Bookshelf
Can Bookshelf track physical books alongside ebooks and PDFs?
Yes. You can scan barcodes on physical books using your phone's camera, and then manually enter your reading progress by page number or percentage. This data lives alongside your Kindle books and PDFs in one unified library.
Does Bookshelf have a recommendation engine?
Yes. After you rate around twenty books, the app suggests new titles based on your tastes. One user reported discovering a sci-fi author they'd never heard of and enjoying the sample chapter.
Why does my reading progress sometimes not sync between my iPhone and iPad?
This usually happens when you annotate a PDF on one device and then switch to another. The app doesn't prioritize syncing recent changes, so you may need to manually pull to refresh and wait a few minutes for it to update.
How can I fix the laggy sync issue with Bookshelf?
First, make sure both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network and that the app is up to date. Then try manually pulling down to refresh the library view. If that doesn't work, force-closing the app and reopening it often triggers a faster sync.
How does Bookshelf compare to Goodreads for tracking cross-device reading?
Bookshelf offers real-time cross-device sync that works about 90% of the time, so you can pick up where you left off on any device. Goodreads focuses more on social features and reviews, but its progress tracking is manual and doesn't sync reading positions automatically.
