I love reading this take! My biggest gripe with goodreads is that I can type an exact title into the search bar and the book I’m looking for is buried in a slew of similarly titled books. That is something Amazon really should invest in fixing. But I agree that I really don’t mind the “dates” non addictive feel of the interface!
Yes, this happens to me so often! With me trying to control my social media intake this year, good reads has been a great non-addictive replacement for me too. - N
For me it's funny when people say that they don't want to support Amazon so they don't use Goodreads. Yes, it's being a user but no one is paying for Goodreads. Besides, there doesn't seem to be a problem with Kindle, or Kindle unlimited. So, lots of these people are just biased (for whatever reason) against the app and have to tell you about it (even though no one actually asked for their hate).
I personally love Goodreads. It's amazing for tracking reading, searching for new reads, bookish community, and many more. It's definitely my favorite app or "social media"!
I completely agree with the idea that Goodreads is my library where I can gaze upon all the books I’ve borrowed from the library, read on my ereader and even add the ones I remember reading as a kid. I used to have to have the physical book but neither the money or the space. Plus I have menopausal memory and am at a complete loss whenever anyone asks, “What have you read lately?”
100% all of this! I loved that it’s for regular readers and they can speak up. I’ve catalogued every single book I’ve read since 2010 and have like a million tags so I can’t imagine ever leaving.
These are the sorts of discussions I love! I'll admit I'm in the against side for Goodreads here, mainly because of it being an Amazon platform, but all your points were great reasons as to why I used it for so many years. I don't think Goodreads will ever truly go out of style unless Amazon shut it down - even if people don't use it for book tracking, it's usually one of the first results on Google for any book and so easy to find data out from (as an Aussie who gets commonwealth-market books, I tend to dislike our larger c-format "trade" paperbacks and will often google a book to see if it has a US paperback that's a smaller format. Goodreads is a very quick and easy find for this). I did loathe The Storygraph's interface in the beginning, but it grew on me enough that it's my only book tracking app (aside from an excel masterlist!).
I also thought your footnote #4 was quite interesting since Goodreads Influencer culture is just as much of a hellscape as Instagram has become, albeit less in your face. Vying for #1 most "insert here" has been prevalent since the book community and Goodreads has existed. This is one of the things I really enjoy about the Storygraph - I can be as social or as hermity as I want to be (they only have followers/likes for books at the moment).
This is totally fair; I don't enjoy supporting Amazon so I definitely see why people would seek alternatives. I do appreciate the way Goodreads displays data, with the publisher's description, basic genre labels, page count, etc - I didn't mention it above, but this is another reason I prefer it to alternatives.
I have been fortunate enough not to have come across the Goodreads Influencers - this may be because I don't use many features of Goodreads (lists, best of, challenges, etc).
I have mixed feelings about Goodreads and I really enjoyed reading your take on the subject. Although there are parts of it that I love, there are parts that I wish would be updated. I want to be able to give ratings by half points, have a DNF category (instead of just want to read/currently reading/read), and be able to search for/create/vote on lists in the app.
I also really enjoyed your use of footnotes in this post.
I have wanted a DNF shelf for years, and I very recently figured out how to do it! Create a new shelf with your name of choice, and in your shelves go to edit and select 'exclusive' next to that shelf.
Here's a how-to if you're interested; at the bottom it explains how to create a DNF option in addition to read/currently reading/read
It's been really interesting with the Goodreads discourse to think about what/who Goodreads is for. It seems like there are several competing interests (authors, social readers, readers who just want to track their personal habits, Amazon as a bookseller) that I had never considered. I actually switched to StoryGraph because I wasn't interested in the social aspect of Goodreads (I just wanted a place to track my TBR), so I appreciate your perspective as someone who does truly use Goodreads as social media.
As for your first footnote on where StoryGraph gets the statistics -- it's based on reader polls. When you mark a book as read on their site, it asks a series of questions in addition to the star rating (how would you describe the mood of the book; would you describe the cast as diverse; etc). So when they say the book is 54% diverse, they mean 54% of readers that reviewed the book would describe it as diverse.
I was and I am happy with GoodReads (it is much better than Google Books, by the way). My only concern is that they killed the API so you can't use it as a good source of book info in other applications). Amazon had also said it is going to shut down Goodreads and I believe they will shut it down at one point (like they did to Shelfari). It would be a hassle to get all that info we accumulated over the years and move it somewhere else (with a CSV file or something). I developed an iOS app just for this purpose and got all my info in it (5000+ books) just in case it shuts down...
This is concerning! I had no idea that it could be shut down in the near future
I keep my own personal Word document to catalog my books and write reviews/thoughts/analysis (also very low-tech and 2004 of me), so my reading history is safe, but I would still hate to see Goodreads gone!
They mentıoned it a few years ago and they seem to spend no effort on the web site, although they changed the interface once. They do not hand out developer keys any more, so essentially a dead platform.
I love reading this take! My biggest gripe with goodreads is that I can type an exact title into the search bar and the book I’m looking for is buried in a slew of similarly titled books. That is something Amazon really should invest in fixing. But I agree that I really don’t mind the “dates” non addictive feel of the interface!
