Blaise Labs

BL-001

Avid

A reading diary that talks back.

Visit Avidavid.chat

Live on the App Store

A printed page of Middlemarch with one sentence underlined in rust. A thread runs from the underline to an iPhone showing Avid's Notebook, where the same sentence is kept. The book's jacket lies beside them.
A sentence underlined on the page, and the same sentence kept in Avid's Notebook. From Avid's App Store page.
A conversation in Avid about Middlemarch. Avid writes: So here is my question back. Is the wadding a failure of sympathy, or the only thing that makes sympathy possible? The reader answers: The second, I think. You cannot attend to everyone. You can attend to the person in front of you.
A demo reader asks about a line in Middlemarch, and Avid asks a question back.
Access
Public. The first week is free, with no card. After that a new conversation asks for Avid Plus, the paid plan. What you have already kept stays open.
Started
Runs on
iPhone and iPad, and in the browser. Android is in a closed beta.
Led to
PebloriBL-002built to plan posts for Avid's own accounts

A book app for people who read to think. Avid keeps what you noticed, and brings it back when another book touches the same idea.

Bring a book, passage, question or highlight, explore it in conversation, and keep your notes and insights together. As you read more, Avid can reconnect earlier thoughts with the book in front of you.

The conversation is with AI. Avid asks what you make of the book and pushes back, so you stay the one doing the thinking. No feed, no followers, nothing public.

Notes

  1. Version 1.9.5. When you mark a book finished, Avid asks you one question about it, set beside something you said about another book.

  2. Version 1.9.3. Photograph a shelf, a bookshop table or a single book, and Avid names the books and adds them to your Library. The photos are not kept.

  3. Released on the App Store.

  4. Work began.

Read to think. A reading diary that talks back. A printed page of Middlemarch with a sentence underlined, beside an iPhone showing the Notebook.Keep what the page made you think. The Notebook, with a letter from Avid and the day's notes on Middlemarch.Ask what the chapter left you with. A conversation about Middlemarch in which Avid asks a question back.A letter every Monday, written from your week. A letter titled On unhistoric acts.See what you keep returning to. The Notebook's Ideas, with three novels on the desk.Every book, in the Library, shown in the dark appearance.Your reading year, spine by spine. A year of reading in numbers, with the line that stayed.The Avid wordmark, with the thread ending at the full stop after Read to think.

The eight pictures from Avid's App Store page.