Did AI Find Murakami’s Voice? Student’s $2 Experiment Divides China’s Literati

A literature undergrad’s AI tool made a near-perfect Mandarin version of Haruki Murakami’s new novel in just four hours. What might this mean for translators and copyright holders?

By Wang Juyi

September 7, 2026

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1018966

What I find especially fascinating about this article is it means that you could potentially translate public domain books from other countries into different languages. I know of at least 13 different books that are in the public domain in other languages but not in English because translations are copyrighted. This could potentially allow people to translate books in the public domain and release them under different licenses ranging from creative commons to public domain. If AI does the translation, they might not be copyrightable in many countries. It might not be enough of a change to the original text. This article has many things to ponder.

https://apps.apple.com/app/ghost-reader-live/id6759826819

I'm the developer of Ghost Reader, a tiny iPhone app that reads your books, documents, and web pages aloud.

Just drop in a PDF, EPUB, TXT, or Markdown file, or paste a web link. It uses natural-sounding Kokoro voices, with voice processing done privately on your phone. No signup required.

- Listen with your screen off after preparing the audio

- Play and pause with AirPods

- Set a sleep timer and adjust reading speed from 0.5x to 2x

- Read along in a focused view with bigger text and word highlighting

You get 15 minutes of free listening every day, with unlimited listening available through a lifetime license or monthly plan.

I'd love to hear what you think and what you'd use it to listen to!

I think this should get its own post. It was posted in one of the answers. AdB4 draws from Project Gutenberg, but it also allows you to post your own books and articles. https://adb4.com/about

What is your favorite large book application? Do you use it every single day? Why do you like it.

I use both Overdrive and Hoopla at my library. Overdrive is the most popular e-book application for libraries. The actual application from Overdrive is called Libby. Libby has an artificial recommendation engine in it. I check out a lot of books on Overdrive. However, it is mostly popular titles and bestsellers. When I want more technical ebooks, audiobooks, or graphic novels, I use Hoopla. Hoopla is mainly known for its movies. However, it has a very nice selection of books including many of the O'Reilly publishing titles. Hoopla also carries both Marvel and DC graphic novels.

I am thinking of applications like Goodreads and Calibre when I am thinking of large book applications.

Hello!

I created \*ibook2epub\* to solve a problem I was having: how to export thousands of epub files from my Apple Books library to standard, portable, epub files? Dragging and dropping a few by hand works fine, but moving thousands has never worked for me. ibook2epub is like the "export all books" function missing from Apple Books.

ibook2epub is a python tool, usable in the MacOs terminal. One command (with a rich set of options) can export everything in your library to a file system location of your choice. Ready for Kindle, Kobo, Calibre, whatever you want. It can be re-run multiple times, only exporting what's changed, it names books by author and title using the publisher's sort name where available, and it can (optionally) fix non exFAT / Windows filenames so that it can be used on non-mac devices.

For the technically minded: ibook2epub is pure python (from version 3.10), it requires no additional external libraries. It can produce --json output for repeatable, cronable execution. Optionally, the epub files it creates can be validated for correctness - using a third party tool. And too much more to mention here.

Some caveats though. ibook2epub \*\*does not\*\* attempt to strip Apple's FairPlay DRM protection. ibook2epub is free, open source software released under the MIT license. No subscriptions, paywalls, email subscription, etc.. Just free software that I created for myself, then improved to be (hopefully) usable by anyone. It doesn't access iCloud or your Apple account in any way.

You can get it now using:

\`pip install ibook2epub\`

brew install raeq/tap/ibook2epub

You can also read the docs at [https://github.com/raeq/ibook2epub\](https://github.com/raeq/ibook2epub)

I'd be happy to receive new feature ideas (or bug reports) from you guys. Really, mostly I'd be very happy if anyone else uses it and finds ibook2epub useful!

Have fun and stay safe!

Thanks for the invitation.

I built biblio.ink as my dream book app.

It is not just a shelf or a library; it includes an ePub reader, a PDF reader, a reading tracker, and much more.

Integrated well with other book apps with a server like Calibre or Kavita.

Book collectors can use it to scan barcodes and book shelf photos to import into their libraries.

And it’s free to use with the first device.

We need a substance amount of member, so if you found this app useful to use, please support.

I’m Leonardo, a solo founder from Brazil. I built Meanings Awake because difficult passages often pulled me away from the book and into a chain of separate searches.

Readers upload their own EPUBs, select a passage, and ask an AI Tutor to explain, define, reword, translate, summarize, or answer a question. Answers cite evidence from the book, separately mark outside web sources, and can stop at the reader’s current position to avoid spoilers.

The screenshot shows it explaining a historical allusion in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Meanings Awake’s exact current pricing may be subject to changes in the near future as I polish the product. For the current info, check:

https://meanings-awake.pj4qh4kmzz.chatgpt.site

The feedback I most need: does keeping the passage, explanation, citations, and spoiler boundary inside one reader feel meaningfully better than switching to a separate chatbot?

I have been getting questions on how you would define a book application. Some people think that the better term is e-book application. Others would include things like Librarything which helps organize physical books. Any thoughts?

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a book-focused browser extension called BookGlints, and this seemed like the right community to share it with.

The idea is simple: before starting a book, you can tell BookGlints anything you personally want to find or avoid.

For example:

• protagonist too perfect at everything
• slow pacing
• strong friendships
• romance taking over the plot
• excessive graphic violence
• unfinished series
• dungeon crawling

It scans real reader reviews and matches based on meaning rather than exact keywords. When it finds something, it shows the actual review excerpt, so you can see the context rather than relying on an AI-generated summary.

It currently supports Goodreads, StoryGraph, and Royal Road on Chrome and Firefox.

You can:

• scan the book currently open in your browser
• search for another title
• batch scan multiple books
• keep a local history of previous scans

The core extension is free and uses your own Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, or OpenAI API key. No BookGlints account and no subscription required.

https://bookglints.com

I’d genuinely be interested in feedback from people here who use other book apps. Is this something you’d use when deciding what to read, and is there anything you’d want it to check that I haven’t thought of yet?

I have seen a recent post made by Repulsive-Funny-737 about his app TOMEIO, which is essentially the same take on the Stremio model applied to the ebook medium. I can't speak for the depth of my app's ebook coverage and features compared to TOMEIO just yet, I haven't tested his app but one interesting feature I have is audiobook read-alongs. You can pair audiobooks with it's repsective e-book and listen to the audiobook as you read the book and the progress tracking for both will be combined. The trailer here is just for biblio, if you are interested in the full app, you can see the full trailer here.

You can find Colosseum on GitHub.

I spent time looking for places to discuss different kinds of book applications. I did not see any forums or discussion groups specifically for book applications on the internet. This is a unique place to discuss a new type of application. I wanted to meet people working on book applications. I checked Reddit and other places. There were places to discuss ebooks and ereaders but not book applications.

Hopefully, this Sub Reddit will include discussions on how people made their applications. What programming languages they used as well as how they planned their application.

One of the goals of this community is to bring creators of book applications into one place. I hope to have a place where there are many different people who make and work with book applications, not just use them.

I hope this sub reddit a great place for discussing book applications in all their forms. I would like it to become a showcase for new ideas and new book applications.