[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":418},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-44811387":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":10,"maker":11,"posted_at":12,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rank_in_year":16,"shown_in_year":17,"top":18,"tier":19,"category":20,"subcategory":21,"format":22,"keywords":23,"reception":27,"sentiment":28,"stance_mix":29,"scored_comments":33,"aspects":34,"strip":39,"post_text":43,"what":44,"said":99,"maker_in_thread":211,"shape":222,"grid":227,"attempts":379,"same_week":380,"maker_shows":40,"maker_hidden":410,"reader_version":411,"card":412},"44811387","BookWith","An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM","title","Show HN: An open-source e-book reader for conversational reading with an LLM","https:\u002F\u002Fgithub.com\u002Fshutootaki\u002Fbookwith","github.com","takigon",1754485296,2025,86,61,834,3837,22,"notable","productivity","e-book reader","web_app",[21,24,25,26],"llm reading companion","epub reader","open source","debated",-0.071,{"positive":30,"neutral":31,"mixed":32,"critical":30},12,9,0,33,{"idea":35,"design":36,"execution":37,"docs":38},{"positive":31,"critical":31},{"positive":32,"critical":32},{"positive":32,"critical":32},{"positive":32,"critical":32},[40,41,41,42,41,40,40,40,40,41,40,42,42,42,42,42,32,40,40,41,32,40,41,41,32,41,42,41,42,32,40,32,41,32,42,32,40,32,32,41],1,5,3,"Hi HN! I've been working on BookWith, an open-source e-book reader that integrates AI as your reading companion.\n\nThe problem: Traditional e-readers are passive. When you encounter something unclear, you have to context-switch to search for it. Your highlights and notes remain isolated, and you can't easily connect ideas across different books.\n\nMy solution: BookWith embeds an AI that maintains full context of what you're reading. It features:\n\n- Context-aware AI chat: Ask questions about the current page\u002Fchapter and get instant answers\n\n- AI podcast generation: Automatically converts book con",{"problem":45,"audience":51,"pricing":63,"motivation":64,"time_to_build":63,"stack":71,"openness":96,"stage":97,"team_size":98},{"value":46,"source":47,"evidence":48},"E-readers are passive; unclear passages require context-switching to search, and highlights stay isolated","maker",[49],{"id":50},"post",{"value":52,"source":47,"evidence":53},"Readers of technical, academic and business books, including non-native English readers",[54,57,60],{"id":55,"by":11,"text":56},"44819089","Thank you very much for your thought-provoking comments. I actually sympathize with you very much. As you say, there is a non-zero chance that this app will contribute to a lack…",{"id":58,"by":11,"text":59},"44812967","Thank you for the sharp feedback. Because we've been mainly targeting business and technical books, the spoiler-prevention feature is not yet implemented. However, to make novels…",{"id":61,"by":11,"text":62},"44813495","Thank you for your valuable input. As you say, generating a table of contents and summary alone will not be of value. Interacting with the LLM may be helpful when reading…",null,{"value":65,"source":47,"evidence":66},"Maker built it for own use to read technical and foreign-language books with AI help",[67,68],{"id":55,"by":11,"text":56},{"id":69,"by":11,"text":70},"44818991","Thanks for your comment! > Do you think it is possible to make it phone friendly and easy to install? Yes, it is possible. The app supports PWA (Progressive Web Application) and…",[72,76,80,84,92],{"value":73,"source":47,"evidence":74},"Fork of Flow epub reader",[75],{"id":50},{"value":77,"source":47,"evidence":78},"Vector database for semantic search",[79],{"id":50},{"value":81,"source":47,"evidence":82},"Google Cloud TTS",[83],{"id":50},{"value":85,"source":86,"evidence":87},"Supabase","commenter",[88],{"id":89,"by":90,"text":91},"44813517","geor9e","If this looks hard to install (you need to host a server, supabase, docker, lots of python dependancies) - instead, you could just install this to Edge…",{"value":93,"source":86,"evidence":94},"Docker",[95],{"id":89,"by":90,"text":91},"open_source","launched","solo",{"praise":100,"objections":119,"requests":155,"questions":182,"alternatives":191},[101,112],{"value":102,"source":86,"evidence":103},"Useful for reading difficult technical or academic books",[104,108],{"id":105,"by":106,"text":107},"44813337","karolcodes","mega based project, i was thinking about the same. LLMs are very helpful for reading difficult books, or just books requiring previous context. i