LaunchKit · 2026
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book-reader

Read books (epub, pdf, txt) from various sources with progress tracking.

2
720 downloads
by @josharsh

Setup & Installation

openclaw skills install @josharsh/book-reader

Or with the ClawHub CLI, for registry-managed skill folders outside a full OpenClaw workspace:

npx clawhub install book-reader

What This Skill Does

Lets AI agents read full-length books in EPUB, PDF, and TXT formats from local files or online sources. Tracks reading progress across sessions so agents can resume where they left off. Supports chunked reading and key insight extraction.

Persistent progress tracking and multi-format support let agents work through book-length content without losing context between sessions, something most document tools don't handle.

When to use it

  • Summarizing a non-fiction book chapter by chapter
  • Extracting key arguments from a downloaded PDF paper
  • Resuming a long book read across multiple agent sessions
  • Searching Project Gutenberg for public domain texts to analyze
  • Building a reading list and tracking progress across titles

Example Workflow

Here's how your AI assistant might use this skill in practice.

INPUT

User asks: Read the first 50 pages of Thinking, Fast and Slow and summarize the main ideas

AGENT
  1. 1Search for the book using book-reader.sh search
  2. 2Download the EPUB from the matched source
  3. 3Read the first 50 pages with --pages 50 flag
  4. 4Extract key insights during chunked reading
  5. 5Save progress to reading-state.json for later sessions
OUTPUT

A summary of the opening chapters covering System 1 vs System 2 thinking, with bookmarks and notes saved for the next session

Requirements

Accounts, API keys, or tools you or your AI assistant may need to set up while using this skill.

poppler-utils installed (pdftotext for PDF support)pandoc installed (for EPUB conversion, optional)Python 3 with ebooklib, beautifulsoup4, and lxml packages