What we keep,
and why

The Ironic Book Club is the data controller for everything described here. For anything on this page — a copy of your data, a correction, deletion, or a complaint — write to post@ironicbookclub.com and a person will answer.

We are a small independent publication based in the United Kingdom and are not registered as a company. If that changes, the registered details will appear here.

Only these, and only because each one does a job:

Email address

To send you the monthly emails, and as the name you log in with. Required.

First name

So the emails are not addressed to nobody. Optional, and blank is fine.

Password

Stored only as a scrypt hash with a unique salt. We cannot read it, recover it, or tell you what it is — only replace it.

A record of your consent

The exact wording you agreed to, and when. This exists so we can show you asked to hear from us.

Sign-up and login times, and your IP address at sign-up

To detect abuse of the forms and to evidence the consent above.

What you submit

The page you reached, quotations you file, notes you pin, guesses you place, and the name you chose to file them under.

We do not ask for your postal address, your date of birth, your phone number or anything about your finances, and there is nowhere on this site to give them to us.

For the monthly emails: your consent.You gave it on the sign-up form and confirmed it by logging in with the password we emailed you. Not a “legitimate interest”, not the soft opt-in that applies to shops and their customers — consent, which you can withdraw at any moment without giving a reason.

For your account: to provide what you asked for.We cannot run a members’ area without storing who the members are.

For anything you publish: your consent, again. A quotation or a note is only visible to others because you submitted it for that purpose, and you can ask us to take it down.

Three suppliers, each doing one thing, each bound by a contract that forbids them using your data for their own purposes:

Resend

Sends the email. Sees your address and the message.

Vercel

Hosts the site. Processes requests as they happen.

Neon

Stores the database, inside the European Union.

Nobody else. We do not sell lists, we do not swap them, and we do not upload addresses to Meta, Google or any other advertising platform. If that ever changes it will require your consent separately, which we would have to ask for.

There is no analytics script on this site, no advertising pixel and no third-party cookie. That is why you have not been asked to agree to any — there is nothing to agree to, and the cookie notice sets out why in full.

What is stored on your device is stored by us, and is this:

A login cookie

Only once you log in. Strictly necessary, so it needs no consent. Deleting it logs you out.

A random reader id

So the drop-off chart does not count you twice. Not linked to your email address, and it tells us nothing about you.

The page you last logged

So the margin notes you have unlocked appear without waiting.

Links to booksellers carry an affiliate code, which tells the shop the click came from us. It does not tell us who you are, and it does not follow you around. What each link pays us is printed beside it, before you click.

While you are a member

Your account and consent record, for as long as you want the emails.

After you unsubscribe

Your email address only, on a do-not-contact note. Deleting it outright is how people get accidentally re-added later, so keeping it is the safer choice for you. Say the word and it goes entirely.

Things you published

Kept as part of the record of a month unless you ask us to remove them, which we will.

Sign-up IP addresses

Twelve months, then deleted.

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to hand over a copy of what we hold, correct it, delete it, restrict what we do with it, or object to it altogether. You can also withdraw consent for the emails at any time, which takes one click from the bottom of any of them.

One email to post@ironicbookclub.com does any of these. We will answer within a month, and in practice the same week. We will not ask you why, and we will not make you repeat yourself.

If we handle it badly you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office — ico.org.uk, or 0303 123 1113. We would much rather you told us first.

The club is not intended for under-16s and we do not knowingly hold their data. If you believe a child has signed up, tell us and we will remove the account.

If what we collect changes, this page changes before the collecting starts, and anything that materially affects you arrives by email rather than quietly appearing here. The date at the top is the version you are reading.