How to track books to read

Software
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I’ve been meaning to revive this thread, and now someone else has done it and nudged me! I stopped using LibraryThing a couple of months ago, not for any particular reason, it just had a lot of utilities I didn’t need and it wasn’t simple/possible to remove information I didn’t care about. It had ended up being the same as GoodReads for me - a giant list of books I wanted to read that I only interacted with to add more books to. Little reading was taking place, and even when it was I wasn’t tracking it in LibraryThing. I also had an odd issue that I kept adding duplicate books to my list - it lets you add them and only warns you after - I then wondered what other version was on my list, but it was a few clicks to go find out, so I’d leave it and end up with duplicates floating about.

I started using Book Tracker, and it’s exactly what I needed. It’s simple, the data isn’t stored on a website, it’s not “social” (I don’t need forums and book recommendations, etc.), and a lot of it is customisable. Also, the developer is responsive, both to bugs and suggestions.

I did my book export from LibraryThing to Book Tracker, so I did spend I think 10-15 hours going through my whole list after import, deleting the duplicates I mentioned above, correcting some name and category details (it would’ve been easier to do that in the csv prior to import, but it didn’t occur to me until after). Since this list is almost 15 years old, and I didn’t correct it when I migrated from GoodReads to LibraryThing, I decided it was worth the time investment. It worked out as about an hour per year that I hadn’t reviewed my list. And I’ve decided going forwards I ought to review my list at least annually to keep it current and tidy. As the list had become a bit of a dumping ground, I also took the opportunity to delete titles that were no longer of interest, and tag titles that were no longer of interest but I was nervous to delete (turned out to be a lot, I have FOMO with books!) - I tagged them “low priority”. I also held a book amnesty with myself and found all my random notes with titles on that had never even been added to GoodReads/LibraryThing, and added all those too - as I had quite a lot of titles squirrelled away in other apps (I hadn’t really noticed that was a thing I was doing, but I think it’s because I wasn’t using my list well). This took another couple of hours during evenings while watching tv.

The Book Tracker widgets aren’t quite working currently (issue with the latest update that will hopefully be resolved soon) but when they were it turned out to be a thing I liked a lot. I had widgets showing me how much I’ve read each day and my progress towards my reading goal. I also have iOS shortcuts that update my reading progress whenever I read, which means I remember to update my new page count, etc. in real time instead of a month later when I finally open the app. (This was a problem with previous apps, but actually I’m engaging with Book Tracker more frequently so this isn’t such an issue.)

I particularly like the tagging and categories in Book Tracker. Categories is not perfect - when you add a new book to your list it tends to merrily add itself to a lot of categories, and since I’m policing that it then takes me a few minutes to re-categorise it myself and delete whatever odd new categories it’s created. However, I really like that I can set categories like this and define them myself, as it’s brought some order to my giant list. I’ve been using tagging to track some attributes/values that are important to me, e.g. I have one called “High priority” which is books I don’t want to lose track of and would prefer to read sooner rather than later. Again, this has helped bring order to my list in a way that suits me.

The categories and tagging functions aren’t mature yet - e.g. you can’t search by excluding categories or tags, only by including them (it’s on the road map), but once that’s available I think these two functions will be close to perfect. (The downside of this is I currently don’t know what books might not be in a category at all, as there’s no way to search for them.)

One thing I don’t like about the app (super minor complaint) is that with the latest update it now shows the Google rating of each book. It’s not particularly obtrusive but I really dislike that. At this time I haven’t seen an option to disable that function.

Overall the visibility of this app on my devices and its simple uncluttered functions means I’m already using it far more than I was GoodReads or LibraryThing. I’ve also been reading more the last couple months, so I guess it’s working!

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71

I applaud your fortitude! I found myself in a similar situation a few years back with lots of list scattered hither and yon that hadn’t been reviewed, pruned, or consolidated. I took the slacker’s way out: I declared TBR (To Be Read) bankruptcy, deleted all my TBR lists and started fresh with a dedicated TBR folder in Obsidian. (I use an MOC-like system with a note for each book.)

I’ve learned that I need to very intentional about what I put on my TBR lists. I make a separate note for each TBR item with basic bibliographic information plus a quick sentence or two about who recommended it and why I might want to read it. Sometimes I add links to reviews or author interviews. If I’m not willing to take ten minutes to put together the note, I’m probably not really going to get around to reading the book itself.

