Do you list every book you've read in Goodreads or other sites?

[ZodWallop]

I only lazily and sporadically update Goodreads. TBH, I don't know why I do it. I used to do a reading challenge, but realized it was impacting my book choice. Now I don't know why I am tracking my reading. I went through decades of reading without doing so and don't seem to have suffered from any ill effects.

When I update Goodreads, I make the same update in Bookwyrm, because of the two, I'd rather support Bookwyrm.

[maddz]

I log all my books in LibraryThing, mostly because of avoiding duplicate purchases of ebooks (I switched from Kindle to Kobo last year) and to keep track of books I've read but don't own (i.e. library borrows). I sporadically post reviews as well, but given I have 17,000 titles listed, I don't track reads. I've only been routinely logging books for about 10 years, and there's no way I can remember books I used to own or read when I was a child (unless I still own them).

I don't bother with *ratings, and my reviews tend to be of the 'did I enjoy this' type. Occasionally, they are 'don't bother with any more from this author'.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Now I don't know why I am tracking my reading. I went through decades of reading without doing so and don't seem to have suffered from any ill effects.

These things are mysteries.

[DNSB]

Not to mention I am wasting time updating online information that could be better spent on reading!

[Gormagon]

Originally Posted by Rellwood

Should I add every major book I have read in the past in Goodreads even if I don't currently own them or have read them in the past 20 years?

If you don't have any other hobbies and too much spare time…then why not?

I really don't see the use in websites like Goodreads. If I want to keep a record of every book I've read, I would have made a list as text file or maybe as table. That way the data will belong to me, and if I make backups on a regular basis, the data will always belong to me, even when websites like Goodreads are offline.

The only use I see in such a list would be the avoidance of buying a book again because I forgot I already have it or have read it. Although it could be nice to read it once more when I bought it again because I forgot that I've read it in the past.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

The only use I see in such a list would be the avoidance of buying a book again because I forgot I already have it or have read it. Although it could be nice to read it once more when I bought it again because I forgot that I've read it in the past.

And for my purposes, calibre serves extremely well to keep me from repurchasing a book. It's local to my computer so no privacy concerns and it's search function allows me to start typing an author name and popping up a completion list so makes it fast to see if I have books by an author and if I do, which books.

[Sirtel]

For me Calibre is entirely enough to avoid duplicate purchases. It takes a few seconds to check, and if I'm not at home, I can check my library copy in Dropbox on my phone.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Apache

This is my opinion also. I read for enjoyment and have no desire to keep track of what I read except what my brain can still track.
Apache

My brain doesn't always track any too perfectly, LOL!

Sometimes I do find myself reading a book, then realize it seems familiar and then realize I read it long ago. This never worries me, because I've inevitably forgotten exactly how it turned out, so the old book is brand new again.

Then there are those that I just re-read fairly regularly, because they are old friends, I know them upside and down, and just love the words. Or the story, or both.

I've an itch to re-read Into Thin Air, currently, and probably will soon. Heaven knows where that will lead me off to.

Moby Dick, which I took most of September to read in a leisurely fashion, enjoying the journey immensely, had me going into A Night to Remember, then Blind Man's Bluff (both non-fiction, but one about the Titanic, one about submarines during the Cold War era), and that took me to a re-read of The Hunt for Red October. I guess I'd had enough of whaling, but not quite enough of sea adventures yet, LOL!

Whatever my brain says is interesting at the moment, I read.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

For me Calibre is entirely enough to avoid duplicate purchases. It takes a few seconds to check, and if I'm not at home, I can check my library copy in Dropbox on my phone.

I do use Calibre for cataloging my ebooks, it's definitely useful for avoiding duplicate purchases! I just never mark stuff read or unread or use it to track my reading.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I do use Calibre for cataloging my ebooks, it's definitely useful for avoiding duplicate purchases! I just never mark stuff read or unread or use it to track my reading.

I mark books as read in Calibre and add a rating, but nothing else. I don't enter any dates, they're not important to me. I don't really need the rating either, as I usually remember whether I liked a book or not (even when I no longer remember anything else about it), but it only takes a second to add it, so why not.

[haertig]

I couldn't care less about my "stats". I read for pleasure, not as a competition with myself or others or to impress anyone.

That being said, part of my import process into Calibre is deleting the rating you find on some books. I don't care what someone else thought of a book other than my close friends and a few people here who I have learned over time have similar interests to me. After I have completed a book, I add my own rating in Calibre. That's the only rating I care about - MY rating. So I do know what I've read as a side effect of that.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by haertig

That being said, part of my import process into Calibre is deleting the rating you find on some books.

Yep, same. I also delete all the tags included with the book and add my own.

[WillAdams]

Yes, because it's the most convenient way I've found to track which books I've read/own/want to read.

[Desertway]

LibraryThing starting in 2007, then Shelfari, then Goodreads and now Storygraph. The tracking allows me to remember favorite reads going back decades in case I choose to re-read something, which I often do. It allows me to recall authors who may have otherwise faded into distant memory. And it allows me to filter my "to-read" pile in a way that includes books I own, books available over Libby, audiobooks and all the rest. I can filter my "to-read" by my current mood, genre, and inclinations and see if there is something, somewhere, that suits me right now, whether I own it or not.

[DNSB]

Whereas for me, I have my ebooks and information stored in calibre. I added my collection of ebooks to calibre when I first started using it so all my ebooks are in calibre going back to before 1999 since I had some ebooks even before I started using Webscriptions in 1999