Show HN: An Open-Source E-Book Reader for Conversational Reading with an LLM

2 takigon 1 8/6/2025, 1:01:36 PM github.com ↗

Hi HN! I've been working on BookWith, an open-source e-book reader that integrates AI as your reading companion.

The 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.

My solution: BookWith embeds an AI that maintains full context of what you're reading. It features:

- Context-aware AI chat: Ask questions about the current page/chapter and get instant answers - AI podcast generation: Automatically converts book content into conversational podcasts using Google Cloud TTS - Multi-layer memory system: Short-term (last 5 conversations), mid-term (summarized every 20), and long-term (vector search) memory that maintains continuity across reading sessions - Smart annotations: 5-color highlighting system that AI can reference and analyze

Technical stack: Built as a fork of Flow (epub reader), with added LLM integration and vector database for semantic search. Supports multiple LLMs and languages (EN/JA/ZH).

Comments (1)

Finnucane · 3m ago

"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.

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Comments (1)