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Comment by hospitalJail | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why people like it so much. My aunt-in-law is high pressuring me to use it.

I have my library listing all the books I checked out. I have a pdf/epub reader that has a history of the books I read(although a new phone will probably wipe that out).

For a while, I was merely writing down my books in a dedicated notebook, but I realized that it didn't really matter, if a book was important, I remembered it. If it was bad, I forgot about it. I could have typed these into google sheets so it was sharable. I wonder if that is an acceptable option.

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It's social media for book readers. I user it to primarily see what my friends read and what they think about those books and about the books I read. It's not just place to keep note of books you read.

Couldn’t agree more. There seems to be some confusion in this thread about the product’s value preposition - it’s a social network, not an archiving system. Using GoodReads alone strikes me like using Facebook alone, there’s just not much value there without other users.

This is exactly why my wife, our friends and I use Goodreads as well. It's fun to see what everyone is reading, and to comment on a book or ask what they thought about a book they just finished. We also enjoy comparing our year-in-review infographic that Goodreads creates each year.

But you don't just track books you've read, you also track books you want to read, which is much harder to remember.

I also tag them to indicate if I already own them and in what format (physical, epub, audio).

Saves me from purchasing duplicates when I'm at the used book store.

> you also track books you want to read

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku

I know exactly what books I want to read.

I am into my first thousand books. If I have a queue of 10-20 already purchased (garage, deals, new, offers) and someone recommends a book somewhere such as HN, I add it.

I don't think tracking books you want to read is Tsundoku.

Neither do I.

I have over two shelf feet of books I plan to read and haven’t yet. No that’s a lie, it’s at least four.

I never understood that concept. What is wrong with having your own library? I have about 200 books on my shelves I haven't read and any time I want to I can find something interesting. It's s luxury but not anything I'm embarrassed about. Makes more sense than keeping the books I've already read on my bookshelves.

Nothing wrong with it as long as you have the space; anything else is more of a logistics challenge. I like owning books, sure they take up a lot of space and it's not likely I'll read or re-read them any time soon, but I think it's important to have it.

But also, more and more, having the physical space and safety to own a 'static' collection like books is becoming a luxury and a privilege.

Wow. I didn't know there was a word for this. This is why I only use ebooks now because physical books would just pile up.

10 years in jail got my reading list down considerably though. Managed to read over 800 books, though the one book that I really, really wanted to read[*] I only obtained just before my release and never finished: In Search of Lost Time by Proust.

[*] Based on a comment by a character in Murakami's 1Q84 that the only time you will have enough spare time to read Proust is if you end up in prison.

I use a Google Sheet for the neighborhood book club list. It is handy for reference--did we read X, and if so, who picked it? The group has been going for something like 18 years, after which even the very good and the very bad can be forgotten.

Would you consider sharing the sheet? I am always looking for books!

I sent it to your Gmail address.

Thank you!!! :)

For me, I like it better than my own list because I was spending unnecessary time finding and organizing books. So I like having the spelling and year right and just list management of want to read, reading, read. I did it in a google sheet, but now I spend less time using it.

I also like that I can add friends and see what they read. There’s no chance that I’ll open my aunt’s book list sheet once a week to see what’s changed but I would love to see her reading in my feed along with my other friends.

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