Why it's called Stoa
A stoa was a long roofed colonnade on a Greek city's public square, where anyone could stop to trade, argue and listen. Around 300 BC Zeno taught in the Painted Stoa of Athens, and his followers were named after it: the Stoics. Seneca and Marcus Aurelius carried the idea to Rome. A book club does the same thing: it keeps meeting to read and talk. Stoa gives it a porch online.
The words we use
- The Porch is your club's home page: the next meeting, the current book, recent talk.
- A gathering is a club meeting. Its date is set with a Venn poll, a quick group calendar.
- The Shelf holds books up for the next pick.
- The ranked vote picks the next book. Everyone ranks the choices, so the book most people want wins.
- The Painted Wall is every book you've finished, with reviews. It's named for the Painted Stoa, which was hung with paintings.
The quotes
The lines at the top of the home page come from public-domain translations: Seneca by R. M. Gummere, Marcus Aurelius by George Long, Epictetus by T. W. Higginson, and Zeno as told by Diogenes Laertius, translated by R. D. Hicks. Each visit starts on a different one.
The mark
Three books as columns under a roof. The last one leans.
What we promise
- Free for every club. No paid plan.
- No ads and no tracking. Here or in the app.
- Your history is yours. Organizers can download everything, any time.
- Open source. The code is on GitHub under the MIT license.
How it's paid for
Stoa runs on Cloudflare, which keeps hosting cheap enough to stay free. If that changes, we'll say so here first.
Get in touch
Write to hello@stoareads.app or open an issue on GitHub.