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Books Court
The greenhouse
Sage walls, six plants and not one straight line. Built by someone who reads outside.
Every reader deserves their own court of books.
Books Court is a reading journal app for iPhone: a library you truly own — even if you're short on space, live in a different country every month, or simply don't want the hassle of dusting yet another shelf. Here, you can decorate your shelf, select specific book spines, and jot down your impressions to share with friends.
Live demo — the shelf
A virtual bookshelf you arrange as you would a real one.
An interactive demo shelf. Drag a spine or the plant, or use the arrow keys after focusing one, to move it anywhere on the shelf.
Books CourtDrag or tap to rearrange
Live demo — the spine builder
Channel your inner bookbinder.
Choose the spine design yourself to perfectly capture how the book makes you feel. The preview is the same renderer the app uses.
Cloth colour — Aubergine
PatternRaised bands across the spine, like a hand-sewn binding.
Crest
Decoration
Decorate your shelf.
Choose decor that matches your mood, or the weather, or maybe the book you are currently reading. Just decorate it. You can choose plants, lamps, candles and a lot of other objects.
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Books Court
Candlelight
Wine-dark walls, three candles and a jar of something. For the horror shelf.
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Books Court
The gilt room
Plum walls, brass everywhere and a clock that is always ten past. Fully unlocked.
Beyond the shelf
A reading tracker that keeps what you have already built.
You don't have to give up the old to create something new. Bring your library with you, make it yours, and share exactly as much of it as you want.
Bring your shelf with you
You can import your books from Goodreads.
Add what's missing
Reading fanfiction that isn't in the database? Now you can add it and help promote your favorite author.
Share on your terms
Choose which books from your reading list to share and which to keep private.
Read together
Invite friends and get notified about what they're reading — you might finally get to discuss your favorite book.
Hear from your characters
Receive notifications from your favorite characters to draw you back and earn rewards.
Roadmap
What's built and what's next.
- Shelves & spinesIn build
Five shelves, the spine builder, the journal, and diamonds that arrive when you finish something.
- The journalIn build
Six-axis ratings, tropes, quotes and the long private review behind every spine.
- Decoration shopNext
Plants, lamps, candles and trinkets to drag onto any shelf, restocked monthly.
- StatsSoon
Pages, genres, months and moods — read as a picture of a year rather than a leaderboard.
- Shared shelvesLater
Show a shelf to a friend, swap quotes, read the same book at the same time.
About me
Made by one reader.
I'm Olga Sergeeva, building Books Court on my own in the evenings because I wanted the app I kept looking for and never found. Every spine, plant and candle in it was drawn for this and nothing else.
If you write to me, I answer. That's a promise that gets harder to keep the better this goes, so get in early.
FAQ
The reasonable questions.
What is Books Court?
Books Court is a reading journal app for iPhone. Every book you finish becomes a spine you design — cloth, binding pattern, foil and crest — which is then shelved in a room you decorate. Behind each spine is a private journal with six-axis ratings, tropes, saved quotes and a long review. It is in development, with a TestFlight beta before the App Store release.
What is a reading journal app?
A reading journal app is where you record what you read and what you thought of it, as opposed to a reading tracker, which mainly counts. The distinction matters in practice: a tracker is judged on how completely you log, a journal on whether the entries are worth rereading. Books Court is the second kind — you are meant to log the books you care about and skip the rest.
Is Books Court a Goodreads alternative?
For keeping your own reading, yes — it is a private journal and a bookshelf rather than a catalogue with a feed on it, and it imports your Goodreads library so you are not starting over. For looking up what strangers thought of a book, no. It has no review database and is not trying to build one.
Can I import my Goodreads library?
Yes. Goodreads exports your library as a CSV file from its account settings, and Books Court reads that file, so you are not retyping years of reading.
When can I actually use it?
A small TestFlight beta opens first, then the App Store. Everyone on the waitlist gets the beta invite before anyone else.
What does it cost?
Free to keep a shelf. A one-time unlock adds the extra shelves and the full shop — no subscription, and diamonds are earned by reading rather than bought.
Do I have to log every book?
No. Log the ones you care about. A shelf with eleven beloved books on it looks better than a database with four hundred.
Where does the book information come from?
Search fills in the title, author, page count and summary where it can. Everything is editable, and you can add a book that search has never heard of.
Is my journal private?
Private by default — reviews, ratings and quotes stay on your device unless you deliberately share a shelf.
Android?
After iOS. It is on the roadmap, not in the drawer.
Get the notification
Be there when the first shelf opens.
An email when the beta opens, one when it launches, and the occasional note on what is being built. Nothing else.
That address is missing an @ — mind checking it?
You're on the list. Look out for a note when the beta opens.