Honestly, I'm personally not just after a self hosting solution, I'm mostly trying to replace US services and companies. As part of that, I've started using Jellyfin and I think it's great but the book library part is a bit clunky.
I think I've got three use cases:
- Research papers
- Textbooks
- Novels / Non-fiction
I'm okay with three separate setups for these too. I do listen to quite a few audiobooks but they're currently independent and I'm happy to keep it that way. I'm happy to hear integrated solutions, or suggestions for an audio book library, but this post is focused on the above list.
The main device I'd do most of my reading on is an iPhone but I'd also be wanting to open up the research papers and textbooks on my MacBook. I'd want to be able to add research papers from the iPhone, or at least a light weight way to list them to quickly add later.
Note taking and highlighting isn't an issue, I've started using markdown for this. Syncing how much of the book I've read is. Ideally between devices but on the one device would work too.
I figure I'll have to drop some of my aims here but I thought I'd see if anyone knows of decent setups to try. Neither Jellyfin or Calibre seem amazing but maybe I could just configure them better.
Since there is a mandated image here I'm starting to wonder if I'm really in the wrong place, but I put textbook cover there
I’ll second the kobo ecosystem but add that if you install the 3rd party koreader software on it it will make syncing to a local calibre-web seamless. And it leaves the stock reader software in place so you can read drm encrypted files if needed. I have a similar use case to yours where I use the device to read books but also papers, which I usually pdf and put in a specific shelf in calibre