would add a feature of adding…",{"id":109,"by":110,"text":111},"44816730","nathan_douglas","Thank you for sharing this! I'm disappointed by some of the negative comments. I'm pretty excited about this and plan to try and get this running locally this week. I end…",{"value":113,"source":86,"evidence":114},"Fills gap for recalling details in long book series",[115],{"id":116,"by":117,"text":118},"44814085","future10se","Interesting project. I've been thinking about a tool like this; I might be following a multi-volume book series, but it's been years since the last book. When I pick up the…",[120,131,136,148],{"value":121,"source":86,"evidence":122},"LLM answers may be inaccurate and could mislead readers",[123,127],{"id":124,"by":125,"text":126},"44815284","nerdjon","If we are purely talking about textbooks, I can see the value in a tool like this... assuming we still have yet to actually solve the problem of AI being able to tell the truth…",{"id":128,"by":129,"text":130},"44811749","Finnucane","\"By conversing with an AI that fully understands the book's content in real time,\" That seems like a maybe a wee bit of an overstatement of possibilities.",{"value":132,"source":86,"evidence":133},"Hard to install; needs server, Supabase, Docker and Python dependencies",[134,135],{"id":89,"by":90,"text":91},{"id":116,"by":117,"text":118},{"value":137,"source":86,"evidence":138},"Could reduce attention span and reading immersion",[139,140,144],{"id":124,"by":125,"text":126},{"id":141,"by":142,"text":143},"44813269","andrepd","\"Too much thought into whether they could, and not enough thought on whether they should\" could be the motto of the vast majority of AI products. Algorithmic social media has…",{"id":145,"by":146,"text":147},"44812832","johndhi","I recently finished a book I was looking forward to but wound up really disliking [0]. Throughout the book I found myself saying \"wtf?\" and I occasionally would complain to my…",{"value":149,"source":86,"evidence":150},"No spoiler prevention for fiction",[151],{"id":152,"by":153,"text":154},"44812667","slopdo","Is there any mechanism to prevent the AI from answering with spoilers? For example, when I ask about a character I don't want information coming from pages\u002Fchapters I still…",[156,164,171,175],{"value":157,"source":86,"evidence":158},"Spoiler prevention limiting AI knowledge to reading progress",[159,160],{"id":152,"by":153,"text":154},{"id":161,"by":162,"text":163},"44815747","ethan_smith","This is a crucial feature - perhaps implementing a \"reading progress tracker\" that masks content beyond your current position would make this truly useful for fiction.",{"value":165,"source":86,"evidence":166},"Mobile or phone-friendly version",[167],{"id":168,"by":169,"text":170},"44814024","l3x4ur1n","Nice! I was also thinking about e-reader with LLM support to discuss topics of the book I'm reading with, explain words or phrases (I'm not a native English reader) and so on.…",{"value":172,"source":86,"evidence":173},"Docker image for easy local or home server deployment",[174],{"id":116,"by":117,"text":118},{"value":176,"source":86,"evidence":177},"Integration with Calibre and OCR for scanned PDFs",[178],{"id":179,"by":180,"text":181},"44819490","guiltygods","Can you look into integrating with private book repositories like Calibre? Also, many books on Archive.org are scanned PDFs (usually as images). This would need OCR probably.…",[183,187],{"value":184,"source":86,"evidence":185},"Does it work with scanned PDFs needing OCR",[186],{"id":179,"by":180,"text":181},{"value":188,"source":86,"evidence":189},"Can it prevent spoilers",[190],{"id":152,"by":153,"text":154},[192,196,203],{"value":193,"source":86,"evidence":194},"Microsoft Edge EPUB reader extension with Copilot sidebar",[195],{"id":89,"by":90,"text":91},{"value":197,"source":86,"evidence":198},"Built-in e-reader dictionaries",[199],{"id":200,"by":201,"text":202},"44814025","edent","> The problem: Traditional e-readers are passive. Why is that a problem? Your statement is a bit like saying \"traditional avocados are too delicious. We at YuckCo are aiming to…",{"value":204,"source":86,"evidence":205},"General chatbots like ChatGPT or NotebookLM",[206,207],{"id":109,"by":110,"text":111},{"id":208,"by":209,"text":210},"44814632","spudlyo","When I was trying to extract as much meaning out of George Eliot's Middlemarch as I could, I would read a chapter, and then upload that chapter's text file (thank you Gutenberg)…",{"comments":212,"answered":213,"key":214},21,10,[215,216,219],{"id":55,"text":56},{"id":217,"text":218},"44819100","Thanks