General Discussion

I really enjoy reading and have for many years, but I've startet to encounter a small issue; I'm having trouble remembering what I read. Not the title or which books I've read or not, because I've written it down on my phone for the last four or five years. It's more difficult (sometimes, not always) to remember the story or what the book was about. For example: I've read the first three books in the Throne of Glass-series, but I can't distinguish one from another. The rough outline of the story, sure. But the individual books and what separates them are a blur.

I was wondering if anyone would like to share some experience with tracking what books they read. Do you use a physical journal, an app, a website, some social medium? Do you use a setup where you just keep track on some very basic information; the title, author, how long it took you to read it? Do you fill out any questions, thoughts or interpretations, what you liked and what you didn't like? I'd love to see some experiences, both good and bad, and if anyone has any recommendations!

Goodreads. It's amazing, it's free, they host giveaways. You can save books you've read, books you want to read, and can create custom tags. The app lets you scan a book's cover or barcode to find it in their catalogue. You can follow authors you like and get updates about what they're reading or writing. My favorite feature is the yearly reading challenge where you set a goal for how many books you want to read, and then at the end of the year you get a fun summary of the books you finished. And I don't have any personal experiences with them, but there are chat groups where you can talk with fans of certain books, fanmade quizzes to test your knowledge, and author Q&As you can submit questions for!

I have a similar issue. For me, I have two outlets for two different purposes. It depends on the way you choose to digest a book or what will satisfy you to upkeep.

For me, the easiest way is any way to document books read. I use Goodreads for whenever I want to keep track without much upkeep. If you haven't used it yet, the website is pretty smooth and convenient but there isn't really a way to "note" much about the books with exception of reviews. If you're the type that looks to do that or enjoys putting your opinion out there, it could be a considerable outlet.

However, my much preferred method of choice is to keep a book journal. I find that it feels pretty nice to be able to document things that way, especially once I've finished a book and the information is exceptionally fresh. It makes you feel organized as well, which I've experienced helps a lot with that feeling of everything blurring together or being unable to properly associate any which title with a series of specific events.

For my journals, I usually do the title itself, author, volume, date started, date finished. I include the genre, a rating, first impressions or expectations to later compare what I thought was going to happen versus what actually happened. Journals are 100% personalized so you can add as much or as little as makes you feel complete. (:

Have you consider annotation? It's another outlet I enjoy. You'll work through books slower but it's a really nice way of staying organized and properly comprehending information as you receive it. You add bookmark tabs (or sticky notes if you do not like writing in your books) and you basically write down thoughts or document any vital information so you can look back on it later.

Hi! I totally understand where you're coming from. When I was younger and had a lot more time on my hands, I used to burn through books like there was no tomorrow. But now I find that I can hardly remember any of the books I read from back then. Maybe I was reading too quickly, or moving on to the next book too quickly, not allowing myself to fully digest what I had just finished reading. I'm making an effort to read more slowly and mindfully nowadays, and part of that process for me has involved tracking my reads online and writing my own reviews for the first time.

I used Goodreads in the past, but I switched over to Storygraph recently and I like it a lot more. I'll second everything that alicent said above me. When you finish a book, Storygraph provides you with a little review questionnaire that can be sufficient for recording information about the book if you don't feel like writing a whole review in your own words. And if you're like me and enjoy looking at pie charts, it is really neat how Storygraph compiles your data for you to see the trends in your reading habits.

Goodreads and Storygraph have a lot of the same features for tracking and recommending books based on your reading history, but I feel like Goodreads is a bit more community oriented and feels more like a book social media website. If you're interested in having more interaction with other users, you might prefer Goodreads. There are also way more users on Goodreads because Storygraph is still relatively new and Goodreads has been around for years.

First, thank you all for your thoughtful and throughout replies! Life kinda got in my way for bit, but I hope you don't mind some followup questions :)

@SkykidNadir: I have some limited experience with GoodReads, mostly I've used it to look up books and read some reviews if I'm on the fence about purchasing it (a lot of users seem to leave very in-depth reviews, which can be very helpful sometimes).
I've also heard about their reading challenges (a great way to explore new books, genres or authors) and the GoodReads Awards.
My biggest hesitation about this site, however, is that is seems to be very community oriented. If you have any experience about the site, is there a way to write down my thoughts, questions or similar without leaving a review? Or are reviews the only way?

@Sith: Thank you for sharing your experience with several different options!
As I stated in the post above I am somewhat familiar with GoodReads, mostly due to looking up reviews before making a purchase. While I think they seem to have an extensive library, the site feels more community oriented and I'm not sure if that is what I'm looking for at this point. Although I agree it can be very relieving to write a full review if you have lot of thoughts and opinions on your mind after finishing a book (I know I did after reading The Anomaly).

Book journaling seems to be a very relaxing activity with a lot of options for customising the journal to ones specific needs or preferences. Based on what you wrote I assume you make your own journal wit a notebook or bullet journal, or do you buy a premade one that you have found to suit your needs? It must feel satisfying to fill out something you've made on your own, but it also sound like something that might require more time in order to set up or fill out the layout of the journal?

I'm guessing you are referring to annotating a book in a smilier way a student might annotate in their textbook using different highlighters, tabs or writing down notes in the book whilst reading? I will admit I haven't given it much thought because it seems like more work and I don't want to make reading feel like a task. However, I certainly see how it can change the reading experience and make the reader digest the content more slowly and thoroughly. It sound like it could be very helpful whilst reading books with a more hidden theme or if one would like to analyse the text as you go (similar to how you would do in school, I suppose).

