Goodreads (Read Across America Day – Part 3)

I’m a bit late on this third installment (did you catch the first and second installments?), but it’s because I was busy reading! I finally finished all 500 pages of Hillary’s book, cried the whole time, and now I’ve moved on to a much lighter read… about a murder in the woods at a bachelorette party. Want to know the title? Follow me on Goodreads!

Goodreads was launched in 2007, and although I have been reading for years, I only discovered it a year ago, in March 2017. Since then, I have tried to use it consistently. According to their home page, Goodreads is “the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.” Their mission is “to help people find and share books they love.” Alright. They got me. I’m in.

Again, quoting from their website, here are a few things you can do on Goodreads:

• See what books your friends are reading.
• Track the books you’re reading, have read, and want to read.
• Check out your personalized book recommendations. Their recommendation engine analyzes 20 billion data points to give suggestions tailored to your literary tastes.
• Find out if a book is a good fit for you from community reviews.

Basically, it’s Facebook combined with Amazon book recommendations, but so much more. On Goodreads, you can create a free account, and then you have three “bookshelves”: Read, Currently-Reading, and To-Read. I currently have 151 on my read list, and 108 on my to-read. I try not to get carried away with my to-read list, but I always fail. It looks like I better continue to enjoy reading for a very very long time. There is so much to rave about, but I will focus my post on my top 3:

1. Organization/Statistics
2. Friends, Reviews & Recommendations
3. Lists

Organization/Statistics

My favorite part of Goodreads is the ability to organize. On my “bookshelves,” I am able to sort by the date I began reading a book, sort by rating, or sort by author or title. I love to be able to keep all of my books in one place. My mom used to send me emails all the time with recommendations. When it came time to take books out of the library, I would have to search my inbox for emails from my mom, like “Mommy + Books” and then sift through months of recommendations and try to remember what I read. Now, when she mentions a book I just add it to my “to-read” shelf on Goodreads. And when I read it, I migrate it to “read.” It’s so easy! They even have app so I can add books on the go!

Also, there are statistics.

If you learned anything from my obsession with Peloton, it’s that I love and am motivated by statistics. Whether that’s “best output” on the stationary bike, or “how many pages I’ve read in 2017,” I’m here for it. Good thing Goodreads loves statistics, too! By clicking “stats,” I can see how many books I read per year, and I can even see the amount of pages. In 2017, I read 33 books, or 10,294 pages. Also, you can click into the year, and find out how you rated the books. It’s awesome. So far in 2018 I’m at 8 books, 3135 pages. Hopefully I can beat last year’s total!

Friends, Reviews & Recommendations

The CEO and Co-Founder of Goodreads said that he was struck by an idea when he was scanning his friend’s bookshelf: when he wanted to know what books to read, he’d rather turn to a friend than any random person or bestseller list. This is true for me, too. I always ask my friends or my mom what they are reading. Goodreads puts Facebook together with the NYT Bestseller Lists, and it’s truly the best.

I add friends from my Facebook or contacts, and then I can see what they are currently reading, how they reviewed books I was thinking of reading, and when they add a new book to their to-read bookshelf. I have friends whose tastes are very similar to mine, whose books I always add to my lists as soon as they add them. I also have friends with more serious/intellectual taste than me, but I still try to pick a few of their books per year to open my eyes to new views or voices.

Goodreads also allows for you to rate the books (1-5 stars) after you finish, and to write reviews. I love to read my friends’ reviews, and therefore I feel it’s the right thing to do to write my own reviews as well! I tend to rate most of my books 3-5, because I wouldn’t read it if I wasn’t interested. But every once in a while, I get a real dud that I rate a 2.

Besides my friends’ recommendations and ratings, I also pick books based on “community” ratings and reviews. Each book has an average rating, and if it’s 3.7 or above, it’ll probably be pretty good. Despite the many troll reviews on Hillary’s book, it’s still rated 4.03! Not bad. Here’s my review for a little taste:

Read. This. Book. I don’t know where to begin. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t fully understand everything in this book because although I was/am a big Hill supporter, I don’t know all of the names of her campaign people or the all of the ins and outs of her tenure as Secretary of State. But she wrote this book for all readers and it was easy to read and clear throughout. There were a few sections that were very dense and poll/number heavy, but overall it was an insightful, interesting, and deeply personal book. I really felt her pain and regrets, and I even cried about 15 times. (It’s a long book!) I feel like this should be mandatory reading for all Americans who were swayed by the media, who didn’t understand the whole picture of the election, who STILL don’t believe in the Russian collusion, and also, for people who argued that Hillary doesn’t have emotions. She’s human, just like us! and she loves her Chardonnay, just like me. I’m still with her. I’d give this 10 stars if I could.

Lists

My favorite way to find books to read is by perusing the Goodreads “lists.” If I love a book, I can go to the page for the book, and scroll down below the summary and reviews, and it tells you which lists the book appears on, like “beach reads of 2016” or “best YA fiction of 2017.” Then you can go to those lists and find other similar books. Also, at the end of the year, they publish “Best Books” lists, where readers can nominate, rank and rate their favorites in different categories for the year. You can also go back 10 years to view the past year favs. I have taken many books from these lists and I can’t wait to read them all!

The real challenge is, how do I read 100 books/year AND keep up with my blog?? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, follow me on Goodreads for more recommendations!