Books
Track your personal library, log reading sessions, and see when you’ll finish each book.
Building your library
Add books to your library with title, author, page count, and optional letter size (to estimate reading time). Each book has a status:
- Want to read — books you plan to start
- Reading — actively reading
- Finished — completed
- Dropped — decided not to finish
Status changes are automatic in some cases: logging a reading session on a “Want to read” book promotes it to “Reading”.
Logging reading sessions
Record how long and how much you read. Each session captures the date, minutes spent, and pages read. Sessions are the building blocks for all your reading stats.
Completion projections
Set a target due date on a book and the app estimates when you’ll finish based on your reading pace. The pace calculation uses your recent reading history — if you’ve averaged 20 pages per day over the last two weeks, that’s what it projects forward. You can also set a manual pages-per-day target for a specific book.
The projection shows:
- Estimated completion date — when you’ll finish at the current pace
- Days remaining — how many reading days until done
- Minutes remaining — estimated total reading time left
- Pages per day — your effective pace
Reading streaks
A streak tracks consecutive days you logged at least one reading session. Streaks reset if you miss a day. Build a long streak and the app shows your current count along with monthly totals.
Statistics
- Minutes read today, this week, and this month
- Books finished this month
- Currently reading count
- Total pages read per book
Tips
- Reading pace adapts: The more you log, the more accurate the completion estimates become. Log even short sessions — every page counts.
- Due dates are optional: Use them only if you have a deadline (library book, book club). Without one, the app still tracks your pace.
- Letter size helps: If you enter the book’s format (pocket, standard, large), the time estimation is more precise.
Our approach
Oter’s books feature is grounded in self-regulated learning theory (Zimmerman, 2002) and the spacing effect for reading retention. Progress tracking and pace-based projections support the forethought, performance, and self-reflection phases of learning. Distributed reading — small amounts over time — produces better comprehension than bingeing.