[GUI Plugin] Goodreads Characters and Settings

[VapidRapidReader]

This plugin allows you to populate custom "Characters" and "Settings" columns in your Calibre library by fetching the data directly from Goodreads.

If you prefer to keep your library organized with more than just basic tags, this tool automates the process of identifying a book's cast and locations without manual entry.

I wanted this feature for a while, but since nobody else had created this I decide to create something that works well enough for my needs.

Main Features:

• Fetches character names and locations/settings from Goodreads book pages.
• Maps data to user-defined custom columns.
• Supports bulk processing for multiple books at once.

Special Notes:

You can store this information in custom columns or tags. As with all metadata scrapers, results depend entirely on the data available on the Goodreads community-maintained pages. I don't know if it is worth the effort. Here are the percentage of books that had information in my case.

Metadata Success Rate by Publication Year

From     To       Characters    Settings
------------------------------------------
2025     2026      9%           11%
2020     2024     11%            8%
2015     2019     18%           10%
2010     2014     29%           17%
2000     2009     42%           16%
1990     1999     37%           11%
1980     1989     31%           11%
1960     1979     56%           19%

Know issues:

1. The performance when updating the information to fields is not that great. It would perform better as a metadata source plugin, but I wanted to place the information in custom fields.

Installation:

Download the attached Goodreads_character_and_settings.zip (or get it from the GitHub repository).

In Calibre, go to Preferences -> Plugins.

Click Load plugin from file and select the zip file.

Restart Calibre.

Add the plugin to your toolbar via Preferences -> Toolbars & menus.

Configuration:
After installation, click the "Customize plugin" button to link the plugin to your specific custom columns for Characters and Settings.

Version History:

• v1.0.0RC1: Initial Release.
• v1.0.3: Replaced regex usage with soup functiionality Added machine level translations.
• v1.1.0: Added rule-based auto-delete matching with Literal/Wildcard/Regex, case sensitivity and column scopes.
• v1.1.1: Version naming fix
• v1.1.2: Fixed a settings cleanup issue where title-sort articles such as A, An, or The could be left behind

[dunhill]

The Goodreads metadata plugin allows you to edit narrative categories in your language; do you plan to include this in a future plugin update?

[VapidRapidReader]

Originally Posted by dunhill

The Goodreads metadata plugin allows you to edit narrative categories in your language; do you plan to include this in a future plugin update?

DO you mean the interface language? I can do it but I would prefer to do it on request. I don't want to just depend on machine translation. I worry about say something that doesn't make sense or is inadvertently offensive and as a 1.0 release it may go through some significant changes at first.

Country names I thought about. but not supporting all not at once. Just the Calibre selected language and English as a backup. The question is would I want to present the country in the destination field in the users native language by default or only have that as a option. I could find sources for country names but region names would have to be entered manually.

[VapidRapidReader]

New Version Posted 1.0.3:

• Language localization using machine translation
• Ability to use localized country names
• Replace bespoke regex functions with soup to increase stability across site changes

[VapidRapidReader]

New Version Posted 1.1.0:

What's Changed:

• Auto-delete was reworked from simple value matching into rule-based matching with enabled/disabled rules, Literal/Wildcard/Regex modes, Characters/Settings/Both scope, and case sensitivity.
  
• Auto-delete configuration UI was expanded with Add/Edit dialogs, validation for regex rules, multi-row removal, adjustable/saved columns, and no default reset for auto-delete rules.
  
• Legacy auto-delete values now migrate into wildcard “contains” rules,
  
• User Country/region data handling is more robust

[VapidRapidReader]

New Version Posted 1.1.1:

What's Changed:

• Fixed version naming regression

[dunhill]

Thank you for the interface translation; it's helpful for using different Calibre languages.

Here's an example with this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61401172 I use Goodreads to track my reading and the Goodreads Sync and Goodreads plugins to download metadata.

The Goodreads metadata plugin has a unique feature: you can edit the list of names for the literary hierarchies. For example, this book has these: Genres: Fantasy
Fiction
Historical Fiction
Steampunk
Mystery
Queer
Historical

If it finds "Fantasy" and you've edited the "Fantasy" field to your language, it will recognize it as such. For example, if it finds "Fantasy" and I edited "Fantasia" (in Spanish), it will display "Fantasia." I've attached a screenshot.

[VapidRapidReader]

Originally Posted by dunhill

Thank you for the interface translation; it's helpful for using different Calibre languages.

Here's an example with this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61401172 I use Goodreads to track my reading and the Goodreads Sync and Goodreads plugins to download metadata.

The Goodreads metadata plugin has a unique feature: you can edit the list of names for the literary hierarchies. For example, this book has these: Genres: Fantasy
Fiction
Historical Fiction
Steampunk
Mystery
Queer
Historical

If it finds "Fantasy" and you've edited the "Fantasy" field to your language, it will recognize it as such. For example, if it finds "Fantasy" and I edited "Fantasia" (in Spanish), it will display "Fantasia." I've attached a screenshot.

At this time, the only mapped field is Country. The plugin allows the user to set the mapped country name from lists based on CLDR 48.2.0 (March 17, 2026) and a selected language. Alternatively, the user can manually enter a mapped country name.

Locations (cities, anything that is not a known country, or regions) are not mapped. Regions, meaning sections of a country, are also not mapped, and neither are characters.

I will put this on my list of things to consider implementing. At the moment, I am looking at custom user formatting for settings and allowing URL links.

[VapidRapidReader]

New Version Posted 1.1.2:

What's Changed:

• Fixed a settings cleanup issue where title-sort articles such as A, An, or The could be left behind as standalone setting values after country names were removed