modbender book-reader
Read books (epub, pdf, txt) from various sources with progress tracking.
Purpose
Enable AI agents to read full-length books for learning, summarization, and knowledge extraction.
Features
- Multiple sources: Anna's Archive, Project Gutenberg, local files
- Format support: EPUB, PDF, TXT
- Progress tracking: Remember where you left off
- Smart chunking: Read books in digestible sections
- Summary generation: Extract key insights as you read
Tools Required
curlorwget- Download bookspandoc- Convert EPUB to text (optional, fallback to python)pdftotext(poppler-utils) - Extract PDF text- Python 3 with
ebooklibandbeautifulsoup4(for EPUB parsing)
Usage
Search for a book
./book-reader.sh search "Thinking Fast and Slow"
Download a book
./book-reader.sh download <book-id> [output-file]
Read a book (with progress tracking)
./book-reader.sh read <file> [--from-page N] [--pages N]
Show reading progress
./book-reader.sh status
Installation
# Install dependencies
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils pandoc # Linux
# brew install poppler pandoc # macOS
pip3 install ebooklib beautifulsoup4 lxml
# Make executable
chmod +x book-reader.sh
Book Sources
Project Gutenberg (70k+ public domain books)
- API: https://gutendex.com
- Free, legal, no DRM
Anna's Archive (shadow library)
- Millions of books, papers, comics
- Legal gray area depending on jurisdiction
- Use responsibly
Local files (your own epub/pdf collection)
Reading State
Progress tracked in ~/.openclaw/workspace/memory/reading-state.json:
{
"currentBook": "Thinking, Fast and Slow",
"file": "/path/to/book.epub",
"totalPages": 499,
"pagesRead": 127,
"lastRead": 1770957900,
"bookmarks": [50, 200],
"notes": "Interesting insight about System 1 vs System 2..."
}
Example Workflow
# Find the book
./book-reader.sh search "Daniel Kahneman Thinking"
# Download it
./book-reader.sh download 12345 ~/books/thinking-fast-slow.epub
# Start reading
./book-reader.sh read ~/books/thinking-fast-slow.epub --pages 50
# Continue later
./book-reader.sh read ~/books/thinking-fast-slow.epub --pages 50
# Check progress
./book-reader.sh status
Privacy & Ethics
- Public domain books (Gutenberg): Fully legal
- Copyrighted books: Check your local laws
- Consider buying books you find valuable to support authors
- Use for personal learning, not redistribution
Limitations
- PDF OCR quality varies
- DRM-protected books not supported (by design)
- Large PDFs may be slow to parse
- EPUB formatting may be imperfect in plain text
Use responsibly. Support authors when possible.