Jump to content

Tracking Your Reading


Kudz

Recommended Posts

I know there are various websites and apps these days which allow you to track your reading, however I was wondering if anyone on here keeps track via good old pen and paper.

 

Years ago, I used to have an old-style exercise jotter, the type you used to get at school, which I used to record all the books that I had read – it was very simple, just the title and author – but it was my pride and joy. I can’t remember when I started it, but it had a lot of the books by authors I read when I was younger, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl etc, so I’m thinking maybe from about the age of 10. I was meticulous about writing in it and kept it updated religiously.

 

Then as I got older, and I got my first computer I decided to transfer all the information over on to a word document and disposed of the notebook. Everything went swimmingly until about 2006 when my computer crashed, and I lost everything. I stupidly did not have a backup, and at the time wasn’t computer savvy enough to be able to retrieve it. Now if it happened, I’d be able to recover it, but back then I didn’t have a clue, so the information was lost forever. I did have a couple of the latter years’ worth printed, but for the most part it was gone. I was devastated and, if I’m honest, still am.

 

I have never kept a record since, although not for lack of trying. Yes, I have tried sites like Goodreads, LibraryThing and Shelfari over the years but they have never lasted more than a couple of months because I just can’t get on with them. It bothers me too much that the book covers don’t match, that the page counts are inaccurate and so on and so forth. I also think there is a huge part me that just doesn’t like relying on a website that is out of my control and that could disappear at any time, without warning, taking my reading history with it.

 

Since registering on BCF again and looking at some of the older reading logs it has inspired me to restart my own record, both on here, but also via pen and paper. So, I have selected myself an appropriate notebook from my rather large stash and I’m going to start from scratch. After contemplating what I want to keep track of I have decided to do what worked for me before – title and author – as everything else I have tried over the years has fallen by the wayside so I’m going back to basics.

 

Anyway, my question is - how do you keep track of your reading? Do you just use the reading log feature on BCF? Do you use sites like Goodreads? Or do you keep a physical reading journal, and if so, what information do you keep track of?

Edited by Kudz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I keep track of my reading. I use an Excel spreadsheet with author, title, category (i.e.fiction or not), start date, end date. I have this backed up on the cloud and every so often I do a manual back up of my hard drive to an external hard drive. Not lost anything yet I'm glad to say but am very careful. And I use it a lot, not just to record what I've read but to remind me of what I've read and when so that if I feel like planning my reading I can do so. And I grey out the DNFs too.

 

I am now a member of Goodreads and use that as well and it is possible to get the exact book that you are reading if you copy and paste the ISBN number into the search facitlity. I have yet to figure out how to alter the number of pages though and this is inaccurate but they tend to have the same amount as the information on  Amazon which is where I buy most of my books so I don't let it get to me too much.  Been there a year and log on at least once a day. I've found a lot of authors that I didn't know about so I'm quite happy with it.

 

As mentioned elsewhere I moderate Book Group Online and keep a record on there as well.

 

I do record my finished reads here too and generally do a review both there and on BGO

 

It didn't occur to me to use pen and paper - my favourite substance in the whole world! - so I have no idea how I'd get on with it but from my use of the spreadsheet (I've been using that since 2007) I'm not sure how looking through a written journal to find out if I've read a book or when would work. That just may be my lack of imagination/organising abilities though. Lazily, I can perform a search on each year using the search facility on the spreadsheet.

 

I do use an app called Book Crawler on my tablet and iPod which helps me to keep track of my collection of books and I can also use that to find out what I've read and when, not to mention if I still own the book, so that's quite useful.  I did not enjoy scanning my books in though and I have that app backed up like you would not believe!

 

I'm sorry you lost all of that information and I hope that you can pretty much remember what you read. I didn't keep a record of the books I read as a child but the ones that made an impact are the ones that I remember. 

 

I'd be interested in how you get on with paper and pen so I hope that you keep us posted. Most interested in how you lay it out.

Edited by lunababymoonchild
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I keep track of my reading. I use an Excel spreadsheet with author, title, category (i.e.fiction or not), start date, end date.

 

I’ve seen a lot of book tracking Excel spreadsheet templates available online to use; a lot of Booktubers use them. I’ve investigated some of the ones that they’ve made available for others to use, and they are, quite frankly, amazing. I love all the graphs and charts that you can have, but they do tend to track things that I personally have no interest in tracking and without modifying them quite extensively, they don’t suit my needs. They are a good idea though.

