My Book Heaven — a hyperlocal library you lend from

The challenge

Every book lover has a shelf full of stories they’d happily lend — but there’s no good way to see who nearby has what, to lend without losing track of a copy, or to actually meet the readers around you. My Book Heaven set out to turn private shelves into a hyperlocal library.

What we built

A production-grade Go backend (Gin, PostgreSQL + PostGIS, Bun ORM) with the full lending system:

• Auth — JWT access/refresh with bcrypt, plus Google/Apple OIDC sign-in.
• Catalog & copies — canonical books, the physical copies you own, and per-copy visibility so you control what’s shared.
• Geo discovery — “books near me,” powered by PostGIS.
• Lending state machine — borrow, return, and trade, tracked end to end.
• Societies & connections — follow friends and join reading circles.
• Real-time chat — WebSockets fanned out over Redis pub/sub.
• Reminders, notifications, reviews & wishlists — including FCM push.

The same API backs both a web app and a React Native mobile app.

The outcome

The M1 backend is complete and verified end to end against Postgres + PostGIS — a real, geo-aware lending network with social and real-time features, built to grow feature by feature rather than through a rewrite.