It’s gotta be an app thing for both

If you are using your mobile phone, do not use the app, use the site on your mobile phone browser. That is better for everything really, not just goodreads. Apps are made to run on the lowest common denominator of hardware and often are so crippled…

but I would think as a reading app, these would be easily some of the more important things.

I do not know what a reading app is, and well, if it is run on really weak hardware it makes sense they can not design apps to be as good as the ones to run on desktop. Try the desktop site on your phone and bookmark it to your phone main screen as if it were an app. You will have much more features. And goodreads is far far better, different class at listing all possible editions, ebook or audio or translations of a book than storygraph…

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)

, choose how I read (audiobook or physical)

What do you mean? Is this an app thing? I do not use the app, maybe that is that, but on desktop site (this is just not good goodreads but apps are horribly limiting for almost every site) it is dead easy. It shows you the most shelved edition, you click on other editions and swap to your edition.

and make following folks easier.

It is just clicking follow? Is it an app thing? Friending is not automatic nor mutual, but that is what has it should be.

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

that is weird. I would expect goodreads to have a far larger database for those, and I never had any issues with it.

and can more easily avoid books that lead to a bad reading experience

wow, what a skill. From storygraph recommendations (of things I have read) I do not think it would work for me, but great for you.

I read for fun but one of the things that got me back into reading more steadily is having a yearly goal

well, I just read for fun and whatever I like and I do not count at all or care about goals. I do get extra enjoyment of TALKING about books with other people, whether we loved or hated a book, and that social part, commenting on people’s reviews, or following, and creating friendships through meeting people of like minds just adds to my reading experience, and I am afraid that is not (not yet? Has it changed) possible in storygraph.

I dont want to read books that might have a surprise romance in the middle of a horror

How horrible, a surprise romance somewhere!

The novel feels so cinematic. It was like a movie was playing in my head as I read it. I think a miniseries has the potential to be even better than the book because of all the crazy visuals we’d get. Not just the special effects, but think of the setting. Think of the cocktail dresses! Fingers crossed the Hulu series actually pans out!

It is written, from the start in a very cinematic way, almost like directing the camera, the attention. The start, when there is a party and a bit about the drivers and so on? It is more toned down later, but the intro into the characters is very movie like. That is not necessarily a good thing IMO - it is not necessarily bad either, but it can lead to books which are very visual, very easy to visualize but at the cost of other things, most likely characterization. If you like that style of writing try Erin Morgenstern for example.

But a warning, if you do not mind - careful about wishing for tv/movie adaptations of books you loved, or even liked. They can be catastrophically bad. Usually I like things a lot better in my mind, than some casting or sets. I often just ignore adaptations as hard as I can, if it is about books I want. (though I did not like Mexican Gothic enough to care either way).

The romantic subplot was badly resolved yes, IMO, and there was just no chemistry between those two, it reads almost as a “settle” for safety rather than sexual attraction, but without really getting into explicitly.

Use the desktop site, it has filter by age indeed and also allows to filter by star rating, edition and language the review is written in.

Reading reviews and following people who write things I found interesting about lesser known books is my technique also to find books and yet more interesting reviews.

What is wrong about an experience being “lonely”? Why would it suck? Some things are just as valid without needing to be echoed by others doing the same, or feeling the same.

Maybe reading can be a gateway into that? Your experience of a book, is just as meaningful valid, even if it is not shared by many or even shared. Your thoughts, your feelings are as valid whether shared or not.

They are not saying so explicitly this year but going by past years, it is related by total number of shelvings (reviews, ratings but also to-be-read shelving, but not sure if they all count the same. You can see to be read intentions in the book statistic pages).

There used to be a cut-off "Opening round official nominees must have an average rating of 3.50 or higher at the time of launch. " though that was meaningless, it was really unlikely a book already rated less than 3.5 at time of launch was so unless it was by review bombing. It is thought they remove books with a “low” rating at time of compilling the finalists https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/yz3r4k/yet_another_post_overanalyzing_how_goodreads/ but it is surely higher than 3.5 and they do not say so explicitly.

It used to be people could nominate books, but oh well, there were organized campaigns, and that is over.