Since this is a method you seem to enjoy (based on your reply), may I ask how you would go about annotation in a book that appears to be written purely for entertainment purposes rather than, let's say a story that's made to explore or highlight a more serious theme through the use of extensive symbolism or more typical high school required reading material (if that makes sense)?
- You don't have to answer of you don't want to, of course! But this is something that I've had some trouble grasping about the annotation technique :)

@alicent and @manatad: I'm tagging you in the same post because you both wrote about the same site/app. I hope you don't mind me asking some questions about StoryGraph :)

I've seen StoryGraph being hailed as the best option for GoodReads for those who feel it is inadequate, has an outdates design or just don't want to support Amazon, and it has certainly been the alternative I've read the most about it the past few weeks.
I agree that although GoodReads has an extensive collection of titles is the most established book review site, it feels very much like a social media site and is very geared towards community interactions. That can certainly be very helpful if one would like to discuss books with other users, but as I'm looking for something that feels more personal I'm not sure if it will suit my needs. And based on both of your descriptions and some reviews I've read, StoryGraph seems to be a better fit.

My impression so far seems that StoryGraph is more focused on making personal recommendations and tracking certain data like how many pages you've read a day and what kinds of books you read the most. Is that an accurate impression, or am I missing something? The idea of filling out a questionnaire after finishing a book sound intriguing, as that may be helpful to ponder more about what you just read, and think about some aspects you may otherwise not have thought about. But how much of the experience is based on tracking pages, genres, moods and the like? Although it sounds like a lot of fun to have visual representation of those kinds of statistics (it's probably very enlightening regarding your reading habits as well), that makes it sound like StoryGraph is more for creating or tracking reading habit. But I also guess that's were the questionnaire or writing a review will make it more like a book journaling experience?

I recall reading in some reviews that StoryGraph is not free, or at least has a premium or subscription option. Have you just used the free option or have you tried the "premium" option as well? If so, what was different and do you feel like it was worth the money?

@Moell I use blank journals for everything. I like journals a lot and take it a bit more seriously. You certainly could do it as you described and in any of those ways but I lean heavily toward building my own pages because I enjoy the relaxation that comes with it.

As far as the annotating thing goes - yes, you have a good understanding of what it kind of is however, it is not nearly as high-maintenance. Annotating a book at your leisure or for fun in general is never done with the purpose of outweighing the reading itself. You only take the time to mark or comment on parts you yourself find important, which ties into your question about how I'd go about doing so with a book geared toward entertainment. When I annotate, I go in with the specific idea in mind of only noting things that matter to me. Only noting things I would like to make sure I take away from the book.

Things that made me smile, made me laugh, sounded interesting. I enjoy marking beautifully written sentences or phrases because I like "quoting" things on various platforms for aesthetic purposes. In sum, like journaling, annotating for fun is also as simple or as complex as you would like it to be. If highlighting takes too much time, as it seems to for some books, I like to make notes in the margins as a simple and quick way of just keeping things moving. I think it's only an effective outlet if it appeals to you, though. You could watch videos on youtube about it to get an idea of the technique but I will say that youtubers, since they do so for aesthetic and for views, it'll probably come off a lot more complex than it should.

Think about it this way... or rather, I think of it this way. If taking the time to make notes in a notebook, journal, or on a site requires time, technically leaving tabs/small blurbs in your margins is sort of the same thing but more in-the-moment and neither requires a template or "remembering" since you're doing it in the moment.

Hi again! I'll do my best to answer your questions regarding the Storygraph app/website. Yes, I suppose I would say that Storygraph's defining feature is that it provides you with deeper insights into your own reading habits based on the data you provide. It's up to you how much detail you want to give. Me personally, I don't bother to log the amount of pages I read each day because I don't particularly care to. This is what I do on Storygraph after I finish a book: I give it a rating based on how much I enjoyed it, fill out the questionnaire, and write my own review detailing my thoughts and feelings about the book. In case you haven't seen it yet and are curious, [url=https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-08/30/19/asset/66b6495673f1/sub-buzz-453-1630353482-33.png]here's a link to an image of what the questionnaire looks like[/url]. Below this, there would be a text box where you can write your own review if you want to. It may be worth mentioning that I don't believe there is an option to make your reviews private, but other users are not able to respond to them in any way. Does it feel like a book journaling experience? Sure, it's good enough for me. I'm not in the habit of journaling while in the process of reading a book. I write down all my thoughts and reflections after I've finished reading it. You might be different though. I don't even use all the features that Storygraph offers. One that you might find interesting is the option to add notes, so if you wanted to jot something down in the moment while you were reading, you could just pull up the app and do this. I haven't used this feature so I can't tell you much else about it, but I do know that notes are private unlike reviews. (Personally, I would rather do this than annotate a book itself, but that's just because I feel guilty about writing in books, lol!) Lastly, Storygraph is free to use. There is a premium membership option. I don't have it, but I think it would give you more personalized book recommendations and more detailed personal statistics. There isn't anything particularly special about it. I think it is just there as an option for if you want to support them financially. Ah, I hope this is helpful and not terribly long-winded. Feel free to ping me if you're curious about anything else. [emoji=wildclaw laughing size=1]