After rediscovering the library last year, I’ve really gotten in to reading. Yay!
I’d like to track what I read in 2019 (besides mentioning it here!) and am looking for recommendations on what you all do. Use Goodreads? Your own Google Sheet? A written list (that could be fun)? The library database of what you’ve checked out?
My methodology for picking books to read is simple – based on recommendations in articles or from friends, and by browsing the “new” section in the library. In 2018 I learned that I love science fiction-y/doomsday-y/dystopian-esque novels, and that thrillers are okay, too. I still enjoy memoirs and historical fiction.
I do most of my reading before I go to bed, or if I take a nap during the day (I read a bit before I nap). I also read on the train (I usually only take it once a week), and when I fly. I still prefer paper books (I don’t have an e-reader and struggle with reading on my phone).
I read a lot of good books in 2018 and only abandoned one or two. My standout favorites were Station Eleven and Little Fires Everywhere. The story-telling in each was phenomenal.
I just (finally!) finished The Kennedy Debutante about Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, the second eldest Kennedy daughter.
This was a good book but it took me forever to read because I was using a lot of my book reading time to knit, and because there were so many (real-life!) characters I had to look up and learn and try to remember who they are. Once I got in to a groove (what, 150 pages in?), I was really enjoying it.
I learned A LOT about the Kennedys and their associates while reading this. I took many an internet rabbit hole journey on Wikipedia looking up things, and now I want to read a non-fiction book about the Kennedys, and maybe something about WWII.
I’ve used Goodreads in the past but need to update it with what I have read recently. I also like it for tagging book I think I would like to read for the future.
What have you been reading lately? 🙂
I was just wondering what to do about this. I have never gotten into Goodreads and think I might delete the app on my phone/close my account. I want to keep track, but only for me, so I think a spreadsheet (or even a note on my phone?) might be best. I’m curious what system you’ll decide on; please let me know!
I will let you know! I opened up a Goodreads account this am but am not sure I’ll care for it. They already emailed me a bunch and I had to unsubscribe from all that, lol. My friend Stephany (http://stephanywrites.com/best-of-2018-reading-stats/) reads a lot and says she has a great spreadsheet she tracks with that I requested to see! 🙂
In high school, I basically lived at the library during the summer (well, lived at my house reading books I got at the library, haha), and at some point it occurred to me that I should write down what I read. So I started keeping handwritten lists of my summer reading for awhile, then eventually transferred all the written lists onto a TextEdit document on my computer. I think I did a decent job of keeping it updated for awhile, but it had been SO long since I read anything that I’m not sure! Now that I’m reading again, I need to go back in and add everything I read in 2018.
Yes! Do it! That is cool you have it going so far back – you can see how many books you’ve read since then and how your interests have changed!
My son got me a Moleskine book journal a few years ago and last year I finally filled it! The only thing I didn’t like about it was it was alphabetical by title (how many books do you know that have a title starting with Q???) Now I have a notebook that has tabs for each letter of the alphabet and I write down books as I go, alphabetically by the author’s last name – this way I can see at a glance if I’ve read something by the same author before. I note down most of the same info the Moleskine journal has you fill in – author, title, date read, date published, publisher, and what you thought about it.
At the moment I am reading ‘Nutshell’ by Ian McEwan for bookclub on Monday but I am not enjoying it – boo!
PS: that book about the Kennedys sounds interesting!
It seems to be a hard thing to make a specific journal for, right?! Because there is no good way to divide it… but you also want to give the person a way to sort it, like by author, as you are now. Seems like a binder would work well because you can add more sheets in, but that sounds bulky and cumbersome!
What don’t you like about it? Let me know if you check out the Kennedy book! It was interesting! (mostly in that it got me to look up a ton of stuff, ha)
Well, they don’t have the Kennedy Debutante at my library, so it will have to wait til I finish the pile of books I purchased that are on my nightstand…
Yes, it is a tricky thing to track in a journal. A binder might not be a bad idea, either. My mom has a simple notebook and she just lists the books chronologically in the order she reads them. The nice thing about her system is that she can see the entire list of books she’s read in the past year – in my system you can’t see that. I like your idea of a spreadsheet on the computer, but I enjoy the physical act of writing down my thoughts and the info about the book by hand…
Dilemma, dilemma… 😉
What I don’t like about Nutshell are the characters (none of them are likeable) and the way it’s written – in a style that’s trying to be very clever all the time. It will be interesting to see what the rest of my book club group thought about it on Monday.
Ooo, what did you get?
I think I would like the satisfaction of seeing a year’s (or certain amount of time’s) reading all together, too. Sigh, it’s almost like you need a few systems. I love to take notes by hand, too.
Oh yuck. I don’t care for that style of writing – too try hard! Let me know what they think!
As you know, I am quite nerdy about how I track my reading. I use Goodreads religiously (it’s probably my fav social media platform!) as well as use a reading spreadsheet. I also write weekly book reviews on my blog. I just love reading so damn much and find all of this to be so much fun. 🙂 I’m so glad you rediscovered the library and are reading so much now! Yay!
Ahh, so you do use the social media side of Goodreads! I didn’t even realize that existed until I was looking at it yesterday. So do you post reviews on there, and give feedback on what friends are reading? Is that how it works?
I am too! 😀 <3
I’m not very good about keeping track of what I have read. I do, however, have some recommendations for you based on what you say you like. Erik Larson does some great hitorical fiction. Neal Stephenson has some interesting dystopian/sf stuff (and bonus: his dad was a prof at ISU, so he occasionally throws Ames stuff in) ‘Snow Crash’ and ‘Diamond Age’ are a couple of my favorites.
Thanks for the recs! I will look in to those!
I needed something to keep track of my reading back in the day – there were too many times when I’d start a book only to realize I’d read it already. But I don’t read much now, thank you knitting and faffing around on the internet, so I mostly have Kindle books, which makes it easy to keep track. Also Amazon will let me know if I’m trying to purchase one that I’ve already bought…some things never change, LOL.
Oh funny! I didn’t think about Amazon/Kindle helping with that! What genre did you like to read?
Fiction, some biographies, but mostly easy to read stuff. I read Gone Girl and was stressed the entire time! I pretty much check out the Kindle Daily Deals and get the $1.99 books occasionally.
I totally get that genre stressing you! I read some suspense/thriller stuff this year and kind of liked it but kind of… eh. That is cool there are deals and $1.99 books! Gina has a Kindle and got a book off of one of those deals she thought I’d like (so she got me a hard copy)!