One great work of literature every day, chosen for the date. 7 times App of the Day on the App Store.
Not a reading list you will never finish, and not a feed. One novel, poem, play or essay each morning, with a short piece written to make you want to read it, and the whole book waiting behind it if it takes. Some days it will not be for you. That is the point: keep your line in the water and one of them bites, and you have found a book you will press on everyone you meet.
Hamlet on Shakespeare's birthday. Ulysses on Bloomsday. Dracula through October. Wuthering Heights on Valentine's Day, because love should always be a little unhinged. Thousands of works, four thousand years of writing, reaching well past the Western shelf to Diwali, Nowruz, Vesak and the lunar new year.
TODAY'S WORK
The day's work on a background painted by hand for that book alone: a blurb that sets the scene without spoiling it, a line worth keeping, and the gist in plain words for when the blurb leaves you guessing.
THE LIBRARY
Complete books, properly typeset and read inside the app, with more shelved every week: real page turns, hold a word for the dictionary, your place kept to the word. Download any and read with no signal at all. Many carry their original language beside the translation, switchable mid-chapter: Anna Karenina in Russian, Dante in Italian, the Odyssey in Greek.
AMBIENCE
Every book gets the weather it was written in. A storm for King Lear, the open sea for Moby-Dick, a fire and rain outside for a Russian winter. Rain, thunder, wind, fire, birds, a reading room after midnight: mix them yourself or leave it to the book. Nothing streams, and it plays on with the screen locked.
THE APP BLOCKER
Name the apps that eat your evening and The Daily Canon stands at the door. Open one and today's reading is offered first, with an honest fifteen minutes through if you really must. No guilt, no lecture. The feed will keep.
BLOOMY
A reader who has read the canon and, more usefully, your log. Ask what to read next, or what a passage is doing, or who else wrote like this. It answers in sentences, not links, and will shelve, log and rank things for you once you say yes.
WHERE YOU LEFT OFF
Put a book down three months ago? Say where you stopped and get back everything up to that point and not one word past it.
READING GUIDES
Warm, plain-spoken companions to the books that have beaten you before: Ulysses, Moby-Dick, Paradise Lost.
READING PATHS
Curated routes through the canon. The Russian Soul, through Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov. The American Century. Books That Were Banned. Required Reading, every set text the syllabuses share.
READ-ALONGS
Live inside one book for a while, alongside everyone who signed up. A chapter of Dracula a day to Halloween.
YOUR GOAL
One book, a little each day, logged by holding a button. A streak underneath it, a forecast for the finish, and a shelf of everything you have seen through.
MY CANON
Your own ranked canon, built by asking which of two books you liked more. Every ranking is a self-portrait.
YOUR LIST AND YOUR LOG
Shelves for what you intend to read, and a log of what you actually did. We keep both, and are far too polite to compare them.
IT WORKS WITHOUT A SIGNAL
Today's work, your log, your streak and every downloaded book live on your phone. Tomorrow turns over at midnight whether or not there is a signal to fetch it.
ALSO INCLUDES
The Commonplace Book, for every line you keep. Hundreds of authors with a page of their own. The world's literature, mapped. A literary word a day. What happened in literary history today, and the thought Tolstoy chose for it. Ten reading languages. Home and Lock Screen widgets. A reading timer in the Dynamic Island. Streaks, tiers and laurels. Your reading portrait, drawn from what you read. The Colophon, your year in reading, sealed and dated. Goodreads import. Spotlight search. Share cards. The Antipodes, a dare to the far side of your taste.
And thus my journey with this app began and continues still. I have read more literature in the last week than I have in the past year. Short stories, poems, essays, and whole novels—from different authors, eras, genres, and regions. This app is a bibliophile’s dream! Are you looking for a daily practice? They have the Bradbury Challenge! Do you need a break from doomscrolling? Come and get their app blocker! Are you seeking personal growth? Check out Tolstoy’s Calendar! Are you a lonely wanderer in search of community? Come to the Salon! Do you crave glory and honor? Come and earn your laurels, ranks, and titles! Are you simply looking for a good book that everyone praises but nobody seems to have read? Welcome home! Without reservation I can attest that the development team is incomparably responsive and invested in their app. I’ve reached out twice: once with a suggestion and the other with a bug report. The suggestion was added and the bug was fixed within 24 hours. I cannot recommend this app enough only because I cannot use this app enough! I look forward to reading everyday—a feeling I haven’t had since I was much, much younger.
