Let’s Talk Bookish: Tracking Reading

Hey, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. I have three days left of school, all of them finals, so that’s exciting and hard to believe. This school year went by way too quickly, and I will officially be an upperclassman starting in August. But now, onto today’s post!

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @ Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @ Book Nook Bits where we discuss various topics and share our opinions. Today’s topic is Tracking Reading (suggested by Aria).

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Do you keep track of the books you read?

Yes! I started doing it a few weeks after I began blogging. Since I started at the end of the year, I saw a lot of people’s yearly wrap-ups and all the graphs and statistics. I thought I’d do something like that.

It is super satisfying to fill out all the columns in the spreadsheet I have. I’m the type of person who likes orderly stuff like that. Graphs are amazing and pleasing to look at. It’s also a great way to recommend books to people. With a bunch of the books I’ve read in one place, I can look at it.

If so, do you use Goodreads? Storygraph? Another platform?

I use a spreadsheet that I made on Google Slides. I took inspiration from tracking templates I’d seen and kind of combined the aspects I wanted together. I track a lot on the spreadsheet, including info about the book, my personal reading info, diversity, authors, and my ratings.

I love using my own spreadsheet because I can customize it any way I want. My 2022 reading spreadsheet has changed quite a bit from the layout I had in 2021. I changed the placement of some things and added in even more information.

Has the way you keep track of your reading changed since you started blogging?

Well, yes, but also no? Because I didn’t track my reading before I started blogging. Well, I take that back. I did in middle school, but that was because I had to. Once I started formally tracking it, in January 2021, I payed more attention to what books I read and the type. For instance, I’ve always known that I love fantasy and that it takes up a majority of my reading. But I didn’t know that I read that many contemporaries, I wasn’t fully aware of it. The graphs for last year’s reading stats showed contemporary as my second most-read genre.

I also have a long TBR on another spreadsheet, where I have my priorities at the top and the rest just kind of in a random list. At the very bottom, I have books that aren’t released yet. This is a major help for me. Before, I kept a mental list of books I wanted to read but it’s hard to remember every title to the–*goes and checks list*–146 books I want to read.

What are the pros and cons of tracking your reading?

For me personally, I love being able to see what books I read and how it varies. One of my favorite sections in my spreadsheet is the representation one, where I keep track of what kind of diverse rep I read. It’s also the easiest way for me to keep track of all the books I read.

I can’t think of any cons that there would be for tracking your reading. It’s really just whatever method works best for you, whether it be a platform or a spreadsheet or a simple notebook. I know that me personally would be totally lost without a tracker, though. My brain would not be able to keep track of all the books I’ve read and all the books I want to read.

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Do you track your reading? What do you use to track it?