The Reading Room
Longer reads about reading.
We write one of these when the same question keeps turning up in our inbox. Three are about shelves and how readers use them. Four are about the apps people ask us to compare ShelfLife to.
Guides
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Is there a Letterboxd for books?
Readers have been asking for one for a decade. What people mean by the phrase, how ShelfLife measures up on each part, and where books and films part ways.
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What makes a bookshelf app worth looking at
What separates a shelf you want to look at from a library screen with a wood-grain background, and why every spine is a photograph of a real book.
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How to grow a bookstagram people actually talk to
For book creators starting out on Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky. Mostly about getting followers who actually comment.
How ShelfLife compares
One page per app, each with a feature-by-feature table and the month we last checked the facts in it. Where the other app is the better pick, the page says so.
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Goodreads
Visual shelves, spine capture, a separate review for every reread, and what a CSV import actually carries across.
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The StoryGraph
StoryGraph puts stats and moods first. What changes when the shelf is the point instead, and how the two social sides differ.
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Hardcover
Spine and barcode scanning, a separate review per reread, Book Signal, the Peanut Gallery, and getting your data back out.
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Bookology
Bookology is Apple only, so most of this is about Android and the web. Includes what Bookology does that ShelfLife does not.
Free on iOS, Android, and the web.
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