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Raoul Meyer
Raoul Meyer

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Pugmark - Online Book club For Developers

A book club seems like something from the last century. You're meeting up with a group of people, who does that anyway nowadays? You've managed to read through the whole book in the month that you had to do that. Scribbling down some notes along the way, carefully highlighting sentences because they resonated with you. It's been a tedious and lonely process until now.

When you finally meet up, it gives you a feeling of belonging, knowing there are others who share your interests and passions. Finding out someone has also read your favorite book is a great conversation starter. Those conversations are more often than not full of new insights.

A year ago, I mentioned the idea of an online book club to my friend Maxi. We both like reading books as an educational tool. For me, starting to read books has been eye-opening. We often discussed the books we read with each other. Those were the times I discovered the point of the book, the bigger lesson it was trying to teach me.

Now, one year later, we think with pugmark we have built something that helps us in having that discussion. Having used it myself for a couple of books now, I notice how much more I remember of what I read. With pugmark, we want to give you a way to find those like-minded readers. It's the async, remote version of a book club. We've tried to provide two tools to help you really absorb what you are reading: structured reading and async discussion.

Structured reading

First, in pugmark you will be presented with a per chapter overview of each book. You can create notes for yourself, and rate each chapter individually. You'll get an overview of your progress in reading the book.

We also want to help you in building the habit of reading regularly. This is a good way to make sure you keep on growing your knowledge. You can set up reminders on whatever schedule works for you, and we'll let you know that it's time for the next chapter.

Screenshot of book progress overview

Async discussion

Any notes you make, you can share. You can use this to summarise what you learned, or to ask questions to other readers. When you share a note, your fellow readers can learn from your perspective, and they can add their perspective as well. It's like a mini blog, about a single chapter of a book.

Screenshot of discussion about book

Where we can go

We have worked on this for a year now, but we still have many ideas on how to make it better. We'd love for you to give it a try and let us know what you think.

If you're someone who always tells themselves they would like to read more, please give pugmark a shot:

pugmark.io

Top comments (10)

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nmestrada profile image
Natalie

I've signed up! But I've noticed a few bugs, is there a place where we can report them?

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raoulmeyer profile image
Raoul Meyer

Yes, you can send them to contact@pugmark.io or in the Slack that is linked in the footer. Thanks for helping us make it better, I hope the bugs weren't too big of an issue!

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nmestrada profile image
Natalie

Thank you! I've been looking for something like this to keep track of my reading!!

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prafulla-codes profile image
Prafulla Raichurkar

Awesome

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tednica profile image
Henry Tednica

Great project !!!

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raoulmeyer profile image
Raoul Meyer

Thanks, happy to hear your thoughts!

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kretaceous profile image
Abhijit Hota

Really cool project! Can't wait to try it!

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raoulmeyer profile image
Raoul Meyer

Thanks! Let me know what you think :)

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Alex Lutz

This currently seems geared towards individuals. Is there a way to create a "group" of coworkers or friends for a book club style reading while using this as the tool for tracking all of it? By the way, I really love this idea. Well done!!

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neomaxzero profile image
Maximiliano

Thanks Alex! So far, we don't have that feature. It will be Cool to include something like that.