 

21 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I am now a member of Goodreads and use that as well and it is possible to get the exact book that you are reading if you copy and paste the ISBN number into the search facitlity.

 

From my experience searching for books on GoodReads via ISBN is the best way of doing it but it doesn’t always guarantee the exact same edition as the one you’ve read. Books have multiple print runs, and page counts and covers can both change, and to my knowledge there is no way of selecting the correct cover without changing the edition. I may be wrong on this though, so apologies if my information is incorrect.

 

21 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I'd be interested in how you get on with paper and pen so I hope that you keep us posted. Most interested in how you lay it out.

 

I’ve also thought about keeping a full-on reading journal where each book would have its own page. I’d print out the cover, keep track of the particulars, along with a short synopsis and then a review. I quite like this idea, but it also feels like it might be quite time consuming; I can type a hell of a lot faster than I can write so I have discounted this idea for the time being.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have used Goodreads for years despite the fact that it is a mess that really needs updating. Alongside this I have used a pocket notebook to keep track of title/author/date/rating of the books I've read for the last 8-9 years. I have never trusted Goodreads to not suddenly lose all my information so keeping a physical backup was a no-brainer for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 27/03/2022 at 9:34 AM, Kudz said:

 

I’ve seen a lot of book tracking Excel spreadsheet templates available online to use; a lot of Booktubers use them. I’ve investigated some of the ones that they’ve made available for others to use, and they are, quite frankly, amazing. I love all the graphs and charts that you can have, but they do tend to track things that I personally have no interest in tracking and without modifying them quite extensively, they don’t suit my needs. They are a good idea though.

 

I did not know about that. I made up mine by myself and it has the information that suits me in it. 

 

On 27/03/2022 at 9:34 AM, Kudz said:

I’ve also thought about keeping a full-on reading journal where each book would have its own page. I’d print out the cover, keep track of the particulars, along with a short synopsis and then a review. I quite like this idea, but it also feels like it might be quite time consuming; I can type a hell of a lot faster than I can write so I have discounted this idea for the time being.

 

Well, yes. I'd rather read the book than write about it. The advantage of keeping a book journal is that the reader thinks about what they have just read but I'd rather read a book than write about it so my wee spreadsheet does nicely for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

 

 

 

 but I'd rather read a book than write about it

Me too, which is why I'm not very good at writing reviews (either putting the words together or getting around to getting the words on paper). I'm happy to talk about book until the cows come home though.

Edited by France
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 26/03/2022 at 10:23 AM, Kudz said:

Everything went swimmingly until about 2006 when my computer crashed, and I lost everything. I stupidly did not have a backup, and at the time wasn’t computer savvy enough to be able to retrieve it. Now if it happened, I’d be able to recover it, but back then I didn’t have a clue, so the information was lost forever. I did have a couple of the latter years’ worth printed, but for the most part it was gone. I was devastated and, if I’m honest, still am.

Oh that is sad :( I’m sorry you lost all your notes! 
 

If it makes you feel any better about keeping a record here, we do have a daily backup of all our files. So, even if something did happen to the website your book log would be safe! 
 

On 26/03/2022 at 10:23 AM, Kudz said:

Do you just use the reading log feature on BCF? Do you use sites like Goodreads?

Both of these but I do like the idea of keeping a physical list. I do love notebooks :D. I have considered a spreadsheet as well but they feel too much like work to me!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 29/03/2022 at 11:47 AM, lunababymoonchild said:

....but I'd rather read a book than write about it so my wee spreadsheet does nicely for me.

 

Me too. I love discussing the book I’ve read with others, but I’m not really interested in writing about it in the form of a review. Like you I would rather spend my time reading, rather than writing, so I’m going to go down the minimal route when it comes to my reading journal. The simpler the better.

 

On 31/03/2022 at 10:01 PM, Hayley said:

Oh that is sad :( I’m sorry you lost all your notes! 

 

I still haven’t gotten over it. I think it traumatised me.

 

On 31/03/2022 at 10:01 PM, Hayley said:

I have considered a spreadsheet as well but they feel too much like work to me!

 

Same. I spend all day at work on a computer so I’m trying to minimise my time spent looking at a screen outside of work and faffing about with spreadsheets (even though, admittedly, they are rather pretty) is not something that I really want to do. However, if anyone is interested go on YouTube and search for reading spreadsheets and your mind will be blown with the fanciness of them all!

 

On 31/03/2022 at 10:01 PM, Hayley said:

I do love notebooks :D.

