As Bookworm becomes increasingly more established it is time to take a look at some of the exciting new features that have been added to the site and to introduce developments which are making Bookworm a fun site for readers and authors to visit and use. First let’s start with some housekeeping. Good housekeeping is essential to a website and Bookworm is no exception. Over the last few weeks, we have been working hard to improve the site, from adding new features to quality-of-life changes. Let’s talk about our biggest changes. The first involves authentication. When you register you will now receive a code to your email to confirm that the email belongs to the user. Thereafter the user can simply log in as usual. The landing page has had some big changes starting with a carousel being the main focus presenting an assortment of book and author related news. A book count has also been added for user’s interest. The “Add Book” button is now centre and foremost on the landing page for ease of use. Fifteen percent of unnecessary code has been removed improving load times and site performance for all pages by twenty percent. Improvements have been made to the navigation bar with a much cleaner and uncluttered appearance. Similarly, the drop-down menu on the avatar has been made more attractive improving the user interface of the site. Dark mode is also an exciting new feature that will be added shortly which will let users interact with the site as normal but with a darker theme, allowing easier accessibility in darker places and reduces eye strain. The settings page has also been updated, improving user interface, and reducing code which intern improves page loading times. Currently users can enter their username for the site, add their bio and update their socials. And now for the fun stuff. Bookworm has introduced a host of new features establishing connectivity between users allowing for a community of Bookworms to grow. A major advancement has been through the introduction of forums allowing Bookwormers to chat together and help one another with book choices and contribute to community building. Simply click on the “New Forums” icon on the navigation bar and start a thread. Other Bookwormers can “like” and comment accordingly. A fun attribute added to the site is the introduction of “badges”. “Badges” are earnt by Bookwormers completing challenges such as reaching reading milestones and the number of books a user adds to the site. These badges are displayed on the user’s profile page. Bookwormers can view how they fair with fellow users by checking the “leader board” page which ranks the badges and displays the best readers and highest challenge achievers on the site. This page also displays the challenges that readers can complete to earn badges. Highest ranked Bookwormers at the end of the month will receive a premium badge which they hold for the following month. Another development is the creation of a public user profile page allowing Bookwormers to access their friends account, show off their reading badges and follow their favourite authors and readers. So, to explore all this new functionality, jump onto Bookworm.art and have fun.