What book tracking app are you using?

What book tracking app are you using? I am using goodreads.
My profile: https://www.goodreads.com/chongjasmine
Are there any book tracking apps better than goodreads which you recommend?

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My novel Lucifer God's beloved son: https://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Gods-...dp/B006AZLZAI/

Why do people need a book-tracking app? I have been doing fine without one all my life!

Not gonna lie, praying to Satan in high school is freakin' metal!

No.

Most people like to catalog stuff. I've seen over 18,000 films. I can't imagine what I'd do if I couldn't log them all on RYM. If I read a lot of books, I'd catalog them, too. Actually, I still do, even though I don't read at all!

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

I do have a note in my phone as to what book I should read next (though usually I’ll have bought them all well in advance, so they pile up on my desk, two stacks: read and unread), but nothing beyond that. I should hope I can still remember what I have and haven’t read! I only read physical books, though working with the media, I do read articles on my phone, too.

Just Goodreads for me. Wish I started using it earlier.

If that's how you roll then good for you!

All I'm saying is, people were just fine for literally thousands of years without book tracking apps

A text file.

Lame, old-school, and provided you back it up online (and therefore can't lose it, which would be another con), there's no way to brag about your taste or inspire others. 2/10 way of tracking stuf.

It's backed up on online.

I have no interesting in broadcasting these things, and am intensely suspicious of any performative impulse in myself or others.

Bingo! That performative impulse is very real these days, and if someone's intent on broadcasting such a list, I would immediately suspect that maybe they haven't actually read even half of the books on their list, or would have no real interest to.

I don't know, man, I took you for a social person - more social than me, anyway. Isn't putting out this stuff in public the first step to befriending like-minded & like-tasted individuals? Which is the first step to finding more great stuff. And if you can inspire others along the way, that's a great thing, too. It's a list of the books you read, not a list of your favorite porn, ergo you don't have to keep it secret.

You strike me as somebody who doesn't love art but only loves the thinking that comes during and after experiencing a work of art. I don't mean to be rude, but I also think that's why you're not very adventurous with your film choices. You belong to the group of intelligent film watchers, but not ones with great taste. I think such intelligent film watchers spend too much time thinking about bad films to find time to look for good ones. And they spend too much time thinking instead of experiencing great art.

The reason I'm saying this is that it's not only watching films that takes time but seeking them out, too. It also goes for books. I read ludicrously few books, but if I ever wanted to pick up this art, I'd already know what to read, and I know what's potentially great with a high degree of likelihood that it really is. That being said, I'm sure I'd discover much, much more along the way, but I already know many great writers, most of whom I haven't read. I know them because I know like-minded individuals from sites that are all about "broadcasting" what you like. Since I share my taste in music and film with them, chances are most of their favorite books would be my favorites, too. I tried twice and it worked, so I'm pretty sure it'd work quite well if I really decided to get into books.

Anyway, I spent years looking through the profiles of the greatest cinephiles on the internet, so doing the same for books if I really decided to get into them would be a no-brainer. Whatever I know already would last me a few years already, anyway.

This is how you really find the greatest films, from like-tasted friends. I thought it was how everybody did it. No? Jeez. You people are so different.

I mean, even on this very forum people broadcast their top movie lists all the time, so how's a book list any different? The sites that let you catalog this stuff allow for rating it so that you can create a hierarchy of your favorites as well as write a thing or two about them if need be.

At this point, I simply couldn't continue watching films if I had no way to record what I watched.

I don't know, man, I'm pretty sure people were just fine for about 100 years watching movies without any websites or tracking apps.

"In public" is doing a lot of work here. I'm all for actual socializing. In my experience, most of these sites have very little of that. They're about showcasing and broadcasting.

I think this is somehow both wrong and kind of a meaningless distinction, anyway. I was going to elaborate, but it's better saved for the other thread about this stuff, where it'd actually be on topic. I think you're kind of dragging that stuff over into here where it's a clumsy fit. This is about how we log things, for crying out loud, it's not something you can extrapolate into a theory of my entire attitude towards art.

Back on topic: the idea that my consumption of art is hurt by me not wanting to always tell people about it seems entirely backwards. It's the person who views or reads something and needs to tell others that you should be suspicious of, because they could be doing it just for the telling. It's akin to the person who goes to a famous place specifically for the picture. The people who really love art love it for itself, and would enjoy it even if there weren't another person in the entire world to tell about it.

Because it frequently leads to discussion here. A lot of social networks that log things, the logging seems to be the entire point. Even the sites are constructed in a way that emphasizes this, that makes it smooth and easy to log and review things but clumsy or awkward to have longer exchanges with others. They're for broadcasting, not for receiving.

This is an argument for mere cataloging, not an argument for broadcasting your activity.

For books, I've used a piece of software on my computer (and they have a phone app too) called Book Collectorz. They also have an app for cataloguing games, movies, music, and comics. I use only the one for books.

I use this app to keep track of all the books I *own*, not just whether I've read them. So when I buy a new book, I enter its data into the app. Once you hit several *thousand* books, it's important to have some way of remembering whether you've already purchased a book (in print or in digital form) so that you don't purchase it again by mistake. (Hey, it happens.)

Within each entry, you can list just about anything about the book that you wish. Entering the book's ISBN will call up its entry in their main database (and you can add books they don't have in their database yet), which will fill in all sorts of other information, from publisher to format to number of pages to cover images to list price to author and date first published, etc. You can then add your own info (whether you've read it, whether you own a first edition, etc.).

I love this software and have been using it for ten years now. Screenshot of a recent book entry. (You can see there are various tabs along the top of a book's entry, where you can add just about any info you might want to catalog about the book.)

Their website: https://collectorz.com/

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Oh, one thing I'd like to start adding to each book's entry (now that we're in a different house from when I first started using the app) is which room/bookcase the book currently resides. I'm pretty good at remembering where I put a book when we moved into this house, but every so often finding a particular book stumps me a little.

I also use this app to record if I've lent the book to someone (when and to whom).

I dunno... probably 100 years ago you'd only have needed a very very very small app. And the internet.

You started it! You handed it to me! I had to grab it. Had to.