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72

I use a different approach. Rather than having a list of books (or other media content) I add interesting books as a child thought of a topic thought inside my brain in TheBrain app. They are also tagged as a book. So when I‘m interested in something I see stuff related to it in the plex (the map view in TheBrain), including books. The child thoughts sometimes contain an Amazon link, a Google Books link or sometimes just text. I noticed all of the more structured input was only to satisfy my inner nerd.

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What is MOC? …

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Map Of Content

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I see that @karlnyhus has already provided a good link re Map of Content (which is something I should have done in my post … ) I’ll only add that my TBR sort-of MOC (To Be Read Map of Content) grew out of my “Syllabus” approach to reading, watching, listening, attending, and exploring with intention.

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Made me laugh. I constantly have to resist my inner nerd, who wants to go Carl Linnaeus on my books.

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77

Every time I see a big collection of books shelved by color, my blood freezes.

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78

How shocking, mine are all in height order. :grin:

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But don’t they look nice? :slightly_smiling_face: :rofl:

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My bookshelves are full and bookshelves have filled my house. The chaotic mix of homemade and store-bought shelves often determines where and how I can file (or stack :slightly_smiling_face:) a book.

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81

Oh, they do!

The Strand Bookstore in NYC sells used books by the foot. You can buy them in color collections, by style, or by subject. You can also rent books by the foot if you need props for a set, say, or would like to impress a date. :wink:

From the Strand’s books by the foot curatorial staff: “All our books are taken from the Strand’s in-store inventory. Our collections are made up of used and new books that provide both high quality shelf presence and something great to read.”

I’ve been buying and selling used books at The Strand for decades, although I must admit that “high quality shelf presence” isn’t at the top of the list when it comes to adding to my collection.

I should note that I’ve largely gone digital with the exception of art books, photo books, and poetry.

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Isn’t it sad, that books are sold as some kind of stylish detail, instead to sell them for reading them?

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Well, I suppose it’s better than chucking them into a landfill. In fairness, The Strand does do a brisk trade in new and used books sold to actual readers. In addition to the more valuable volumes that are shelved inside they also have thousands of $1 and $2 used books for sale on racks outside the store, and there are always people rifling through them looking for something that appeals.

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84

Min is in height order as well.

I did the color once, loved it, and didn’t care that my guest wasn’t amused that the authors or titles were not organized to their liking. I only have about 300 hardbound, so looking for the title isn’t difficult.

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The Strand is also kind to not wealthy graduate students who need older scholarly editions

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I love organising books by colour. It actually makes sense psychologically, as we often can remember a book by its cover (visual memories can be stronger than verbal memories, e.g. the name of an author), so unless the spine is a different colour to the front cover (surprisingly common), it’s a good way to navigate. Children’s book collections are also often arranged by colour, because even if children can read their verbal memories are much weaker than their visual/colour memories in that stage of life (and of course younger children can’t read yet so need a different way to navigate).

My books are arranged in a ridiculous system currently. On a whim last year I decided to group them by topic, then subgroup them by colour within that topic, except where an author had written multiple titles within the same group with different spine colours, in which case they got grouped together, or where there were multiple books with different spine colours about the same person, in which case they got grouped together. Just in case that system wasn’t stupid enough, I went ridiculously specific with my topics so some end up only filling half a shelf (e.g. “Ancient Rome” would’ve been a sensible category, but I actually went with “Romans”, “Stoics”, “Books about Rome” all as separate groups). The result is chaos, you can’t tell that they are arranged by colour in their tiny little groups, and only I can now navigate my shelves. Even I am now struggling to work out what some groups are.

I have for the last few months been eyeing up my shelves and wondering whether to stop being an insane person and put them in a new system, but it’s like a weekend’s work and it’s a waste of a summer weekend. For my next system I’m torn between colour (but I don’t like splitting up authors or topics), A-Z the whole lot by author (but I don’t like splitting up topics) or topics (but do I A-Z by author? What about subtopics? That’s the mess I made this time round!).

As a student I worked for years in a book shop. It’s probably good that I don’t any more. (I love my career, but part of me still considers this the best job I ever had.)

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87

I put my list in the Apple Books “Want to Read” list. This usually gives me a sample to see if I really do want to read it. I usually borrow them from the library rather than buy them, but it’s a good place to keep a list.

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88

I use an app called Reading List. It tracks what you’re reading, what you’ve read, and what you want to read. It’s really easy to add books ant to switch between your lists.

I’m using the free version, but the developer offer a pro version for $9.99 per year.

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Great idea. :grinning: