anyway, after that it’s all downhill. Just integrating the code (I’m on Ionic, there’s a simple plugin for playing audio, which I use, and it’s all integrated in under a day). Oh. Don’t forget haptics too – vibrations, the “feel” of the app. I do that too. I don’t know if people will like all this or not, but the app just feels and sounds so much more real, more tactile, more professional.
Fingers crossed :).
Here’s a short sample of the sounds I’ve ended up using:
I hope you get a chance to check out the app, and our sounds. (Oh: bonus: the first sound you hear is a Ukelele, the native instrument of Hawaii where I live. Not a factor in my decision, just a happy accident.
Some background reading I found helpful as I was working on sounds:
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.
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
Arkady Renko might be my most favorite fictional detective. Equal parts morose, guilt-ridden persistence and quietly brilliant intuition, his disinterested “<bleep> you” attitude towards anyone in his way always seems to land him in trouble — with his superiors, his enemies, and often his lovers. Martin Cruz Smith’s prose has a convincing way of communicating Arkady’s intuition, in a way that you are convinced Arkady is smarter than you are.
Arkady made his first appearance in Gorky Park, first the book and then the movie. During a recent trip to Pinehurst, NC, I recently discovered that I had missed one of the earlier books in the series, Havana Bay, and scooped it up from Given Books.
When the corpse of a Russian is hauled from the oily waters of Havana Bay, Arkady Renko comes to Cuba to identify the body. Looking for the killer, he discovers a city of faded loneliness, unexpected danger, and bewildering contradictions.
Arkady is sent to Cuba to investigate the apparent death of his friend Pribluda, and he’s at the harbor to identify a body, presumably Pribluda’s. This is the era when Russia had stopped funding Cuba, and Russians aren’t so welcome there, especially when they are prying. Detective Ofelio Osorio is the female detective working on the case. “A dead Russian, a live Russian, what’s the difference?”, she spits out, mirroring the attitudes of most Cubans of the time towards Russians. Arkady and his creator Martin Cruz Smith both have that wonderful black humor shared by soldiers and policeman.
Osorio was a small brown woman in PNR Blue; she gave Arkady a studied glare. A Cuban named Rufo was the interpreter from the Russian embassy. “It’s very simple,” he translated the captain’s words. “You see the body, identify the body and then go home.”
… The diver stepped in a hole and went under. Gasping, he came up out of the water, grabbed onto first the inner tube and then a foot hanging from it. The foot came off. The inner tube pressed against the spear of a mattress spring, popped and started to deflate. As the foot turned to jelly, Detective Osorio shouted for the officer to toss it to shore: a classic confrontation between authority and vulgar death, Arkady thought. All along the tape, onlookers clapped and laughed.
Rufo, said, “See, usually our level of competence is fairly high, but Russians have this effect. The captain will never forgive you.”
The camera went on taping the debacle while another detective jumped in the water. Arkady hoped the lens captured the way the rising sun poured into the windows of the ferry. The inner tube was sinking. An arm disengaged. Shouts flew flew back and forth between Osorio and the police boat. The more desperately the men in the water tried to save the situation the worse it became. Captain Arcos contributed orders to lift the body. As the diver steadied the head, the pressure in his hands liquefied the face and made it slide like a grape skin off the skull, which itself separated cleanly from the neck; it was like trying to lift a man was perversely disrobing part by part, unembarrassed by the stench of advanced decomposition. A pelican sailed overhead, red as a flamingo.
“I think identification is going to be a little more complicated than the captain imagined,” Arkady said.
Ofelio is tough as nails, but has a soft spot for her children and the aggressive banter between her and her mother is priceless. After denying she’s attracted to Renko, he kills someone attacking him, and she gets the call.
Her mother maintained an expression of innocence until Ofelia hung up.
“What is it?”
“It’s about the Russian”, Ofelia said. “He’s killed someone.”
“Ah, you were meant for each other.”
Needless to say, Arkady doesn’t have any trouble making enemies quickly. Fidel Castro makes an appearance, and as usual, Arkady tries to figure things out. Havana Bay captures the beauty of Havana, the fading glory of the architecture, the sex for sale, and the curious mix of religions, from Catholicism to Santeria to Voodoo to Abakua. The humor is persistently black.
And what exactly could a neumático (an inner tube riding fisherman) do while his friend was being eaten by a shark?
Erasmo let his eyebrows rise. “Well, we have a lot of religions in Cuba to choose from”.
Havana Bay is relentlessly funny in a mordant way, occasionally poignant, and a very intriguing mystery. Very much worth a read as the landscape in Cuba shifts.