Interesting detail: one book released on Tuesday made Tuesday’s list, the final cut-off for nominated books (and might even win its category), it was Martha Wells new Murderbot book https://www.goodreads.com/book/stats?id=65211701. Not sure if its publisher, Tor, was not gaming for that, since it was giving out (uncharacteristically for them) lots of Arcs of it. It has only 500+ reviews, but 36k want-to-read shelvings (it was out two days ago only…)

Thanks for the feedback.

You can read the rules. It is about number of shelvings (ratings, reviews and people listing as want to read) at cut-off day tied with minimum rating (Which is really low 3.5…)

I think these awards and the newspapers and social media best of year list have one purpose which is to give people picks of the books they are going to buy as Christmas presents. People like giving recently released books, that is its purpose. And it’s fine that it is a popularity contest. For fans and frequent readers, the 20 book longlist by genre is really quite cool, and interesting and might give us idea. It is to sell books - which is fine, because books sold, by bookstores and publishers, this time of the year, nth copy of something might put bookstores or publishers more firmly in the black and help finance the whole industry.

It is not about quality, or what books are, will be important - I find it fascinating to look back at past years and see what turned out to be important, and not.

About best fiction award, the big one, I guess it is a battle of the Anns? Napolitano versus Patchett? Or Kuang or anybody else with a chance?

still counts as “reading”?

I do not know what is “reading”, I do not know what should count for it, I do not “count” reading.

What matters is understanding what somebody else is trying to communicate? Is watching a play performed “counting” as reading a play? Is hearing poetry “counting”? Is reading all the words but not understanding them of some text on philosophy or physics “counting”? What is counting and what is reading?

Some texts will function worse in voice form, others will function well, perhaps even better with a later of interpretation from a competent actor. It depends.

If the Three Body Problem plot and characterization and all, all those things independent from translation (which was not awesome, though not bad either), the things related to the author and the plot he wanted totell, did not bother you and you still got book 2 after that, well you got what you deserved…

I believe it has to do with consumption of content on social media platforms like FB, IG, and YouTube. I can’t focus for long hours which was pretty easy for me previously.

I believe this, and you are not unique. Try setting yourself up a limit, or some time for yourself where you will not touch the internet or something. It does not matter if you read or not, but it might be good for you in general to have some regular scheduled time off from being online. Exercise or clean, or do whatever. It is not just about the reading…

If you are reading books in a foreign language and you got an ebookreader, and you are not aware of it, dictionaries are great features and can help understand a lot more of the text. But the more you read, the faster you will understand future reads.

During the the 1890s, what book was considered “embarassing” or super low brow to be caught

The problem with that is that kind of literature is that it will fade to obscurity fast, and modern readers (who are not students of the literature or history of the time) will not ever have heard of it. So regarding the 1890s, I do not know, and it is not something to waste time reading…

There is a new book by Zadie Smith, who is about a novellist called William Ainsworth, who was at the time more popular than Dickens, not sure if it fits the equivalent thing…

But Colleen Hoover like, that kind of place, well authors become famous fast at some times. I can totally see 80s bonkbusters (Jackie Collins, or Judith Krantz) or bodice ripper authors (Woodiwiss?) as filling that kind of space relatively recently. I actually think Taylor Reid Jenkins is doing precisely the type of story, shortened and simplified that Judith Krantz would have written…

Reading speed is not constant across genres and styles. I use a lot the kindle estimate time, I love word count estimates for books, I know how long it takes me to read something on average, but I know if I am reading some kinds of fiction I read much faster, others (if dialogue is more cryptic, if the worldbuilding more complex) I am definitely slower. It depends on phrase construction, vocabulary, how much is understated or stated explicitly. And that is just for fiction, if you are reading non fiction it is anything goes really because you need to think.

I would not panic and think there are physiological causes… Mind you, if you are wearing contacts because you have myopia nearsightness, they will not correct for far sightedness and that might be causing indeed trouble reading - check if you read the same way with contacts as with eyeglasses (even if both are prescribed for myopia, glasses will not correct the same way and it is easier to read if you are showing signs of being far sighted now with glasses than with contacts)