Keeping a record of the books you've read

[Mobbd]

What system (if any) do you have for recording the books you've read?

Since 2006, I've just jotted down each title and its author in a Google Doc.

It's quite a handy record. Since Docs is searchable, I can check what I've already read if I ever need to (e.g. which Wodehouse). And it's nice as a memory jogger in that I can usually remember other things that were going on while I was reading a particular book.

I found recently that, when I left university in 2005, I exported my borrower history from the library website. I didn't read everything I borrowed but it kinda extends my record keeping even further back than I thought. Once again, it's handy.

I have never recorded any reviews/thoughts about the books I've read. I can't be fucked with that.

I don't do this for film or telly or live entertainment. Just books for some reason.

I usually include graphic novels (and occasionally trades) but not usually general comics. Comics just feel like too different an experience to make the list somehow.

Anyone else do this? If so, do you find it useful in any way or pointless? And how far back/how complete are your records?

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I have a Goodreads. It's pretty crap but there doesn't seem to be a better alternative. It's owned by Amazon I think and they don't seem interested in making it particularly modern or enjoyable to use, unfortunately. Can't be arsed with making my own spreadsheet or whatever though so that's that I suppose.

[Mobbd]

I have a Goodreads. It's pretty crap but there doesn't seem to be a better alternative. It's owned by Amazon I think and they don't seem interested in making it particularly modern or enjoyable to use, unfortunately. Can't be arsed with making my own spreadsheet or whatever though so that's that I suppose.

I don't like Goodreads for the same reasons you mention. LibraryThing is nice, though it's geared toward book ownership more than what you've read. I think you can mark things as 'read' or 'currently reading' there but I don't know if there's a way of entering books borrowed from mates or from the library.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I have a wordpad file that lists all of the books in alphabetical order, and it's got pretty much everything I've read since 1995. I started adding reviews in 2018 as I noticed how bad my memory was getting, but they're only two or three lines and essentially sum up the main things I liked or disliked about a book. Since 2020 I've been doing the same with graphic novels, though sometimes the reviews are a bit longer, mainly as they're what I post on here and I occasionally rant or rave about things in depth.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I've been writing them in a notebook for the last 7 years or so.  Just the title/author and the date I started it. No other info except for a couple I quit on I noted what page I got up to.

[Mister Six]

I use Goodreads too. I won a free book in their giveaways the other week, although it looks like some right-wing pro capitalist drivel I signed up for in a moment of whimsy. Of course I didn't get the new Alan Moore book. :(

[FalseRodHull]

I have a Goodreads. It's pretty crap but there doesn't seem to be a better alternative. It's owned by Amazon I think and they don't seem interested in making it particularly modern or enjoyable to use, unfortunately. Can't be arsed with making my own spreadsheet or whatever though so that's that I suppose.

There's a pretty good alternative in the shape of StoryGraph (https://app.thestorygraph.com). Can import all your Goodreads data and they are actually updating it with new features. Plus it has all the juiciest Bezos fanfiction Amazon DON'T want you to see

[IsavedLatin]

I've been writing them in a notebook for the last 7 years or so.  Just the title/author and the date I started it. No other info except for a couple I quit on I noted what page I got up to.

This is exactly my system, except I jot the date I finished the book. Starting to wonder, though, like @Small Man Big Horse, whether I need to add in a sentence, or even a phrase or two, to help jog my memory a bit. Some titles can evoke a clear memory but some titles mean absolutely nothing.

[Mr Vegetables]

Ms Vegetables is very into storygraph, which is apparently very good! I always feel depressed logging this sort of thing, though, to me it feels like turning things I enjoy into some kind of test or a chore

[Small Man Big Horse]

Some titles can evoke a clear memory but some titles mean absolutely nothing.

That's the situation I found myself in too, there was discussion of Julian Barnes on here recently and I knew I'd read Arthur and George and A History Of The World... and one other, but for the life of me I couldn't remember which one it was, and it was only by doing a google image search that I realised it was Talking It Over, but despite that I don't remember anything else about it.

[JesusAndYourBush]

This is exactly my system, except I jot the date I finished the book.

The date I finished one is the date I started the next (or within a day). It saves me unnecessarily writing out the same date twice.

[IsavedLatin]

The date I finished one is the date I started the next (or within a day). It saves me unnecessarily writing out the same date twice.

I work in book publishing, which means that I do a hell of a lot of merely dipping into books, and not necessarily completing everything I start. (This approach has taken years in the industry, and as I reached my 30s a more close sense of my time on earth being finite, to progress to.) I don't log all the books of which I read perhaps a hundred pages; completion is my metric for a book meriting getting logged.

[Pranet]

I am another who just writes the titles in a book.

We have discussed this before and whether it affects reading habits, and I admitted that for some reason ridiculously I do sometimes find myself reading shorter books in order to make my list of completed books longer.

[touchingcloth]

I've switched from Goodreads to Storygraph recently. I never gave a book under 3 stars, because if a book was worth less then it wasn't worth finishing, and giving a rating to a book I haven't completed feels harsh. Storygraph allows for half/quarter stars, so I can rate things on something other than a 3 point scale.

[Mobbd]

I work in book publishing, which means that I do a hell of a lot of merely dipping into books, and not necessarily completing everything I start. (This approach has taken years in the industry, and as I reached my 30s a more close sense of my time on earth being finite, to progress to.) I don't log all the books of which I read perhaps a hundred pages; completion is my metric for a book meriting getting logged.

Publishing?! You should save some of the souls in the "Do we have any published writers on the forum" thread.

Completion is an important element of my logging system too. I only record books I finish (in my case most of them). And I do an honourable mentions section at the bottom of the list for books read in substantial part but ultimately abandoned (usually about 3 a year - they're not always bad but I sometimes just feel I've learned enough). And I don't log it at all if I dump it after just 40 pages or whatever.

I don't date anything for those discussing dates. But the order of the list is very important: the order in which I finished them.

[Zero Gravitas]

I used to use goodreads under the impression being a collector of some sort was cool, as it has coverage of pretty much everything published thanks to the AMZN connection, but ultimately it's an extra annoyance to keep up and I'm going to remember what I liked from Blue of Noon if it's on some little list or not.

As a recommendation engine goodreads was iffy, I quite often want to read something drastically different to my previous preferences so I'm happier actually taking the time digging around worldswithoutend or themillions or bookriot to find something interesting than I am to put my trust in some slope one or tag cloud bullshit.

Get some bookcases and lists of all kinds be damned, it might even make John Waters want to fuck you.

Alternatively just stack them for a nicer alternative to being crushed by old newspapers when you're 80.

[Inspector Norse]

As a recommendation engine goodreads was iffy

I use Goodreads just because adding books is easy, but the recommendations are a pile of shite.

You read a book by an Argentinian author? Well then, you must want 500 recommendations of books in Spanish. And no option to filter recommendations by language!

Seems to work on the same principle as Twitter noting that I read a tweet about UK politics so must be interested in what Paul Embery or Sophie Corcoran has to say.

I did get a reading diary from my partner years ago, and for a while I dutifully jotted down every book I read with a few lines summarising my thoughts, but it seemed to go missing when we moved and hasn't yet turned up in a box in the attic.