So glad I found this app!
___Eponymous___
This app is fantastic! I can’t remember how I happened upon it, but I’m so glad I did. The organization and attention to detail is remarkable - from notable quotes from each work, to visual representations of their length, to digestible biographies (with pictures!) of each author, to the Tolstoy calendar - and all that in just the free version! I love how it allows me to save books I want to read (and, with the premium version, read them right in the app) or have already read. I love the titles of the Reading Paths and the well-written summaries. I love the premium features I’ve used so far. And my jaw dropped when I submitted feedback (super-easily, right from within the app) and not only did I receive a thoughtful reply (seemingly from a real person!) within 24 hours, but they even revised the app right away to address my concern! This app is clearly made by people who care about the product rather than by people just trying to make a buck. (I also love that there’s not constant pressure to pay for the premium version, as there is with so many other apps.) Everything about it brightens my day. ❤️
Developer Response
This one floored us a bit, thank you. There is a real person behind the replies, and reviews like this are exactly why he keeps showing up to write them. The app is built by people who genuinely love this stuff, and the quiet hope is always that it shows. Glad it does. Happy reading, and welcome properly to the canon!
My Favorite App Ever
AthenaZeldaRey
What wonderful witchery is this? That was one of my first thoughts as I explored this incredible app! If you love literature, want to revisit your favorite classics or find something new, or are wanting to expand your reading and literary knowledge, this app was made for you. It’s changing my life and daily habits for the better. I’m a life-long reader, but sometimes I go for long stretches without reading. No more. Now, I start and end my days with this app. Not only is the literary content extensive, but it’s so beautifully designed! The symbolic literary artwork that accompanies every work, the ability to quickly access the author biographies with little known facts about their lives, and the Salon! I’m currently reading Dracula with a cohort of people from all over the world and we’re sharing insights and laughs and conversation as we read it together chapter by chapter. Brilliant! A giant library, filled with likeminded people, all on their literary paths, intersecting here and there, sharing what they’ve learned. I never thought my life could be enriched by an app, but I’m happy to say it has.
Developer Response
starting and ending the day with a book is exactly the habit we hoped the app would make easier, so hearing that it's done that for a lifelong reader means a great deal! we're thrilled you've found the Salon. There's something lovely about a group of strangers across the world reading Dracula chapter by chapter, letter by letter, just as Stoker's first readers might have.Thank you for taking the time to write this. enjoy the rest of the Count, and mind the garlic.
Great app, great support
LapisLabs
A little literature to start the day just feels good, at the end of every day you get to be exposed to something new and worthwhile which is nice. The subscription is great value too, super reasonably priced for how much you get out of it.Also I had a little glitch happen with the font size not aligning with something behind the scenes which led to chapters cutting off some text at the end and I sent a chat about it and it got handled surprisingly quickly along with a really thorough response (shoutout Charlie and Hal) that I appreciated a lot. Bug reports usually disappear into the void so having a personal touch to it was really cool and it’s just gratifying to know you’ve been heard. Overall would recommend this to literally anyone in a heartbeat, give it a shot.
Developer Response
Thank you (Hal here!) that's genuinely made our week. bugs like the one you found are only fixable because people take the time to tell us, so thank you for that too.
Bug fixes and performance improvements.
Version 3.1.5
The developer, HENRY NICHOLAS WALL, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
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Information
Seller
HENRY NICHOLAS WALL
Size
699.2 MB
Category
Books
Compatibility
Requires iOS 26.1 or later.
iPhone Requires iOS 26.1 or later.
iPad Requires iPadOS 26.1 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 26.1 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.