[Readirect]

Since I got my first Kindle several years ago -- and *especially* when I got a nook with an SD Card -- I've been looking for an easy way to organize the books so that I could find what I need. Anyone who has used the Nook shelves or Kindle collections knows that these aren't anything but frustrating, cumbersome and ineffective.

There's actually a better way (IMHO) to keep your library organized and that's with an (apparently) often overlooked feature of Calibre called catalog.

Calibre will build a catalog of your library (as a separate ebook), which includes a list sorted by author and by title and by series and by genre, etc. What's even more helpful, you can include the description of each book, a thumbnail of it and any of your own comments (or other Calibre fields that you wish). It's quick and flexible and you can find it in Calibre on the right click menu (in the book listings) as the last entry under convert book. Just generate the catalog (in the appropriate epub or azw3 format) then copy it over to your device using Calibre.

The way that I've come to use it is to leave all my books unshelved (or uncollected on the Kindle) then use the catalog to identify what I want (browsing through the descriptions) and then use the device's search to find the particular book that I've identified. It works well on all devices (but especially those which have lots of storage like Kobo and the old Nooks) and doesn't require the ridiculous (battery draining) machinations of rooting the device nor the tedium of selecting books manually. Since I have a lot of books, I've created separate catalogs by genre (using Calibre's virtual library) then created one shelf/collection called catalog on the device to house them so that I can find them easily.

Try it, I think you'll like it. Not sure why this isn't more widely recognized as a solution to the cumbersome collections on the Kindle or the shelves on the Nook or Kobo but I wish that I'd found it earlier.