i like to use r/books and r/suggestmeabook for finding new books but people always suggest me books or topics im just not interested in and that dont match what i loved, I also had the issue with goodreads and not being able to track audiobooks, ebooks, ect vs. physical books which i dont really read physical so it was a feature i was missing. I have noticed a huge difference since switching to storygraph. I can properly find books that have content in them i want and can more easily avoid books that lead to a bad reading experience and have a easier time tracking all my stats for the year.
I read for fun but one of the things that got me back into reading more steadily is having a yearly goal, i also have a reading journal and seeing my stats in a app is helpful before i put them in my book or i can print them to put in which is even better.
i know this isnt about books in particular but i find how i track books and find books to almost be as important. I dont want to read books that might have a surprise romance in the middle of a horror for example like in jaws so story graph has tags that would have warned me before i started the book.
Try book-filter.com to help with finding books. It’s basically Goodreads search with added filtering capabilities.
Check out an app called Bookly if you’re looking for tracking. It’s the best out of everything I’ve tried and I rarely pay for apps but bought a lifetime sub to this one and it’s been worth every penny. It doesn’t recommend books to you but it tracks absolutely everything. You add the books you’re reading, set your own genres up. Then when you start reading or listening you just press the start button and don’t press stop until you’ve finished your session. Obviously you can pause it.
Pages, minutes, hours, days etc etc. You can set daily, weekly monthly and yearly goals for time or pages or hours read. Save quotes. Words. Then I add everything into my book journal. I read and listen to a lot of books so finding this app a couple of years ago was awesome.I’ve stopped looking to goodreads to be honest but I have a TBR pile that’s about three years long and that’s just the physical ones. I know what I love to read and apart from romance, I’ll give pretty much anything a go. Though horror and thriller are my favourites, I still don’t find many decent recommendations on goodreads apart from ones I’ve read or ones I already know about.
I made the switch a few years ago. I originally intended to run storygraph and goodreads side by side for a while, but by the time I got storygraph set up (and corrected my reading history), I was completely sold on it and abandoned goodreads immediately.
My favorite part is that you can search for books you’re in the mood for. If you do an ‘empty’ search (click in the box then hit enter without typing anything), you can use the filter to search for books based on your mood, length, genre, etc.
You can swap editions when you open the book profile (it’s under the book title). For most books you can find a ton of different editions. In paperback, hardback, number of pg, audiobook, ebook, different languages etc. You can also add your own editions if you wish. I’ve done that for some of my series that i have in estonian but SG only had them in english.
Everyone should use whatever tracking system they want if any at all, but just fyi for anyone reading this you can switch editions on Goodreads.
So yes, you can absolutely record you read the Kindle edition or that you listened to the audiobook.
Goodreads also has genre tags. So these aren’t unique things to Storygraph, but by all means use Storygraph if you like it better.
For recommendations, I really have found it better to find someone who likes the same books you like and follow them rather than using any computerized system for recommendations.
i dont have a kindle i have a kobo, and also read audiobooks through libby
You can still log them on Goodreads. You can switch through hundreds of book versions to find the one you have.
Oh no I deleted my Goodreads for a reason
Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast; I would catch it!
I actually found I had pretty good success asking chat gpt for books to read. Like anything else with it, you have to get the prompt right but it threw up some good suggestions. I’ve only tried it a couple of times when I was first using it as I’ve actually got plenty of recommendations in the meantime from other places -I joined a couple of book clubs so I’ve been reading for those- but I’d use it again next time I need inspiration
I use Reading List to track both my TBR and what I’m reading! It’s free, but I pay $10/year for the premium version and it’s extremely worth it!
You can organize into different folders, so I have a folder for each of the last three years that is filled with the books I’ve read that year. You can also DNF on there and have them be a part of their own folder, so there’s no more guessing “Have I read that? Did I like it?” There’s a place for star ratings and notes for each book. I love it!
