The Book of Books - do you keep one?

[Overread]

So I'm starting to think that I'll have to get myself a small notebook and within its pages list out every book I own and read along with every author. I'm finding that its getting a lot harder when browsing the bookstores to avoid things I've already got - or to remember the specific title I'm missing.

I find this increasingly troublesome with the new digital books because whilst on Amazon it nicely shows me what I do and don't have - when I'm in the book store looking at a 4D Real Live Book with a cover and all - heck I can't recall if I've got it or not.

So does anyone else keep one of these little reminder books of books? A memory jogger and a list - and if you do how do you formate it so that its got some semblance of order; unless you write it out fresh every new book so that its neat and alphabetical.

 

[Mangara]

Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia

It's all I need.

 

[psikeyhackr]

So I'm starting to think that I'll have to get myself a small notebook

Notebook!

No, no! A science fiction reader must have a tablet computer.

Luddites are not allowed in space.

psik

 

[Overread]

Ahh I'm on Goodreads but its not very mobile.

Heh here I am somewhat in the dark-ages when it comes to mobile tech (mostly because its expensive and half the time I think a laptop is better than a tablet in all respects and then the prices get even higher).

 

[TheDustyZebra]

What you need is an app that will hold your library list and then when you scan a new book, it will tell you if you've read it or not, and if you own it or not.

Is there one of those, or should I get started writing one?

 

[Extollager]

I don't have a list of the books I own, but I have recorded the books I have read for 40 years. This has been useful to me in ways I wouldn't have anticipated in Jan. 1974.

 

[Lord Soth]

I don't have a list of the books I own, but I have recorded the books I have read for 40 years. This has been useful to me in ways I wouldn't have anticipated in Jan. 1974.

Man I wish I had had the foresight to do that. I have been caught out a few times a quarter way into a book with the dawning realisation that yup, I have read this before...

 

[Vince W]

If you have a mac then Delicious Library is what you want.

 

[tinkerdan]

There are places like goodreads and the library thing and shelftari where you can create databases of the books you have read which is handy if you have access to the web while browsing for new books.

Otherwise carrying the hard copy catalog of books I've read was getting rather old and long and difficult to peruse while shopping. once you reach a few thousand titles it's daunting.

 

[Kylara]

There is an app for your phone called my library which you scan books into and place them on various shelves - so reading, read, to read, favourites etc. It syncs with your google account so you have a big detailed list of all the books you scan in

 

[Connavar]

Ahh I'm on Goodreads but its not very mobile.

Heh here I am somewhat in the dark-ages when it comes to mobile tech (mostly because its expensive and half the time I think a laptop is better than a tablet in all respects and then the prices get even higher).

I have Goodreads app and check my bookshelfs in my mobile, Ipad. So i dont know how a mobile and an Ipad isnt very mobile

Reason i use Goodreads is mostly so i know exactly i have these numbers of books at home, i have borrowed these few 100s from the library etc

Its good for memory because i know exactly i have 18 books of this author and 30 of this one and i havent bought this book or that book yet.

 

[hitmouse]

It is a bit odd, but I can remember most of the books I have ever read, and I know where they are. This is probably helped by the fact that I have kept pretty much everything I have read since about 1976 (starting with Emil and the Detectives.) My house is bursting with 1000s of books, but I can pretty much locate any of them if I feel the need. I do have a bit of a problem sometimes remembering which ones I have leant to friends.
Not quite as portable as a tablet, perhaps, but it works very well for me.

 

[Extollager]

Man I wish I had had the foresight to do that. I have been caught out a few times a quarter way into a book with the dawning realisation that yup, I have read this before...

I'm a great one for rereading, myself.

This led me to the realization a few months ago that, even though I've always got a few books going, and have been reading adult books for over forty years, and read a lot -- despite all these factors, I may have read only a thousand different adult books, perhaps less. I don't regret that, by the way, but it is kind of funny. So, for example, I've read The Lord of the Rings 13 times, but that counts as one book (or as three, Fellowship, Towers, Return), not as 13 (or 39).

But anyway, I'm a great advocate of rereading, although I occasionally read books that I expect I would not reread, e.g. some of Andrew Klavan's thrillers.

 

[Lady of Winterfell]

I mostly use Goodreads as well. They do have an app, but if you don't have anything to access it with, then maybe you could print out your list before heading out?