The last couple of months I’ve been working in my spare time on a new app called BookBucket. I love reading books, both fiction and non-fiction. I also like to stay organized, so keeping track of the books I’ve read and the books I want to read is what I used to do in a simple note in my note taking app. As an app developer I always want to make things a little faster by automating it. For instance, if you look at the covers of some thrillers by a single author, they tend to look a lot alike. So I am often asking myself: have I read this one yet? This triggered me into thinking: what if I could scan the cover or barcode of the book and see if I had read it. Well, now there’s an app for that: BookBucket.

Baldacci is making my point with a similar cover for each book

BookBucket allows you to search for books by title, author and barcode using the device’s camera. The app shows you all kinds of information about the book. And, of course, for each book you can indicate if you’ve read it or want to read it. Rating the book and leaving a note allows you to look back at a book and know what your thoughts were while reading it.

The other problem I was facing was that it sometimes takes time to discover a new book. Therefore I am working on ways to discover new books based on the books you’ve been reading. Currently this is done by presenting you suggestions based on the book you are viewing. A warning: this may lead you in never ending rabbit hole, since you can easily navigate from one book to the next while when you keep discovering new additions for your reading list.

Please give BookBucket a go. It is still in development, so many feature to come. You can get it in the iOS App Store in the Netherlands. It’s free to use and you do not have to create an account to get started.