Book Nook vs Fable

Updated 3 November 2026

Of the nine apps in our comparison of bookshelf apps, Book Nook is the only one with both a reading timer and book clubs, and the only one with all 16 features in that comparison's table; no other app has more than 12.

Book Nook and Fable side by side

Fable checked on 3 November 2026: App Store listing, fable.co/blog/fable-reading-challenges-for-january-2026, help.fable.co/article/187-whats-included-in-fable-plus, help.fable.co/article/91-can-i-read-books-on-my-laptop-can-i-access-my-club-discussion-on-a-computer.

Your books on a bookshelf

Book Nook draws your books standing on wooden shelves, as covers or as spines. You drag a book to move it, lay it flat to start a stack, or tilt it. There are five themes (Simple, Dark Academia, Cottagecore, Coquette and Matcha Cafe), and you can design a theme of your own. You can place any of 65 decorations, such as plants, candles, lamps and dragons, between the books, and switch on lights under the boards.

The Real book sizes switch draws each book at the height of its edition, from mass market paperbacks to oversize editions. You can keep as many bookshelves as you like. The List and Mosaic views show the same books, and your books keep their places on the shelf. On iPhone and Android a home screen widget shows one of your bookshelves as the app draws it. See virtual bookshelf apps and the bookshelf widget.

Fable shows your books as lists of covers. It has no shelf themes or decorations.

Adding books

Book Nook has three ways to add a book. Search looks in Open Library, ISBNdb and Google Books and fills in covers, page counts and descriptions. The barcode scanner reads a book's ISBN with the phone's camera and fills in the cover and details (how to catalogue a home library). For a book no catalogue has, you add it by hand and take a photo of your own copy as the cover. Each book has a status, page progress and a quarter-star rating.

Reading timer and daily reminder

Book Nook's reading timer records each session with its minutes and the pages you read. On iPhone the running timer shows on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island as a Live Activity. With iOS 18 or later you can start it from Control Center, the Lock Screen or the Action button. On Android the timer shows as a notification with Pause and Stop, and you can start it from a Quick Settings tile or a home screen widget. The timer also works on the web. A daily reminder on iPhone and Android names the book you are reading; it is on at 6:00 PM by default, and you can change the time or turn it off. See reading timer apps.

Fable has no reading timer.

Reading statistics and goals

Book Nook's statistics show minutes and pages over time, a reading calendar, streaks, genres and a ratings chart. You can set a daily minutes goal and a yearly books goal. On iPhone and Android, home screen widgets show today's minutes against your daily goal, your streak and your yearly goal. On iPhone, Lock Screen widgets show the daily goal, the streak and the book you are reading. All of this is free. See reading tracker apps.

Fable has charts of your reading, with advanced stats in Fable Plus. Its yearly goal is free, and weekly and monthly goals are in Plus. It has a streak widget.

Monthly and yearly Reading Wrapped

Book Nook makes a Reading Wrapped for each month and each year as 9:16 pages. The iPhone and Android apps share them to Instagram Stories and TikTok, and the web app shares and saves them. See what Reading Wrapped shows.

Fable has Monthly Wraps and a year in review. Fable Plus adds more ways to customise the Monthly Wrap templates.

Book clubs, the feed, challenges and nooks

A Book Nook book club reads one book at a time. The app knows each member's page from their copy on the shelf, and another edition of the same book counts. A comment written by a member further ahead stays folded until you reach that page, or until you tap it. Start a private book club on any book page to read that book with friends you invite. See book club apps.

Every book page has reviews and a discussion thread. Spoilers the writer marks stay hidden until a reader taps them, and readers who finished the book see them in the clear. The feed shows what the readers you follow are reading, finishing and reviewing, with likes and comments. Anyone can create a reading challenge with a goal and a deadline, and there is a yearly challenge. Nooks are groups for talking about books. You earn points for reviews, posts, comments and finished books, and stamps for milestones such as a first review. Both show on your public profile. See reading challenge ideas for 2027.

Fable has book clubs, a feed, and monthly challenges set by Fable's editors. Fable sorts club discussion into rooms by chapter. Book Nook folds each comment by page, so you see everything up to the page you are on.

Platforms and sync

Book Nook runs on iPhone and iPad (iOS 17 or later), Android (8.0 or later) and the web at trybooknook.com. Your bookshelves, sessions, clubs and challenges sync between them. Fable has iPhone and Android apps; its help centre says its clubs cannot be used on a computer yet.

Price

Book Nook is free, with no subscription, no paid tier and no ads. Fable is free with ads. Fable Plus removes the ads and adds advanced stats, custom goals and Monthly Wrap options for $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Everand subscriptions include Plus.

About Fable

Fable is a book club app owned by Everand, part of Scribd. It rates in half stars; Book Nook rates in quarter stars. Fable imports from Goodreads (in beta) and Kindle; Book Nook imports Goodreads, StoryGraph and Fable files.

Book Nook for each kind of reader

Readers with a physical bookshelf

Scan each book's barcode as you go along your shelves, then arrange the books in Book Nook to match your real ones.

Readers who want an aesthetic digital shelf

Show a bookshelf on your public profile for friends to see, with the theme and decorations you chose. See ideas for an aesthetic bookshelf.

Readers who track their reading with statistics

Every chart and goal in Book Nook is free, and each timed session adds its minutes and pages to them, so the numbers come from the reading you did. On iPhone you can keep your streak and daily goal on the Lock Screen without opening the app.

Readers who keep a book journal

Each book keeps its dates started and finished, every timed session with its pages, a quarter-star rating and your review, with spoilers marked. You can export all of it as a JSON file at any time.

How to move from Fable to Book Nook

Fable has no export button. Two Chrome extensions, ShelfBridge and Fable Exporter, save your Fable library as a Goodreads-format file that Book Nook reads.

1. On a computer, add the ShelfBridge or Fable Exporter extension to Chrome.
2. Sign in to fable.co in Chrome and run the extension. It saves a file named goodreads_import.csv.
3. Create a Book Nook account on the web, or download the app on iPhone or Android.
4. Open Import books and choose Fable. On the web, pick the file straight from your computer. On iPhone, send the file to the phone by AirDrop or email, save it to Files, then choose it.
5. Review the list. Edit or leave out any book.
6. Import. By default the books go onto new bookshelves named after their status and books already on your shelves are skipped; you can choose one new bookshelf or an existing one instead, or update the books you already have. Missing covers, authors and page counts are filled in afterwards. You can undo the import for 7 days.

Book Nook reads the title, author, ISBN, status, rating, page count, dates and any written review the file holds. It imports Goodreads and StoryGraph files the same way. See how to move from Goodreads to Book Nook.

Which to pick

Pick Book Nook. It has the book clubs, feed and monthly wraps that Fable readers use, adds a bookshelf you can see, a reading timer and full statistics, and is free with no ads on the web, iPhone and Android. It is the only one of the nine with all 16 features we compared. Your Fable library comes across with a Chrome extension and Import books. For other comparisons, see Book Nook vs The StoryGraph, Book Nook vs Goodreads and Goodreads alternatives.