BookNest

A digital sanctuary for the modern reader.
A vintage-styled personal library app built for mindful reading.

BookNest is a single-user full-stack library management application that helps you catalog books, track reading progress, and maintain a personal reading journal.
The experience is intentionally distraction-free, inspired by the quiet, tactile feel of a physical bookshelf.

The project emphasizes clear domain rules, backend-first correctness, and a calm, purposeful user experience rather than social or feed-driven interactions.

• Maintain a personal library with four explicit states:
  • Wishlist
  • Reading
  • Completed
  • Dropped
• Each book always has exactly one active status.
• Once a book is completed, it cannot be dropped again (enforced at controller level).

• Optional Started Date, prompted only the first time a book enters the Reading state.
• Optional Completed Date, prompted only the first time a book is completed.
• Date validation ensures logical consistency when both dates exist.

• Tag-based rating system (no numeric scores):
  • Perfection
  • Go for it
  • Time pass
  • Skip
• Rating is mandatory only when marking a book as completed.
• Books can have multiple journal-style reviews.
• Each review records the reading status at the time it was written.
• Reviews can be edited for minor corrections while preserving timeline integrity.

• Search books using the Open Library Search API.
• Fetch external metadata such as:
  • Covers
  • Descriptions
  • Public ratings
  • Internet Archive preview links (when available)
• External data is never persisted and is used only for UI enrichment.

• Books discovered via Open Library open in the same detail view as tracked books.
• If a discovered book already exists in the library, the app redirects automatically.
• Adding a discovered book respects all existing business rules and state transitions.

BookNest is designed to feel like a quiet, personal reading space rather than a modern feed-based app.

The interface uses a handcrafted design system built around:

• Royal gold accents
• Sepia parchment tones
• Subtle textures inspired by physical books and journals

The application uses server-side rendering (SSR) with EJS, keeping the experience fast, predictable, and simple.

Interaction details are intentionally understated:

• Vintage-style headings and typography
• Brush-stroke visual accents
• Gentle floating interactions
• Expandable book descriptions implemented using vanilla JavaScript

The goal is not visual spectacle, but a calm, tactile experience that complements long-form reading and reflection.

Backend

• Node.js
• Express.js
• PostgreSQL
• pg

Frontend

• EJS (Server-Side Rendering)
• Bootstrap 5
• Vanilla JavaScript
• Custom CSS

External APIs

• Open Library Search API
• Open Library Covers API
• Open Library Ratings API
• Internet Archive preview links (via Open Library)

├── controllers/        # Business rules and request handling
├── services/           # External API integrations
├── routes/             # Express route definitions
├── db/                 # PostgreSQL connection
├── sql/                # Schema and seed files
├── utils/              # Shared utilities (date validation)
├── views/              # EJS templates (pages and partials)
├── public/             # Static assets (CSS, JS, images)
└── index.js            # Application entry point

Key architectural principles:

• Controllers are the single source of business rules.
• Services encapsulate all external API communication.
• Views never enforce logic or state transitions.
• The database is the authoritative source of user-owned data.

• books
  • Stores user-owned data and canonical identifiers.
  • Uses Open Library Work OLID as the primary external reference.
• reviews
  • One-to-many relationship with books.
  • Each review captures historical reading context.

The schema is intentionally minimal to keep the domain model explicit and maintainable.

• Node.js (v18 or later recommended)
• PostgreSQL

git clone https://github.com/Ash-the-k/BookNest.git
cd booknest
npm install

1. Create a PostgreSQL database.

2. Run the schema:

   psql -d booknest -f sql/schema.sql

3. (Optional) Seed sample data:

   psql -d booknest -f sql/seed.sql

Create a .env file in the root directory:

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_USER=your_user
DB_PASSWORD=your_password
DB_NAME=booknest
DB_PORT=5432

node index.js

Open your browser at:

http://localhost:3000

This project is intentionally single-user.

Out of scope by design:

• Authentication or user accounts
• Social or sharing features
• Recommendations or analytics
• Mobile application support

These decisions were made to preserve clarity of domain logic and UX focus.

• Book metadata, covers, and public ratings provided by
  Open Library

• Preview access and archival links powered by
  Internet Archive

BookNest was built by Ashlesh as a capstone project for The Complete Web Development Bootcamp by Dr. Angela Yu.

The goal of the project was to design a database-driven reading tracker with clear domain rules, safe API integration, and a calm, user-focused interface.

This project is licensed under the MIT License.
See the LICENSE file for details.