I built a desktop bookshelf for my ebooks — would you use this?

[Chai_King]

I love ebooks for their convenience, but I’ve always felt that something disappears when my whole library becomes a grid of covers or a folder full of filenames.

With physical books, I often choose what to read by scanning the spines on a shelf. I can see what I own, remember books I meant to finish, and enjoy the collection even when I’m not actively reading.

I’m building a desktop ebook app around that feeling.

Instead of showing books only as a traditional 2D library, it displays them spine-out on a virtual bookshelf—closer to the experience of looking at a real shelf. The bookshelf can stay visible on the desktop, so the book you’re currently reading remains quietly present and can serve as a small reminder to come back to it.

One challenge is that ebook spine artwork is surprisingly hard to find. To make the shelf work even when no spine image exists, I’m building a tool that can automatically generate and lay out a book spine from the book’s information. For people who want a more authentic result, it will also support uploading real spine images.

It will also include a built-in reader for common ebook formats, so the idea is not just to create a decorative bookshelf. I want to make the whole ebook experience feel a little more tangible—from seeing your collection, to choosing a book, to actually reading it.

I’d genuinely love to hear what feels appealing, unnecessary, or missing from this idea.

[Sirtel]

Calibre already has this feature, but you can't upload your own spine images - they're autogenerated only. In that sense, your app would be better. Depends on how many spine images exist out there, of course.

Personally I don't want or need it. I always use the list view with my calibre libraries. But there are plenty of people who prefer the bookshelf view. And there are plenty of people who don't use calibre.

[DNSB]

I spent a few minutes looking for spine images. They seem to be a rather rare item since they are not part of any standard ebook download items.

[Chai_King]

That has been my experience as well. I’ve spent years looking for a large, reliable database of book-spine images, but I still haven’t found anything that covers them at meaningful scale.
For books I own physically, I sometimes photograph the spines myself and use those images in my desktop shelf. For ebooks that do not have a physical copy available to me, I needed a compromise.
While trying to work around that limitation, I started learning more about book-spine typography, layout, and publishing design conventions. That eventually led me to create a small system that can generate a readable spine design from a book’s metadata.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and trying to solve it has taught me a lot along the way—not just about books and design, but about digging for answers and figuring things out by building them myself. Thanks for bringing it up.

[Chai_King]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I spent a few minutes looking for spine images. They seem to be a rather rare item since they are not part of any standard ebook download items.

That has been my experience as well. I’ve spent years looking for a large, reliable database of book-spine images, but I still haven’t found anything that covers them at meaningful scale.
For books I own physically, I sometimes photograph the spines myself and use those images in my desktop shelf. For ebooks that do not have a physical copy available to me, I needed a compromise.
While trying to work around that limitation, I started learning more about book-spine typography, layout, and publishing design conventions. That eventually led me to create a small system that can generate a readable spine design from a book’s metadata.
It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and trying to solve it has taught me a lot along the way—not just about books and design, but about digging for answers and figuring things out by building them myself. Thanks for bringing it up.