What it is
Book Request is a small web app I built for my wife and me so we can find new audiobooks, keep track of books in a series, and surface similar titles when we want something in the same vein. It ties together search and discovery from a few places, keeps a shared request list in SQLite, and optionally talks to Audiobookshelf so we can see what we already own and avoid doubling up.
What it does
- Search pulls from LibriVox, Open Library, Audiobookshelf, Audible, iTunes, and Google.
- Requests are sent to a shared wishlist of all the books we want to buy.
- Book can have an owned or requested badge. We can also hide owned titles on search and similar flows, so discovery stays readable.
- Discover includes popular from Open Library, books similar to our library, and books similar to a specific book from our library.
Stack
PHP, SQLite, Apache in Docker behind a reverse proxy, Bootstrap 5. Intentionally boring, easy to maintain and to host at home.