Before you join

A home for people who read in English: a library of shelves to browse, book clubs to join or start, and conversations about books that never spoil a page you haven’t reached yet.

No. Every feature is free to use — joining, the shelves, the author pages, starting and running a club, every room in it, its library and its meetings. There is no subscription and no paid tier.

A book’s Buy button takes you to Amazon, which may pay us a small commission. That costs you nothing extra, and it never decides which books we show you.

Anyone aged 18 or over. Browsing the shelves, the books and the authors needs no account at all.

Three things: an email address, a password (at least 12 characters) and a name to show other members. Or continue with Google instead of a password. Everything else — a photo, the genres you like — is optional.

Join Read2Reason

Not yet — Read2Reason is a website, made to work just as well on a phone as on a computer.

Any member can start a club and invite people with a link. A club can be open to all, open on request, or private and by invitation. Inside are its rooms: discussions, room chat, the reading schedule, meetings, polls for the next book, passages, author Q&As, reading sprints, bingo and a quiz, the club’s library, and its past reads.

Find or start a club

Every post is tagged with the chapter it talks about. You set how far you’ve read, and anything past your place stays hidden — title and all — until you get there or choose to reveal it. A spoiler inside a post can be wrapped so it shows only when someone clicks it.

Yes. A club’s host can say the club meets in person and add up to 10 places, each shown to the club’s members only or to anyone signed in — never to visitors who aren’t. Meetings can use one of those places, and anyone signed in can search for clubs in their own town.

Yes — a meeting carries a link to your own call (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or Jitsi). We link out to it; we don’t embed anyone else’s video on the site. Times show in each member’s own time zone, and a host can open a meeting to everyone on the public events calendar.

Real books on a club’s own shelves. The librarian — the host, or a member the host appoints — lists them, and members ask to borrow. You can have 2 out or asked for at a time; a loan is due back in 21 days unless the librarian sets another date, and if one is late your home page and About You say so. Each book has its own library code.

From ISBNdb, one of the largest book databases in the world: more than 24,000 books on 95 shelves today, every one published in English, and a page for each of more than 9,000 authors.

Yes. On any search that finds nothing, members can add a book by its ISBN — the 10- or 13-digit number on the back cover or the copyright page. We look it up, and it is then on Read2Reason for everyone. Each member can add up to 10 a day.

Yes — every book can go on one of your lists: Currently Reading, Already Read or Want To Read. Rate and review what you’ve read, see what other members thought of it, and recommend a book to someone with a note.

Yes, if you’re a member: open About You → Write a Blog. A post can have up to 12 pictures, and it goes on the Blog page as soon as you save it. Anyone can read it, comment on it and give it stars. Once a post has 10 ratings, if more than 70% of them are 2 stars or fewer, it comes off the Blog page and we tell you on your Message Board.

Not here — a book’s Buy button takes you to Amazon to buy it there: Amazon.in if you are in India, Amazon.com anywhere else, and the other one is a click away. Before you leave, it says where you are going. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases; it costs you nothing extra, and Amazon alone sets the price.

Read it on the home page, or follow it in any feed reader — our RSS feed carries each dispatch and each month’s eight trending books. No account needed.

No. Nothing to your phone, and no emails about what’s happening — your chats, messages and notifications wait inside Read2Reason until you come back to read them.

The only emails we send are the few an account can’t do without: confirming your address, a password reset you asked for, a warning about a sign-in from somewhere new, and notice before our privacy terms change.

Your lists are yours. In a club, members see where you are in the club’s book unless you keep your place private — and you can hide that you’re in the club right now, too. Your email address is never shown to anyone.

No. We never sell data, share it with advertisers, or put third-party trackers on the site. There are no ads.

Read the privacy policy and terms

Twelve months, then they are deleted. Who was in a club, and when, is not kept at all.

Yes. On your Message Board you choose who can message you — anyone on Read2Reason, or only people in your clubs — and you can block someone; they aren’t told. A message is at most 100 words, and nobody can send more than 30 one-to-one messages a day.

Choose “Forgot your password?” on the sign-in page and we will email you a link to set a new one. If you joined with Google, sign in with Google instead.

Yes — on Account settings (from your About You page), one button gives you a file of everything we hold about you.

On Account settings, under Delete My Account. The account is locked at once and fully erased after 14 days, in case it was a mistake. You choose whether your posts in clubs are removed or kept as “Former member”.

Email info@read2reason.com — a person reads every message.