I try to go into books as blind as possible, but I’ve already caught wind that this book mayyyy be controversial. Trying to go in with an open mind and then drown myself in the gossip after I finish.

Roza, you crazy S.O.B.

Note to self: never accept an offer to go to a writing retreat in an isolated location. Especially is the offer comes from an eccentric, reclusive author.

A chilling and surrreal work. The omninous warning set out by Orwell still linger in our cultural zeitgeist, perhaps now more than ever. Essential reading for anyone in the 21st century.

I...what? I have literally no idea where we are going any this is a Nobel prize winner but okay...

The Winter Readalong picks are here! To see the selections (and the badge!) on web, head to the Discuss tab and click “View Winter Picks” by the Fall 2025 Readalong header. On the app, go to the Seasonal Readalong screen from the More menu (sorry app users, you’ll have to go to web to see the badge preview; I’ll add the badge in the next app update!) The Winter readalong starts December 1st and runs through the end of February. Recommend checking wait times at your library and planning ahead! (note: we are only doing 4 books instead of 5 starting this winter to make room for Special Events)

For our new users: Each season, Top Contributors vote on a selection of books to read as a community. You earn a special badge for reading one of the books and commenting or posting in the forum during the readalong.

Additional exciting updates! (NOTE: these are currently on web only, they will be available on the app with the next app release!)

MUTING BOOKS! yes yes yes you can now mute a book. When you mute a book, it removes all posts from that book’s forum from you Main feed, My Books feed, All Books feed, and Following feed. If someone you follow comments on a post, or posts in the forum, of a muted book you will not see it. You will however still see “reading status updates” from followers who engage with muted book. You can mute a book from the “...” menu on a post, or from the Book Status modal. To unmute a book, go to the Settings page (gear icon on your profile) and click “Manage Muted Books”

You can now mark a book as “owned” and filter your library shelves by "owned" books! While it works perfectly well to have a custom “owned” shelf, a separate toggle was highly requested (mini tip: you can add books to custom shelves right from the book status modal - you do not need to search for & add them from the shelf page).

Feed updates: we removed TBR books from your My Books feed and Main Feed entirely. We know how sensitive spoilers can be, and folks have different definitions of what constitutes a spoiler, so this is the safest option. We will have a way to customize this in the future if you prefer to see them. We also removed any activity related to the Pagebound Club from your main and following feeds. The club still exists as it always has for those that enjoy engaging, but for those that would rather opt-out, you won’t be forced to see PB club content in your feed. You will still have activity items on your profile from any Pagebound Club activity; it just will not be pushed to your followers.

For our app users: if you’d like to mute books now before the update is released, just log in on web, mute the books, and both your web and app feeds will be updated. You can do the same for “owned” books, however the filter won’t appear until the next update.

Thanks everyone and happy reading! Jennifer & Lucy

Quick announcement of some smaller updates -

We have new avatars for levels 3 and 4. Level 3 has two new dragons to choose from, and level 4 has three food-inspired avatars 🥐🌶️🍚

We also have two new feeds on your homepage. You'll see your Main Feed (the normal feed you're used to), a Following feed (just activity from people you follow) and My Books (the feed that is currently on Discuss, this is just posts from books in your library). Many people have been asking for a following feed :)

In your Main feed and My Books feed, you will no longer see posts from TBR books that are marked as spoilers.

We're aware of an intermittent bug on the app when posting in the book forum (from the book page specifically). The feed updates + a bug fix for this is out on iOS, please update your app to see these changes. On Android, we're still awaiting app approval - in the meantime there is a workaround : use the currently reading card on your home feed, which has a "Post to Forum" button, to post rather than going to the book page.

We’re desperately trying to find younger romance books for our library. We have like over 50% 14+ books and a lot of the rest is quite old, think Princess Diaries (as much as they’re fine we’re trying to find some new ones).

Romance content I would say max kissing, but it’s relative.

It’s more about other stuff that is in a lot of YA romances. The usual things we look out for are:

• no swearing
• no relationship abuse (violence or emotional)
• no self-harm (including drug abuse)
• no hate speech (bullying would be fine if it’s not the main plot cause then it’s not romance anymore)

It’s difficult because a lot of romance is aimed at teenagers or relies on these for plot points.

Edit note: Oh I forgot to mention this… we have books sorted into locations based on overall genres and fantasy is separate so we are looking for non-fantasy/non-scifi romance books.

Any suggestions?