How I wanted to read more

How I wanted to read more… and ended up building LibraryAI

I’ve always liked the idea of reading more than the actual process.

There’s this image: you read smart books, you grow, you become a better version of yourself. But in reality, it looked very different. I saved book lists, bought books, postponed them “for later,” watched videos like “10 books that will change your life”… and barely finished anything.

Over time, I realized the problem wasn’t books. There are more than enough of them. The real problem was that I didn’t have a system. I didn’t know what to read next, I forgot what I had already read, I couldn’t see any progress, and most importantly — I never built a habit. Reading isn’t hard. Coming back to it every day is.

I tried different apps, but most of them felt like spreadsheets or trackers. You just log what you’ve done, but it doesn’t motivate you to continue. There’s no feeling that it’s “your space.” Everything feels too functional and too dry.

At some point, I realized I wanted to build something for myself. Not another tracker, but a space I’d actually want to return to. That’s how LibraryAI started.

The idea was simple: you add books and see them on a real bookshelf. Not as a list, but as something visual and alive. The shelf slowly fills up, and you start feeling like it’s actually your collection. At the same time, you can track what you’re reading and get recommendations based on what’s already on your shelf.

But the real turning point wasn’t the interface or even the recommendations. Everything changed when I added a streak — a simple mechanic where you mark whether you read today or not. If you read, the streak continues. Miss a day, and it resets. It sounds trivial, but it works surprisingly well. At some point, you catch yourself opening a book not because you “should,” but because you don’t want to lose your streak.

Right now, a lot of products focus heavily on AI, especially in recommendations. LibraryAI has that too, but over time it became clear that it’s not the main thing. AI can help you discover books faster, but it won’t make you come back. What actually brings you back is something else: the feeling that you have your own space, and a simple system where you can see progress.

That’s why LibraryAI isn’t just about books. It’s about behavior. It’s about turning someone who “wants to read” into someone who actually reads.

I’m continuing to build the product — improving recommendations, thinking about a clean social layer without noise, strengthening the streak system, and refining the interface until it feels like something you genuinely want to open every day.

At some point, I realized a simple thing.

People don’t need more books.
They need something that makes them come back tomorrow.

And that’s exactly what I’m trying to build.

wait you https://libraryai.site/