Calibre is quite possibly one of the best self-hosted apps – full stop.
I’ve been a calibre user for many years (although not the 15+ years its been around), but only ever used the Windows app, so I decided to include calibre in my docker container list – just because!
Calibre has a built-in e-book viewer that can display all the major e-book formats Mobi, epub, pdf, etc.), and has full support for things like Table of Contents, highlighting, bookmarks, CSS, read aloud, reference mode, printing, searching, copying, multi-page view, embedded fonts, and so much more.
You can use calibre to automatically deliver RSS feeds to your device from hundreds of Internet news sources like The Economist, New York Times, New Yorker Magazine, The Guardian, BBC News, National Geographic, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Scientific American, Wired Magazine, The Telegraph, Forbes, Ars Technica… The list is huge – The capability of this tool is amazing
Configuring the Docker compose file is pretty straight forward – you only really need to set the path to where your books will be stored, and optionally change the ports it will use.
Once running, you can add new books to your library by simply clicking the “Add books” option. You can add single books, or entire folders in one go.
For those who like to be really organised, you can edit the metadata of your books with as much detail as you wish.
Calibre has a built in book finder utility that will scour the many online repositories for any title you want.
This is a must have app for anyone who reads.
The next app I explore is Speedtest-tracker