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Old 06-29-2013, 09:43 PM   #2
CWatkinsNash
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Posts: 3,950
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Fruitland Park, FL, USA
Device: Meebook M7, Paperwhite 2021, Fire HD 8+, Fire HD 10+, Lenovo Tab P12
Well, there are a lot of ways you can use it, I can only really tell you how I use it.

Aside from a few long-time favorites, I only log the books I've read since joining. I also log books I want to eventually buy (my wishlist shelves) and books I plan to read and already own (to-read shelf). If you look at my profile (http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4354442-christa) you'll see I'm a fan of making genre shelves.

Goodreads has a lot of features I don't use, but others find very useful. Listopias are user-created public lists that anyone can vote on / add books to. (Too free-wheeling for my tastes, but can be good to find new books to read.) I don't take the quizzes or use the trivia features.

One of the advantages of Goodreads is that you can shelve the specific edition of a book that you own. I don't really do this, as I'm not trying to build an accurate catalog, I just mostly want to track my reading. But for people who are book collectors and want to track this info, it's very nice to be able to do that.

You can join groups of readers who share your tastes, if you wish, but it's not required. Some of us Mobilereaders started a group there a few years ago to go along with our annual reading challenges. It's a pretty small, very low-pressure group. http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/42178 I belong to a few other groups, mostly to get recommendations for reads in my favorite genres.

You can make friends with other users, but again, it's not required.

Some people started tracking their reading long before Goodreads came along, so it's possible that they merely transferred their own lists over rather than working from memory.

If a book isn't in the database, you can add it yourself or post in the Goodreads Librarians group to have a librarian add it for you.

You will never be kicked off for not reading enough. People only get kicked off Goodreads for breaking the rules, and there aren't that many rules compared to some sites.

My advice is to explore the site a bit and see what is of use to you. The only thing close to being an alternative is Shelfari, but I don't really care for it.
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