Ask HN: How do you keep a track of books you are reading?

The books I am reading are around here someplace...though I am getting better at putting them back in a bookshelf when I am not reading them.

Or they're in Books (usually locally stored) on my iPhone.

There are no books, I am planning to read except when a copy is still a shipment. Basically, when I hear about a book, I look into acquiring it. If it is infeasible to acquire, I let it go, because I already have shelves (physical and virtual) of books I am reading -- a not-trivial fraction of I might not ever finish both because I don't get around to it and because really good books are reread.

My operating theory is that there are many many more books I would like to read than I will ever spend time reading. So I go with the moment rather than creating wishlists. YMMV. Good luck.

Books I’m actively reading are scattered across tables and desks throughout the house, or in the most recent section on my book applications, so that’s easy.

Books I haven’t read are on my bookshelf, and I just try to accept there are too many books to read so I don’t keep a list of the ones I don’t have. I rely on serendipity and impulse.

Books I have read are noted in a small document and compiled annually to a dead web forum I only continue to visit for that very purpose. Outside of a handful of books, completed ones are given to interested parties or the thrift shop.

These are my systems: certainly of no use to anyone else.

Zotero [0] is very good. it:

- is open source and well maintained.

- could be used both online and locally.

- offers both folders and tags for organization.

- could also be used for your pdf-annotation and generic web bookmarking needs.

While browsing sites like amazon and open library, you can capture the current page/book with all its metadata (author,year...) directly to Zotero in one click.

The heavy-weight champion remains Calibre [1]

[0] https://www.zotero.org/support/changelog

[1] https://calibre-ebook.com/

I have a bookshelf that contains only ‘books I have read this year or have acquired to read’. On New Years day or thereabouts, I photograph them and store them in the correct places on my shelves, and start filling the current year shelf again - often with Christmas presents ( and whatever I hadn’t yet read from last year).

Technical books on a kanban board along with all of my other technical learning, nontechnical books in a note called reading list.

In stacked piles next to the bed. They go in boxes if they turn out to be bad, otherwise onto a bookshelf.

Goodreads.com