📚 Book Explorer

Book Explorer is a modern, responsive React web app that allows users to search for and explore books using the Open Library API. With a sleek UI built using Tailwind CSS, users can search books by title, author, or keyword and view detailed information about each book.

✨ Features

• 🔍 Search functionality for books by title, author, or keyword
• 🖼️ Beautiful book cards with cover images and author details
• 📖 Detailed book pages with descriptions, subjects, authors, and links
• 💅 Clean, responsive UI with Tailwind CSS
• ⚡ Fast client-side routing using react-router-dom
• 🔁 Initial fetch of "bestsellers" on homepage load
• 🌙 Dark-themed layout with subtle gradients and animations
• 🦾 Loading states, graceful error handling, and fallback UI

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• Vite – Fast build tool for modern web apps
• React – Frontend UI library
• Tailwind CSS – Utility-first CSS framework
• React Router DOM – Client-side routing
• Open Library API – Free public API for books data

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/martian58/book-explorer.git
cd book-explorer

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Start the development server

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 to view the app in your browser.

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📂 Project Structure

book-explorer/
├── public/               # Static files (e.g. favicon)
├── src/
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── Book.jsx      # Book card component
│   │   └── Footer.jsx    # Sticky footer
│   ├── pages/
│   │   ├── Home.jsx      # Homepage with search and results
│   │   └── BookDetail.jsx# Book detail page
│   ├── App.jsx           # Routing config
│   └── main.jsx          # React root
├── index.html
└── vite.config.js

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🖼️ Screenshots

🔎 Home Page

Hero section with gradient title and search bar.
Dynamically updated book grid. Fully responsive with smooth animations.

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📘 Book Detail

Displays cover image, title, description, subjects, and authors.
Authors fetched dynamically with clean badges and external links.

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🔗 API Used

• Open Library Search API: https://openlibrary.org/search.json?q=...

• Open Library Works API: https://openlibrary.org/works/{id}.json

• Book Cover Images: https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/{cover_id}-L.jpg

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💡 Future Ideas

• 📌 Add user bookmarks or reading lists
• 🌐 Filter by genre or language
• 🔖 Pagination and infinite scroll
• 🗣️ Add user reviews (via external API)

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📄 License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

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🙌 Acknowledgements

• Open Library for their awesome public API
• Tailwind CSS for the styling magic
• Heroicons for icons