for your comment. I can see how it could be used successfully for those types of books.",{"id":220,"text":221},"44812295","You're right to call that out, that's a fair point. \"Fully understands\" is indeed a bit of an overstatement for the current state of AI. What I meant from a technical perspective…",{"commenters":223,"max_depth":224,"maker_replies":212,"first_comment_mins":225,"lifespan_hours":226},35,6,30,27,[228,230,234,236,240,244,246,248,249,251,253,256,259,262,263,267,271,274,275,277,281,283,286,289,291,292,296,299,302,303,306,308,311,313,315,317,319,321,324,326,328,330,334,336,338,340,342,344,347,349,351,353,357,360,362,363,366,369,372,374,376],[124,32,40,229,125,32],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea",[231,32,41,232,233,32],"44817623","project\u002Fpositive\u002Fidea","eunos",[55,32,32,235,11,40],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[237,32,41,238,239,32],"44826436","maker\u002Fpositive\u002Fnone","stonecharioteer",[241,40,42,242,243,32],"44815258","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea","patcon",[217,40,32,245,11,40],"commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[208,247,41,232,209,32],2,[128,42,40,229,129,32],[220,42,32,250,11,40],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution",[89,252,40,229,90,32],4,[254,252,32,255,11,40],"44813860","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[257,41,40,229,258,32],"44814999","ravenstine",[260,224,40,229,261,32],"44813340","pacha3000",[61,224,32,235,11,40],[264,224,41,265,266,32],"44814401","project\u002Fpositive\u002Fnone","yinser",[268,269,40,229,270,32],"44820966",7,"moneywaters",[168,272,42,273,169,32],8,"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign",[69,272,32,250,11,40],[179,31,42,276,180,32],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution",[278,213,32,279,280,32],"44815191","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","pillefitz",[152,282,42,242,153,32],11,[284,282,42,242,285,32],"44812809","Insanity",[287,282,42,288,153,32],"44812888","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[290,282,32,279,285,32],"44813912",[58,282,32,235,11,40],[293,282,40,294,295,32],"44813350","maker\u002Fcritical\u002Fnone","mereck",[297,282,32,298,11,40],"44813575","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[300,282,40,294,301,32],"44820290","ziml77",[161,282,42,242,162,32],[304,30,41,232,305,32],"44812767","ericol",[307,30,32,298,11,40],"44812845",[309,310,32,298,11,40],"44819136",13,[141,312,40,229,142,32],14,[314,312,32,235,11,40],"44813639",[316,312,41,232,266,32],"44814437",[105,318,41,232,106,32],15,[320,318,32,235,11,40],"44813535",[322,318,32,279,323,32],"44813892","wahnfrieden",[325,318,41,265,106,32],"44815327",[116,327,42,276,117,32],16,[329,327,32,298,11,40],"44818862",[331,332,41,232,333,32],"44816729",17,"NoLinkToMe",[335,332,32,298,11,40],"44818795",[145,337,42,242,146,32],18,[339,337,32,235,11,40],"44813170",[341,337,40,294,142,32],"44813288",[343,337,32,298,11,40],"44813441",[345,337,32,245,346,32],"44814405","IanCal",[348,337,32,298,11,40],"44818953",[109,350,41,232,110,32],19,[352,350,32,298,11,40],"44818835",[354,355,40,229,356,32],"44814857",20,"footy",[358,355,41,232,359,32],"44814990","criddell",[361,355,32,298,11,40],"44818946",[200,212,40,229,201,32],[364,212,32,245,365,32],"44814097","submeta",[367,212,32,245,368,32],"44814576","dsr_",[370,212,32,245,371,32],"44815189","djeastm",[373,212,32,298,11,40],"44818923",[375,212,41,232,346,32],"44814327",[377,212,32,378,11,40],"44818918","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[],[381,386,391,396,401,405],{"id":382,"name":383,"points":384,"category":385},"44787902","Kilopixel",1145,"creative",{"id":387,"name":388,"points":389,"category":390},"44807868","Kitten TTS",1003,"ai",{"id":392,"name":393,"points":394,"category":395},"44792005","Carbon",322,"web_saas",{"id":397,"name":398,"points":399,"category":400},"44747229","Mcp-use",155,"dev_tools",{"id":402,"name":403,"points":404,"category":390},"44767775","browser-llm",145,{"id":406,"name":407,"points":408,"category":409},"44801399","Whittle",141,"games",false,"v2",{"id":413,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":410,"cat":20,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rec":27,"s":414,"top":18,"kw":415,"maker":11,"domain":10,"tier":19,"attempts":32,"strip":416,"url":9,"mix":417,"praise":102,"objection":121,"sub":21},44811387,-0.07,[21,24,25,26],"1553511115133333011501550535301050301005",[30,31,32,30],1794036679814]