A Shelf You Can Carry: 'Bbaegok' a Reading-Log App
Among the recurring threads in this desk.log column is the reading-log app — a simple tool for keeping track of what one has read. Every app has its own strengths, and readers gravitate toward different moods and interfaces, so this column tries to cover the range rather than settle on a single favorite. The app under review this time is Bbaegok, an app that feels like carrying an actual bookshelf inside a smartphone. It sits, in a sense, as the digital counterpart to the reading poster A Furniture Drawing for Reading covered earlier in this column (see the link at the bottom of this piece for that review).
A Shelf Organized by Time Builds a Reading Habit
The home screen that greets a user on opening Bbaegok is, quite literally, a bookshelf. Tapping the calendar icon in the upper right lets a reader set a time range and see, shelved in place, everything read within it — an easy way to measure how much ground has been covered in a given stretch. The default view organizes the shelf by year, so the number and titles of books read this year surface at a glance, which does real work in building a reading habit. Habit formation is, after all, one of the chief reasons anyone turns to a reading-log app in the first place, and Bbaegok gets this part right.
Shelving a Book Takes Only a Few Steps
Adding a book to Bbaegok is refreshingly simple, which means a first-time user adjusts quickly. Registration begins from the search tab: type in a title or author, and if the search turns up too many results, adding both narrows things down fast.
Once the right book appears, tapping the save button in the upper right places it on the shelf. Every entry falls into one of three states — Finished, Currently Reading, or Want to Read — and since most readers register a book while they're still partway through it, Currently Reading tends to be the default choice. From there, a reader can log when the reading began, and, once finished, the date it was completed. Marking a book as Finished also opens the option to leave a star rating, a small but welcome touch. Readers can additionally build custom shelves by genre, sorting titles the way they see fit.
The entire registration flow feels intuitive from start to finish, and the small flourishes in the interface at each step add a genuine sense of charm to the experience.
The Library Holds Even the Rereads
Once a book is registered, the Library tab shows everything logged so far. Finished titles display a star rating in the corner of the cover, offering an instant read on how the book was received. One especially distinctive feature is Bbaegok's handling of rereads: registering an already-logged title again opens a second, then a third reading record for that same book, each tracked independently. Few other reading-log apps offer this.
Selecting a book from the Library also opens the option to keep a reading note — jotted along the way or written up as a short reflection after finishing — giving a place to record impressions and thoughts alongside the log itself. The notes feature is fairly basic compared to what other apps offer, though it covers the essentials.
A Digital Shelf with an Analog Warmth
Bbaegok is, without question, a digital app for logging books read on a smartphone. And yet its defining trait is an interface built to evoke something distinctly analog — the quiet satisfaction of setting a finished book on a physical shelf, rendered here on a screen. The ability to view a year's reading at a glance, as noted above, does real work in building a habit and in looking back over one's own reading history. And the rereads feature — rare among apps of this kind — rounds out what makes Bbaegok worth the download. For anyone drawn to an analog sensibility in a reading-log app, or anyone who returns to books more than once, Bbaegok is a fine place to start.
desk.log | Putting Reading Into Writing — Furniture Drawings for Reading Poster
There's a point in any serious reader's life when just finishing books stops feeling like enough. You want a record — something that proves the time was real. I've covered plenty of digital tools for that in past desk.log entries: apps that sync across d
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