 

Yeah, me too. I have quite the collection.

 

I’ve selected two notebooks – a rather lovely golden one with a bee on the cover which is now my official reading log. I’ll be keeping a list of books read in the form of the title and author, nothing else. I’m going back to basics. It worked for me before so I’m sure it will work for me again. My goal is to see how long it will take to me to fill it completely.

 

The other notebook I have selected is just a standard black grid notebook and I’m going to use this one as my author-back-catalogue-to-read list. I’m still figuring out the details of this one though so it’s a work in progress.

 

I am going to be keeping a Word document too, but again I’m keeping it simple. It’s basically going to be a digital back-up version of the notebook, although I will also be keeping note of whether it is part of a series or not.

 

I will also be keeping my reading log on BCF and although I have put up the initial thread for it I’m going to be tweaking things a little as I have had some thoughts about what I want to do with it, so I will be spending some time on that soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

This is going surprisingly well; keeping it simple seems to be the way to go for me and the journal is filling up nicely. If I can keep up with it throughout the rest of this year, I may post a few images if anyone is interested in seeing them.

 

I had a couple of weeks of annual leave a few weeks back and whilst off I made the decision to restart a book blog where I am posting reviews of all the books I read. So far this is also going well and at some point, I will copy and paste them all into my reading thread on here, which has not gone as well.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/24/2022 at 2:13 PM, Kudz said:

 I may post a few images if anyone is interested in seeing them.

I am! 
 

On 9/24/2022 at 2:13 PM, Kudz said:

So far this is also going well and at some point, I will copy and paste them all into my reading thread on here, which has not gone as well.

Good idea :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/26/2022 at 6:37 PM, Hayley said:

I am!

 

On 9/26/2022 at 6:43 PM, lunababymoonchild said:

I'd love to see them too

 

I’ll aim to post some pictures of both journals towards the end of the year.

 

To be fair the book journal itself is straightforward and there’s not a whole lot to show – it’s just a list of book titles and authors – but the author journal has a bit more to it. It’s where I’m keeping track of which books from an author I’ve read, and which ones are still to read. It’s also where I’m keeping track of series and I can see at a glance which book in a series I’m up to. It took a bit of trial and error figuring out how I wanted it to look but I’ve got it down now.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/29/2022 at 6:11 PM, Kudz said:

but the author journal has a bit more to it. It’s where I’m keeping track of which books from an author I’ve read, and which ones are still to read. It’s also where I’m keeping track of series and I can see at a glance which book in a series I’m up to. It took a bit of trial and error figuring out how I wanted it to look but I’ve got it down now.

This does sound very useful. I have, on more than one occasion, forgotten which book I've gotten to in a series! And accidentally reading the blurb of one that's further ahead than you are - revealing a spoiler from the end of the previous book - is the worst. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Hayley said:

This does sound very useful. I have, on more than one occasion, forgotten which book I've gotten to in a series! And accidentally reading the blurb of one that's further ahead than you are - revealing a spoiler from the end of the previous book - is the worst. 

I also keep lists of book series on my PC. I've discovered that they are only useful if I actually use them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/26/2022 at 11:21 AM, lunababymoonchild said:

I keep track of my reading. I use an Excel spreadsheet with author, title, category (i.e.fiction or not), start date, end date. I have this backed up on the cloud and every so often I do a manual back up of my hard drive to an external hard drive. Not lost anything yet I'm glad to say but am very careful. And I use it a lot, not just to record what I've read but to remind me of what I've read and when so that if I feel like planning my reading I can do so. And I grey out the DNFs too.

 

I've kept a record using Excel since 2005. I so wish I'd done so a lot earlier!  I have columns for: author, title, fiction/non-fiction, star rating (1-6), various flags*, medium (e-book, paper, audio etc), author gender, pages read, source (owned, library, borrowed etc). 

*E= English counties tour challenge read, G=book group read, R=reread, U=USA tour challenge, W= world tour challenge, X=unfinished

I also keep a catalogue of books read and/or owned on Librarything (link below my signature).

I try to write at least a brief review of each book here, and I keep copies of these backed up along with the spreadsheet etc.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/4/2022 at 3:14 PM, lunababymoonchild said:

I also keep lists of book series on my PC. I've discovered that they are only useful if I actually use them!

 

I spend all day at work sitting in front of a computer and so I’ve deliberately cut back on my screen time out of hours, so this is another reason why old-fashioned pen and paper is working well for me. It’s easy to update them at the drop of a hat.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...