Global & personal catalog
Browse every book your community has made available, or catalog your own shelf in seconds with ISBN lookup.
Peer-to-peer book sharing
The library you
already own —
together.
Circle turns the books sitting idle on your neighbours' shelves into a library you can all borrow from. Lend, track due dates, meet at a pickup spot, and let trust do the paperwork.
Free, open source, and installable as an app
Returned on time
Due in 3 days
Maya's shelf
4 availableDune
Pachinko
Sapiens
Piranesi
Honesty0%
Lent0
Circles0
What's inside
Everything a sharing
library needs to work.
Not a marketplace. A small set of tools that make lending to people nearby feel effortless — and keep everyone honest.
Loans calendar
Every active loan on one calendar with due dates, gentle nudges, and handshake codes to confirm the physical handoff.
Book clubs
Join genre or neighbourhood clubs, post thoughts, and keep the conversation going after the book goes back.
Pickup spots & swap events
Find the café, library corner, or porch shelf that works as a drop point — then RSVP to community swap events where whole stacks change hands at once.
Honesty leaderboard
Return on time, earn trust. Badges and scores make reliability visible, so lending to a stranger stops feeling like a gamble.
Reading insights
See what you finished, what you lent, and how your circle reads — trends, totals, and contribution at a glance.
Wishlist board
Post the book you're hunting for. Anyone in the circle holding a copy can answer the call and pass it along.
How it works
Three steps to a
shared shelf.
01
Shelve what you have
Scan or search an ISBN and your books land in the community catalog. Mark anything you'd rather keep to yourself as private.
02
Lend and borrow nearby
Request a book, agree on a pickup spot, and confirm the handoff with a handshake code. The due date sets itself.
03
Build trust that travels
Every on-time return raises your honesty score — the reputation that makes the next borrow easy.
The idea, in numbers
Books want to be read.
The average home library is read once and shelved for years. Circle is a bet that a neighbourhood's idle shelves already add up to something worth borrowing from.
0Catalog, loans, clubs, wishlist, swaps, leaderboard, insights
0Costs nothing to run a circle — no fees, no listings
0Open source, self-hostable, yours to fork
0Installs as an app on phone or desktop, works offline
Inside the app
Built for the
boring parts, too.
Active loans
Due dates set themselves the moment a handshake code is confirmed.
DuneLent to Arjun · picked up at Bean & Bind12 days left
PachinkoLent to Nadia · porch shelf, 4th StDue in 3 days
SapiensBorrowed from Leo · returning FridayBorrowed
PiranesiReturned by Mei · on timeClosed
Wishlist board
Post what you're after. Someone nearby is probably done with it.
The OverstoryAsked by Priya · 2 offersFulfilled
Klara and the SunAsked by Sam · 1 offerPending
Braiding SweetgrassAsked by Nadia · no offers yetOpen
Tomorrow ×3Asked by Leo · 4 offersFulfilled
Honesty leaderboard
Reliability made visible, so lending to a stranger isn't a gamble.
Kept Their WordBadge earned at 25 on-time returnsUnlocked
Book clubs
Genre and neighbourhood clubs, with posts that outlive the loan.
Slow Sci-Fi34 members · reading PiranesiJoined
4th Street Readers18 members · meets SundaysJoined
Translated Fiction51 members · 6 posts this weekBrowse
Nonfiction, Loosely29 members · reading SapiensBrowse
Voices
Why people keep
their circle going.
“
Eleven books left my flat this year and every one came back. The due-date calendar did the nagging so I never had to.
“
I posted a wishlist request on a Tuesday and had the book by Thursday, handed over at a café two streets away.
“
The honesty score is the whole trick. You can see who returns things before you hand over a book you love.
Start with the books
you've already finished.
Shelve five, invite three neighbours, and see what a shared library feels like.