I’m still on Goodreads but it’s so slow, the app’s just an even slower webview of the site and the redesign has made me have to click more to do what I want.
What’s the alternative? Obviously we’re on the fediverse and I see people talking about Bookwyrm.
I used Anobii till 2010 and I can’t remember why I left but it’s still there. I’ve poked StoryGraph a bit but it was lacking several of the books I wanted to add.
There must be more! What do you use/recommend?
Absolutely nothing. I probably should though. Or at least something to find some new interesting books.
Well, you don’t have to. I like to be able to answer when I’ve read a book - or, increasingly, whether I’ve read a book. Apparently there are books I enjoyed while reading but made zero impression on my long-term memory.
My memory is terrible (thanks, Covid), but I will definitely be able to tell someone if I’ve read a book or not. No list required. Don’t ask me what it was about, though.
Memory loss has its advantages, I can read the same book a bunch of times and it’s like I’ve never read it before.
I just started using Bookwyrm. Not the best app ever but it’s federated and relatively new, so I’m giving it time. My wife uses Goodreads with her friends but I don’t want to support Amazon any more than I already do.
@[email protected] I used to use #Anobii as well, it was far better than #Goodreads in its early days, unfortunately, the latter overtook them. Now, most of my shelves are on Goodreads.
You can go self-hosting mode. You can self-host #BookWyrm, or the traditional, ever reliable, #Calibre. _ I no longer use Calibre because Goodreads.
On the BookWyrm side of things, it can import your books from Goodreads.
@youronlyone
@Deebster The only thing I really really miss with #BookWyrm is an API, I want to be able to automatically synchronize my shelves and individual book status/progress with both #Calibre and #KOReader.There is an open issue on the subject, so 🤞
@[email protected] True that. Hopefully it will come. I want to remove my reliance on Goodreads since I’m not using it other than to track. And the authors I follow are more active outside of Goodreads. 😅 (Some are even here on the fediverse network.)
#Calibre
As in the ebook manager? I don’t see any way to track your reading or other lists on there. Is it a plugin, or are we talking about different Calibres?
You can do it pretty easily in Calibre with custom columns for reading status, rating, etc. For Kobo users, the KoboTouchExtended plugin syncs reading status automatically (I’m sure there’s some equivalent for other ereader brands).
ah, I didn’t realise that custom columns was a thing you could do! Makes sense then. I might see if there’s a way automate adding all my last read dates into a column.
I guess you can only track books you have as an ebook, so no dead-tree versions or to-read lists.
If you really wanted to track books you don’t have digitally, I guess you could use a dummy file (even a blank txt could work) and use Calibre itself to add all the metadata. It’s far from ideal, though.
I must confess to being somewhat disappointed by BookWyrm; however I think it’s still very early days over there. I wish them all the luck in the world, and hope they can dethrone Goodreads which is owned by amazon and is therefore evil. I’ll be checking on them periodically to see how they progress.
I use a cardboard bookmark, shaped like a robot, with a frayed bit of yarn tied to it, which I bought from Waldenbooks in the early 80’s. [drops mic, walks away]
Nothing. Why should I track my reading? I read for fun, tracking it would take the fun right out of it and turn it into some kind of competition. I’m not at school anymore.
Personally for me it’s because I have terrible recall memory and having a list reminds me what I read and who I read more easily than trying to knock it loose from the Ol noggin. I do it for TV and movies as well.
Things like good reads and story graph also host user reviews and can be good for discovering new things.
Been using Openreads, an open source app for android.😅
I use the strictly offline Book Tracker app on my iPhone. I don’t really care about reviews or the social features, I just want an overview and some stats about my reading.
I use Goodreads, I have used it since like 2010 or something so I have all my books there. Hopefully, we get some good alternatives though as Goodreads has become really slow, it feels like using the Internet in the 90’s.
Same here. I have so many books in there and all my bookshelves set up in the particular nitpicky way that I like them that moving all that over to another service is a daunting idea.
For comics / graphic novels, League of comic geeks
@Deebster Just a markdown styled table in a local file, easy to convert to csv or excel
I started using Obsidian with Dataview plugin.
I’ve started doing something similar! Obsidian with the Dataview and the Book Search plugins.
I’m also on bookwyrm, specifically bookrastinating
I was using Storygraph for a little while once I decided I no longer wanted to use Goodreads due to being owned by Amazon.
Then I tried Openreads for a short time, before realising I missed some of the social elements of the first two.
Finally settled on a local BookWyrm instance, Rambling Readers, which I’m happy with. It sometimes requires a bit of manual editing of books, but the more people use BookWyrm and contribute, the less often that should be necessary.
At this point, honestly just a spreadsheet that gets synced from laptop to phone with syncthing. Boring but effective.📚
This is me. Mostly I just want to know what I’ve read and what I thought of it, or if I did not finish. I don’t need all the other things.
