TECH CAFE

The Story of Reading Circle Website

HISTORY

Now, this is the part where I’m supposed to say I was washing dishes or taking a shower (why is it always during those moments?) and BAM — an idea struck me. Well… nope. Reading Circle already existed before the website.
Founded in 2024 thanks to two wonderful humans — Esther Mboche and Brenda Frenjo — the book club was alive and kicking, using a humble WhatsApp group chat as our HQ, in collaboration with the ALX Community Space.

Oops, that’s the club history. Let’s rewind to the website origin story…

🎬 Flashback to October 2024:

I wanted to build a personal book catalogue — just something simple to track what I read without depending on Goodreads or StoryGraph. I’m no genius — I got inspired by a YouTube video of a dev using Wix Headless CMS. I figured, “Hey, why not follow along and build my own book catalogue web app while learning this new tool?”

Then, life happened. (As it does.)

⏩ Fast-forward to January 2025:

While reading through club feedback, someone casually asked:

“Could we have a platform or even a spreadsheet with all the books we’ve read?”

And suddenly, my inner developer stirred.

I dusted off the half-built catalogue project and thought,

“What if I made this… but for us?”

And just like that, The Reading Circle Website was born! Fuelled by community, caffeine, and just a pinch of chaos. Oh, and maybe some superpowers… (Sorry, my inner Powerpuff Girls fan just kicked in.)

The Evolution: From Catalogue ➔ To AI Companion

No, I didn’t summon AI using ancient scrolls (though that would’ve been cool, I already have the incantations in my head).
Here’s how Reading Circle evolved:
Stage 1: The Basic Catalogue

Static list of books.
Manual reviews, manual summaries.
Felt like the internet in 2007 or current Goodreads. oops. (Nostalgic, but… no.)
Stage 2: The Upgrade — Gladwell AI

Introduced Gladwell Insights: AI-powered summaries, tone analysis, and theme breakdowns for every book.
Added Gladwell Chat: a real-time assistant readers could talk to about books, events, club stats, and even life’s great mysteries like “Should I DNF this book?”
Embedded AI directly into the homepage, making it easier (and way more fun) to explore. Or you are just lazy to navigate the website
Stage 3: Making It Feel Human
Personalized recommendations based on mood.
Quote and Theme Explorers.
A smoother, brighter, more engaging website design.

Behind the Scenes: What Powers the Magic

Gather round, my nerdy, weird-looking, and perpetually single friends.
(No, Garry, she still doesn’t love you.)

Let’s talk about the brains behind Gladwell AI.

• Chat is powered by gemma2-9b-it, a model created by Google.
  It’s part of the Gemma family — not to be confused with Gemini (the fancy flagship models).
  Gemma is open-source, instruction-tuned, and actually pretty smart for a model that doesn’t wear a tie.
  Think of it as the chill, community college cousin of Gemini who still gets the job done.
• Summaries & Book Insights run on llama-3.1-8b-instant, a model by Meta (yes, the Facebook people).
  Meta’s LLaMA models are open-weight LLMs, and version 3.1 is faster, smarter, and surprisingly good at literary summaries.
  I also use GPT-4 for another one of my side projects (Flashread) — but for Reading Circle, these two handle things beautifully.

So yes — AI’s doing the heavy lifting,
I’m just here writing the prompts and roasting Garry.

Why I Did It

I have a billion reasons (No I don’t, its not practical and you know it). But to mention some;

• Because reading should feel like an adventure — not a chore.
• Because book clubs are more than just “next meeting on Thursday” — they’re about connection, vibes, and shared feels.
  And AI? Well, it can boost that magic — not bulldoze it.
• Because books deserve more than just dusty lists — they deserve highlights, insights, and gasp-worthy quotes.
• And mostly…
  Because the future of reading?
  It should be a little smarter, a little faster, and way more fun.

Reading Circle isn’t just a club with a cool website. It’s an adventure, a conversation, and a whole new way to fall in love with books (and people—no, not like that! They’re already in love with books; just awesome reading buddies).
And honestly?
This is just the beginning.

See for yourself: https://readingcircle.vercel.app/