Manually add previously read books to My Books?

[mdx]

I had a kindle for over three years before switching to kobo (forma), so naturally most of my reading history was on the kindle.

I only loan books from my library through Overdrive, so I don't own any of the books I've read, but I always enjoyed the aesthetic of having all those book covers stick around on my books page.

I'm curious if there might be a way to add books I've read in the past to the My Books page on my kobo, without actually having to purchase/loan them again. Not to have the actual books of course, just to have the covers show up. Can the book history potentially be manually edited like that?

[stumped]

is there an option to add kobo store books to a wishlist and have that show up ?

or get the free samples , if they exist, as they will have same covers

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mdx

I had a kindle for over three years before switching to kobo (forma), so naturally most of my reading history was on the kindle.

I only loan books from my library through Overdrive, so I don't own any of the books I've read, but I always enjoyed the aesthetic of having all those book covers stick around on my books page.

I'm curious if there might be a way to add books I've read in the past to the My Books page on my kobo, without actually having to purchase/loan them again. Not to have the actual books of course, just to have the covers show up. Can the book history potentially be manually edited like that?

If you use Calibre, you could create a custom Y/N column to specify which books you've read.

[Uschiekid]

You can also just add previews for the books.

When you borrow from Overdrive on a Kobo, after it expires, the next sync automatically deletes the full copy and downloads the preview as a "placeholder". If you had any annotations, bookmarks, etc, those will be kept with the preview, so if you borrow it again or buy it, those annotations will be still there. Some people choose to delete the preview (if you do, the annotations are irrevocably deleted too)

If you use this method, it means your "historical" book borrowing and your future book borrowing will be the same. If you don't use previews for other purposes (ie as a preview, to decide if you want to buy), then you could also then filter to just previews in your menu and then you'd have a list of all your borrowing history.

edit: if you had many books from other sources, this may be less practical, as you would maybe dislike that a preview was taking up some space on your device, but with your habits and the 8gb (or 32gb) of a forma, it would have to be A LOT of pretty graphic-rich previews to even come close to filling that up.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by mdx

I'm curious if there might be a way to add books I've read in the past to the My Books page on my kobo, without actually having to purchase/loan them again. Not to have the actual books of course, just to have the covers show up. Can the book history potentially be manually edited like that?

This is quite straightforward if you're already a calibre user and you don't care about saving the old library book annotations.

I won't go into too much detail in case you're not (and don't want to be) a calibre user.

If all your book metadata (authors, title, cover, synopsis, series etc) are already in calibre but the book format itself is not then you can add an 'empty' epub to each book record, in bulk if necessary. If you opened an empty epub it would just be a one-liner containing book title. If you send all these empty epubs to your Kobo then the Kobo calibre drivers will handle all the transfer of cover thumbnails and other metadata. Marking all these placeholder books as 'Finished' on the Kobo can be done in several ways.

[JSWolf]

But is there any way to have these "finished" eBooks not show other then via collections?

[mdx]

Originally Posted by Uschiekid

You can also just add previews for the books.

When you borrow from Overdrive on a Kobo, after it expires, the next sync automatically deletes the full copy and downloads the preview as a "placeholder". If you had any annotations, bookmarks, etc, those will be kept with the preview, so if you borrow it again or buy it, those annotations will be still there. Some people choose to delete the preview (if you do, the annotations are irrevocably deleted too)

If you use this method, it means your "historical" book borrowing and your future book borrowing will be the same. If you don't use previews for other purposes (ie as a preview, to decide if you want to buy), then you could also then filter to just previews in your menu and then you'd have a list of all your borrowing history.

Ah of course, the previews, seems obvious now but didn't think to try it. That works beautifully, thanks!

I never looked into calibre thinking it wouldn't be useful for me but maybe it'll be a useful organizational tool nonetheless

[Uschiekid]

Glad it worked for you!

[JSWolf]

You do know that these samples are going to be part of your book list and you'll have to sort through them. The Calibre suggestion I made is a lot less of a mess (IMHO).

[stumped]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You do know that these samples are going to be part of your book list and you'll have to sort through them. The Calibre suggestion I made is a lot less of a mess (IMHO).

except that the thread was wanting to see them on the Kobo, not back in the calibre library !

"I'm curious if there might be a way to add books I've read in the past to the My Books page on my kobo,"

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stumped

except that the thread was wanting to see them on the Kobo, not back in the calibre library !

"I'm curious if there might be a way to add books I've read in the past to the My Books page on my kobo,"

There's no way to add them so you see them separately from all the other books. Sure you can create a collection for them, but they still show in all the other non-collection lists.

Another thing to do is create an eBook that has a list of the books read so all you get is this one extra eBook.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There's no way to add them so you see them separately from all the other books. Sure you can create a collection for them, but they still show in all the other non-collection lists.

Well, there already has been a suggestion the OP thinks is suitable. And they could always create and sideload a dummy book with the appropriate metadata and mark that as read.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Well, there already has been a suggestion the OP thinks is suitable. And they could always create and sideload a dummy book with the appropriate metadata and mark that as read.

I'm just gving another suggestion that's not been suggest. IMHO) eventually the number of read books will be too many to be workable with the suggestion the OP thinks is suitable.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm just gving another suggestion that's not been suggest. IMHO) eventually the number of read books will be too many to be workable with the suggestion the OP thinks is suitable.

It depends on how fast the OP reads. If they read a book a month, it will take a while. But for someone like @DNSB, it would probably be sometime next week (though it probably happened years ago).

Personally, I don't see much point and think that using calibre for tracking is better long term. Or some other tool. But, for something searchable on the device, having a "book" on the device would work. And I think that is what the OP is after. The previews idea should work for that as well, especially if their plan is to use OD on the device. They automatically convert to previews when returned. Adding previews for the previously read books is consistent. And it does mean that if you are reading a series, you can see all the books so far read on the device in one list and open the current one.

[Uschiekid]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There's no way to add them so you see them separately from all the other books. Sure you can create a collection for them, but they still show in all the other non-collection lists.

Another thing to do is create an eBook that has a list of the books read so all you get is this one extra eBook.

The OP made it clear that they don't own ANY books

"I only loan books from my library through Overdrive, so I don't own any of the books I've read"

So other than currently borrowed books, they will ALL be previews, which *can* be filtered by choosing "previews". If you only want a list of currently borrowed books, iirc, filtering "overdrive" works for that. If not "reading" should work.

It is not practical for some people, but in the OPs case, I think it will work as desired. To see what books they've read in my books.