Saturday, October 27, 2012

A Year of Goodreads

         It was almost a year ago that I started using the website GoodReads.com. It's a site that keeps a database of books and lets members record things like marking books they would like to read, recording the date they finish books, rating books, and writing reviews. If your friends use it too, you can each see what others are reading and have discussions about books on the site. I started using it to keep a list of the books I was reading.
         Now, to record a book , to put it on your "selfves" in good read terms, you must assing it to one to three basic catigorys: to-read, currently reading, or read. There is no choice to put thing in a "Read have and then got distracted by another book and abandoned it." I found this bug/feature to be very motivating for me in terms of actually finishing books. (Though it also motivated me to abandod books I suspected I might not finish all the quicker.)
         Before I started using GoodReads I had estimated I finished around 100 books a year, guessing I averaged about 2 a week. This year I've made my goal of finishing 150 books. When my husband saw my goal he said that a goal should be a stretch, not what you were going to do anyway. And he's right that I waiting to see that I was on pace to make that goal before setting it. But I think that for someone with a full time job and something of a life 150 books something of an achiment.
        Finishing more books has changed the impact of my reading on me. It keeps books more distinct in my mind vs. having ideas from different books blend together quickly. I'm more deliberate and aware of what I read and end up gaining a fuller appreciation of what I'm reading about. I look forward to continuing to keep this kind of reading log in the future.

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