What do you track while reading?

[Dazrin]

I habitually keep track of many different reading stats, such as pages/book, words/book, start and finish dates, publication date, genre, whether an author is new or the book is a re-read, cost, etc. Tracking this type of information has become part of the fun of reading for me since I started, and I wish I had started many years earlier. I also use some of what I track to guide some of my reading. For example, if I feel I am re-reading too many books I will intentionally read something new. Or if I am only reading authors I am familiar with I will search out someone new.

I was looking today to see what others track as they read and came across a few I hadn't thought about: author gender, author nationality/ethnicity, and protagonist gender/nationality/ethnicity. One person even included LGBT as a tracked statistic. Apparently these stats are used to make sure they are reading a diverse selection of books. I have always considered reading diversity more from a genre perspective, that is, I read a lot of fantasy books and very few non-fiction books so more diverse to me means reading more non-fiction and less fantasy.

So, in an attempt to understand just how far to the side of the "book tracking" bell curve I am, some questions:

• Do you track your reading?
• Where/how do you do that? In the challenge threads here, in Calibre, on Goodreads, a journal, elsewhere?
• What do you track? Just title/author or do you know the exact edition of every book you have read back through 1993 including how many reading sessions it took to read each book?
• (How) does what you track affect what you read?
• How do you define "diversity" with respect to what you read?

[Ravensknight]

I keep track at Booklikes.
I record Title, series, author, rating, synopsis and my thoughts on the book.
I only started keeping track since 2000, so I've got a lot of books from college and before that aren't recorded.

[Freeshadow]

Well, as I read for the sake of a book's content/story and not for bragging about it I don't track irrelevant meta data. Just as I don't give a damn about uptime values of my computers.

[DiapDealer]

I keep track of the books I read on Goodreads. Author/title is all I'm really interested in. I keep a virtual "to be bought/read" list there as well.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

[*]Do you track your reading?

Minimally

[*]Where/how do you do that?

I have a spread sheet started years ago and each year is a page. I record title and author, that's it. I also mark the book as read in a Calibre custom column.

[*]What do you track? Just title/author or do you know the exact edition of every book you have read back through 1993 including how many reading sessions it took to read each book?

Just title/author

[*](How) does what you track affect what you read?

It doesn't really. Sometimes it's interesting to go back and see how often I've re-read certain books/series, but often I just record a book and move on.

[*]How do you define "diversity" with respect to what you read?

I don't worry about it. I read what I feel like reading at any given time. Sometimes that's a mystery, fantasy, etc. & sometimes it's a non-fiction title usually something dealing with history. Sometimes it's a glom of all of an authors titles after finding a new author I like.

[Apache]

I just read. The only thing I use for tracking is my memory. I finish one book and it's off to the next one.
Apache

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Apache

I just read. The only thing I use for tracking is my memory. I finish one book and it's off to the next one.
Apache

This! Those of you who have OCD track away, I'll be busy reading.

[GERGE]

Only read-unread with Calibre. Makes it easier to find unread books. They also tagged with shelf (main genre), author and title. Nothing else, I don't see a need.

[Fluribus]

I track how many times my reading has been interrupted by marauding wildebeests. The current number is zero.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

[*]Do you track your reading?

Yes

[*]Where/how do you do that? In the challenge threads here, in Calibre, on Goodreads, a journal, elsewhere?

Calibre

[*]What do you track? Just title/author or do you know the exact edition of every book you have read back through 1993 including how many reading sessions it took to read each book?

title/author and year finished.

[*](How) does what you track affect what you read?

not much. I read books that appeal to me at that point. No matter what my history is with that book.

[*]How do you define "diversity" with respect to what you read?

I read diverse books, as long as it's history, fantasy or SF (mostly, naturally, there are always books that don't fit any of those labels...)

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

So, in an attempt to understand just how far to the side of the "book tracking" bell curve I am, some questions:

• Do you track your reading?
• Where/how do you do that? In the challenge threads here, in Calibre, on Goodreads, a journal, elsewhere?
• What do you track? Just title/author or do you know the exact edition of every book you have read back through 1993 including how many reading sessions it took to read each book?
• (How) does what you track affect what you read?
• How do you define "diversity" with respect to what you read?

I do track my reading. In three places. The most detailed is in a spreadsheet in Google Drive (since 2012). I keep track of title, author, series, # in series, year of publication, date started & finished, rating, and number of pages. At the top of the page I list average pages per book and average rating. In the past I also added genre and word count, but I dropped those. On my blog and in Goodreads I keep a list of what I've read, plus active series and series finished/abandoned/up to date. I try to keep Calibre up to date every couple of weeks, but I'm not very good with that.

The tracking doesn't affect my reading. I just find it fun to keep track and occasionally it helps to decide whether to read another book by an author or not.

I don't bother diversifying my reading. Having studied English I decided years ago I have done more than enough reading of books that I don't like and/or don't find interesting. I read what I like, occasionally I'll try something new but I'm not going to finish it if I don't like it.

[John F]

I keep in a journal (.doc file):

Title
Author
"Pages"
Start date
End Date
and device charge date


I first started doing this because I was curious about battery life. It recently came it handy because I thought I read a book but wasn't sure (I did read it, and I still can't recall much about the book, even after consulting Wiki.)

[pdurrant]

I track books bought (date, shop, price) and books read, in calibre and in this year's challenge thread. But the only metadata I track books by is author/title.

I don't feel any need to track diversity of the books, characters, or authors.

I do wish I'd started tracking my books read earlier though. If only to know when I'm re-reading something. (It's sometimes hard to identify at the start of a book whether I've read it before - especially if it's something I read ten years ago or more. At my reading rate that's 1500+ books ago!)

[booklover6]

I track!

My main record is Goodreads, where when I finish a book, it gets tagged with what year I read it in, and also if it was an audio book. I also track books read at paperbackswap.com and Fictfact.com (if it's in a series). In addition, I fill out a Google Drive spread sheet, a new one for each year. One spread sheet for Books read by Month and another for Books Read by Genre. At the end of the year I total up to see how many I've read in each of my genres.

In my By Month spread sheets I list Author, Title, Genre, Series, Rating, Comments (such as audio, DNF, Short), Notes. In my By Genre spread sheet, just title and author.

I set myself a yearly goal and a monthly goal, and my spread sheet is an easy way to see how many I've read each month.

I don't actively try to diversify my reading. I read what I want, when I want. Although my goal for the last few years has been to finish series. So I do mark under comments if the series is finished, or "to date."

[Yolina]

For ebooks I just mark stuff as read/unread in Calibre and I keep my wishlist in ereaderIQ to take advantage of any price drops.

For pbooks I keep a list of what I have read just so that I don't inadvertently buy the same thing again and I have a separate shelf for the to read pile