I really like Reading List for organizing the books I have and still want to read. The interface for categorizing and arranging them just feels really intuitive.
Goodreads is linked to amazon so you’ll notice that they do focus on popularity rathen than personalised recommendation…because popularity sells books.
Personally, I enjoy storygraph for these reasons;
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The charts motivates me to read more. I love seeing progress. My fav is the genre chart because it makes me want to explore other genres to “balance” it out.
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The TBR planner is fun. You can plan 5 books in advance. The filter to sort by genre/mood etc is great for me as a mood reader.
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The storygraph challenge section that you can join with others! This is unique vs other trackers. You can even see what others have added to get recommendation. I found a lot of great reads this way.
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I dunno how helpful it is but Hoopla is a great app that has good recommendations for me. You need a library card, but that’s it.
Both kinda suck in my opinion. I’m using GoodReads right now and I hate that I can’t add one book to a shelf without removing it from another. I want to make different kinds of lists like ‘best sci-fi’, ‘best historical fiction’, ‘best fantasy’, ‘masterpieces’ etc… and it’s so frustrating because one book may end up in more than one shelf but the app won’t let me do that.
You can make your shelves in Goodreads not exclusive so your books can be on multiple shelves at once. My exclusive shelves are currently reading / want to read / read / DNF. Everything else - similar to the tags you listed - is not exclusive. It’s just a box you check when you edit your shelves. But I do think you have to use the browser version edit your shelves & see that box.
I’m using GoodReads right now and I hate that I can’t add one book to a shelf without removing it from another.
No. I mean you got exclusive shelves, and of those you can yeah, only had to one, and they are like 3 default ones, but you can create any other number of shelves, make them exclusive or not and add any book to any number of non exclusive shelves and one of the exclusice shelves.
go to my books and edit shelves and see if you got make exclusive checked on shelves you can remove it from! (You can not from at least 3, which is “read” and “currently reading_” and “want to read” but all else I think does not have to be exclusive)
Thank you! I didn’t know this. I appreciate you letting me know.
Reading in any other language than english usually means that any new “replacement” for goodreads isnt going to work. The amount of editions in my mother tongue is baffling where as most sites trying to be better than goodreads have usually none of these.
Really because story graph said some of my books were Spanish and some were Japanese so I’m assuming they have more languages, this was a error when they moved my books over from Goodreads, I did have some older books not say they were audiobook or when it did they didn’t know the length of them but those audiobooks I listened to on YouTube
I personally enjoy more obscure books so SG has had really wonderful recs for me (and most I can find on my Kobo or Library)
Goodreads almost always recs me new books and as great as that is I don’t want super new stuff.
That’s one of my issues with good reads too
I’ve found Storygraph readers more picky. Goodreads people tend to be more positive in their reviews.
I’m looking for more picky I don’t want to be disappointed by any more reads that I read generally good reviews on just because people wanted to be nice in their reviews
Fair
I LOVE StoryGraph (though I also boycott Amazon so I’d use it regardless).
For the people having difficulty with it: I have a lot of books in my ‘want to read’ which seems to really help the algorithm, and I also ignore the ‘new and trending’ but tbh that’s more because of what I read.
I’d encourage anyone to give it a go.
i wish i could find where i got the recco for “long way to a small angry planet”
Never heard of Storygraph so I am going to try. The website looks promising.
I mostly go for literary work, so the best option for me is to find the top sellers! But again this is only for those books which have been published years ago. Someone also recommended a website for the top 100 American read. I don’t remember the website. The website changes the list every year.
Amazon best seller is a huge disappointment for me!
Using storygraph gives me phobia of tight spaces. It’s cramped. Sure, storygraph has features that we readers wished goodreads implemented yearssssss ago i.e. half-star rating, DNF rating, etc. I’ll gladly sacrifice those features than using storygraph. But what storygraph will have trouble building is the community the size of goodreads.
Hey, if you enjoy storygraph more than goodreads, good for you. Do what you want and use any apps that is currently available.