Yes, this happens to me so often! With me trying to control my social media intake this year, good reads has been a great non-addictive replacement for me too. - N
For me it's funny when people say that they don't want to support Amazon so they don't use Goodreads. Yes, it's being a user but no one is paying for Goodreads. Besides, there doesn't seem to be a problem with Kindle, or Kindle unlimited. So, lots of these people are just biased (for whatever reason) against the app and have to tell you about it (even though no one actually asked for their hate).
I personally love Goodreads. It's amazing for tracking reading, searching for new reads, bookish community, and many more. It's definitely my favorite app or "social media"!
Agreed! I love seeing what my friends are reading and using it as a form of social media! - N
I completely agree with the idea that Goodreads is my library where I can gaze upon all the books I’ve borrowed from the library, read on my ereader and even add the ones I remember reading as a kid. I used to have to have the physical book but neither the money or the space. Plus I have menopausal memory and am at a complete loss whenever anyone asks, “What have you read lately?”
100% all of this! I loved that it’s for regular readers and they can speak up. I’ve catalogued every single book I’ve read since 2010 and have like a million tags so I can’t imagine ever leaving.
These are the sorts of discussions I love! I'll admit I'm in the against side for Goodreads here, mainly because of it being an Amazon platform, but all your points were great reasons as to why I used it for so many years. I don't think Goodreads will ever truly go out of style unless Amazon shut it down - even if people don't use it for book tracking, it's usually one of the first results on Google for any book and so easy to find data out from (as an Aussie who gets commonwealth-market books, I tend to dislike our larger c-format "trade" paperbacks and will often google a book to see if it has a US paperback that's a smaller format. Goodreads is a very quick and easy find for this). I did loathe The Storygraph's interface in the beginning, but it grew on me enough that it's my only book tracking app (aside from an excel masterlist!).
I also thought your footnote #4 was quite interesting since Goodreads Influencer culture is just as much of a hellscape as Instagram has become, albeit less in your face. Vying for #1 most "insert here" has been prevalent since the book community and Goodreads has existed. This is one of the things I really enjoy about the Storygraph - I can be as social or as hermity as I want to be (they only have followers/likes for books at the moment).
This is totally fair; I don't enjoy supporting Amazon so I definitely see why people would seek alternatives. I do appreciate the way Goodreads displays data, with the publisher's description, basic genre labels, page count, etc - I didn't mention it above, but this is another reason I prefer it to alternatives.
I have been fortunate enough not to have come across the Goodreads Influencers - this may be because I don't use many features of Goodreads (lists, best of, challenges, etc).
Glad Storygraph is working for you!
- S
Yes to 100% of this, including the footnotes which I read and agree with in their entirety ❤️
I have mixed feelings about Goodreads and I really enjoyed reading your take on the subject. Although there are parts of it that I love, there are parts that I wish would be updated. I want to be able to give ratings by half points, have a DNF category (instead of just want to read/currently reading/read), and be able to search for/create/vote on lists in the app.
I also really enjoyed your use of footnotes in this post.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I have wanted a DNF shelf for years, and I very recently figured out how to do it! Create a new shelf with your name of choice, and in your shelves go to edit and select 'exclusive' next to that shelf.
Here's a how-to if you're interested; at the bottom it explains how to create a DNF option in addition to read/currently reading/read
https://help.goodreads.com/s/announcements/a038V00000U4s9YQAR/how-to-create-custom-shelves-eg-dnf-abandoned
- S
Thank you!!!! That is so helpful to know!
It's been really interesting with the Goodreads discourse to think about what/who Goodreads is for. It seems like there are several competing interests (authors, social readers, readers who just want to track their personal habits, Amazon as a bookseller) that I had never considered. I actually switched to StoryGraph because I wasn't interested in the social aspect of Goodreads (I just wanted a place to track my TBR), so I appreciate your perspective as someone who does truly use Goodreads as social media.
As for your first footnote on where StoryGraph gets the statistics -- it's based on reader polls. When you mark a book as read on their site, it asks a series of questions in addition to the star rating (how would you describe the mood of the book; would you describe the cast as diverse; etc). So when they say the book is 54% diverse, they mean 54% of readers that reviewed the book would describe it as diverse.
Yes, there are so many different stakeholders who view the platform differently based on what their needs & preferences are.
And that makes a lot of sense about Storygraph's statistics, thanks for explaining!
- S
I was and I am happy with GoodReads (it is much better than Google Books, by the way). My only concern is that they killed the API so you can't use it as a good source of book info in other applications). Amazon had also said it is going to shut down Goodreads and I believe they will shut it down at one point (like they did to Shelfari). It would be a hassle to get all that info we accumulated over the years and move it somewhere else (with a CSV file or something). I developed an iOS app just for this purpose and got all my info in it (5000+ books) just in case it shuts down...
This is concerning! I had no idea that it could be shut down in the near future
I keep my own personal Word document to catalog my books and write reviews/thoughts/analysis (also very low-tech and 2004 of me), so my reading history is safe, but I would still hate to see Goodreads gone!
- Shruti
They mentıoned it a few years ago and they seem to spend no effort on the web site, although they changed the interface once. They do not hand out developer keys any more, so essentially a dead platform.
Love this! I don’t particularly care for Goodreads myself but never understood the vitriol towards it. Thought this was a great balanced overview!