A shelf is a private thing. We built bookwrym to keep it that way.
Why we started
Every reading app we tried wanted the same thing: a feed. Star ratings, follower counts, a public shelf for strangers to scroll through. None of it answered the question we actually had, which was smaller and far more common — what do I own, who has it right now, and when is it due back?
So we built the tool we wanted: a personal catalogue, not a social network. No reviews, no timelines, no algorithm deciding what you see next. Just your collection, organized, with lending tracked the way a good librarian would track it — quietly and precisely.
What we believe
Speed of capture wins.
Adding a book — by barcode scan or by hand — should take seconds. A cataloguing tool that's slower than just remembering isn't worth using.
Personal, never social.
No feeds, reviews, or friends list. Your shelf is yours to browse, not something we optimize for other people to see.
Lending is the hard part — so we track it closely.
Due dates, overdue alerts, and a clear record of who borrowed what. The thing that actually gets a book lost is the thing we built first.
The name: a bookworm with a bit more mythology to it — the quiet, coiled creature that lives inside a well-loved collection and knows exactly where everything is. We liked that better than another word ending in “-ly” or “-ify.”