+1 on Hans Zimmer! The Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack makes for an epic read. Listening to "Pirates" makes even weeding seem epic;-)

Along this line, I also just read Conversations with Tom Petty. It was really fun to listen to all his albums (via youtube) as I went along. I didn't time them perfectly, but kept things in the same era. It was really cool!

Stop whining and pick up a fucking book then. Don’t stop until you’re halfway - then you might as well read the other half.

I thought when I started reading I would be all about romance novels, and I was.. but I kept getting bored. I ended up liking psychological thrillers. They seem to hold my interest. Just keep trying different genres.

I love Storygraph, I've been using it for over a year and it's great. The recommendations are good and seem to get better the more I put into the app. The tracking of what I'm reading is perfect Not only pages, genres, moods, but you can also put on personal tags to track other things. I like to track new verses used versus library books I'm reading every year.

I do. In late 2017, someone asked me how much I read. My answer was, “A lot, I guess?!?!?!??” That person mentioned Goodreads. I became curious about how much read and started tracking through Goodreads in 2018. I’ve kept at it ever since for three reasons. First, it’s much easier to find and give recommendations to people when I have them all in one place. Someone will want a book about xx and I’ll remember something I read last year. Second, I believe reading is about comfort and escapism but also about learning and expanding yourself. So, I use my list to make sure I’m branching out from time to time. For instance, right now I am in a paranormal/fantasy rut. I’ve read a lot of that so far this year. Honestly, that’s my go-to comfy place. However, it’s also not the place where my favorites come from (contradictory and odd, I know but that’s me). I know that means I need to shake it up a bit for my next couple books. Third, I like the feeling of accomplishment when I meet my goal (usually about November). I set my goal at a very reasonable level but one that I can quickly get way behind if take too time off for very long.

Goodreads is a good platform for tracking books for ease of use if you are just wanting to track the books. It is very easy to look up info on the books you are thinking of and look at reviews. They also have a feature to let you create a Want to Read list which is a great feature until you start entering into their giveaway drawings. They automatically put any books you register for onto your Want to Read list. Since I go in and throw my name in Willy nilly sometimes (because, why not), my Want to Read list is kinda useless now.

You mentioned using it to look so you ‘can interrogate it and find interesting patterns/insights’. That would probably be the biggest part Goodreads is lacking. Any patterns and insights you gain would be from your own analysis. Now if your creative and meticulous, you can use Goodreads to make it easier for you to do your analysis. Goodreads allows you to create ‘bookshelves’ of your choosing. I’ve always done one for the year. You could probably do multiple bookshelves to group books in different ways to analyze them - genre, length, etc. It could make your list of bookshelves unwieldy rather quickly but is actually a very intriguing idea. Also, unless you put them in the reviews, there’s no way that I know of to keep a list of notes/quotes for the books you’ve read.

I prefer the continuous rain, fire, etc. kind of asmr videos, but to each their own. I'm just glad that you found something that works for you!

Like others have suggested go to a library and speak with a librarian.

I started off with fantasy as a child (Wizard of Oz) and moved into SciFi (Arthur C. Clarke) then into macabre (Poe) then back into Fantasy when I had my own kids.

Now I read mostly technical or practical books. I love pre-80's engineering books.

Just because a book is a tome on North American spiders (read that when I was 8) doesn't mean it's not reading.

I haven't, but I think I should. So often I want to revisit a book but can't remember many details. If I tracked what I read with a brief summary and why I did or did not like it, it would probably help quite a bit.

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I use Notion as my reading journal. I tend to forget the books I read too so for each book, I created a page and note down a plot summary of each chapter, thoughts and notable quotes. Next time I forget, I just pull it up.

I haven't read this book, I have no idea what book you're even reading, this is purely speculation, but... That phrase sounds like a Harry Potter title. So maybe it's trying to reference a Harry Potter title as a joking aside? Like a meme-type thought? Again, purely speculation.

Nothing fancy, but I have a list on my computer with the books I've read each month, and a running tally of how many for the year.

This year I started a document to write mini book reviews. I don’t always like the 5 star rating system or publicly sharing my thoughts, but I do like keeping track because I read a lot and sometimes forget books almost entirely after a few years.

What do you like to learn about? Like I hate self help books, but I can read books about human evolution or dinosaurs like they're fiction and get really engaged.

Edit: I also find that for me, I'm much more engaged in non fiction if it's a physical book vs on my phone/kindle

Started tracking on Goodreads for the first time this year, love it! Seeing your percentage slowly climb and keeping track of your progress is gratifying. Excited to look back on a year of reading, all cataloged, come December!

I've switched to reading in English quite recently, it took me a lot of effort to reach acceptable fluency. Since that time I don't track my activity, here's why. When I was reading in my native language I barely could keep up with my backlog so in most cases I was in a constant rush. Now I need to be more focused hence I enjoy reading itself and don't care about how many pages I've read, what series, which author etc. It's just more mind-healthy

I use storygraph!

I do a reading challenge every year, but not for any particular reason. I'm just a very progress oriented person who likes lists and challenges. It's part of the fun!

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I started Goodreads 7-8 years ago, and added tags for each year for starters. That helped me feel like I didn't have to "catch up." I could track my current reads that way, and then if I came across other books I remembered reading in the past, I could mark them as Read, with no year tag. Somehow having the year tags made it seem easier to start. Otherwise, it felt like I was going to have to put in all of my past books before I could even start. That's probably a new problem though.

Some reasons I like tracking:

1. It kinda feels like an accomplishment, whatever the number is; I like being able to see my work, kind of like a completed checklist

2. I like data; data is fun

3. The social aspects are there; it is interesting to see what my friends are reading, and to get recommendations from them. I've learned what friends I usually agree with on books, and I find that useful for future reading, but also for friendship purposes

4. I mostly read audiobooks from the library. Since I don't have a physical shelf I can look at, there is a possibility I'll forget what I've read. With GR, I can be sure to not:

4a. repeat books*

4b. continue a series that I didn't like**

4c. read an author I've tried a few times and didn't enjoy

4d. not waste time trying again on a book I hated enough to DNF but didn't hate enough to remember hating. Thanks, GR, for remembering for me***

5. I can make recommendations to friends for themselves or their kids, based on the tags I've made -- like find all the books that have both "middle grades" and "historical fiction" or whatever

I've also tried The Storygraph. After almost a year of running it and GR side by side, I liked the pretty charts and fun data, but I didn't like how rigid they were. I want to define my own criteria, you know? The questions that it asks of every book after you read it are not the questions that tell me if I'm going to like a book. They felt like they were very personal to someone else's preferences. I also missed the social aspects of GR. But The Storygraph was certainly prettier and far less glitchy. And I liked the content warnings.

I keep thinking someday I'll export my GR data to Google Sheets or something - for the data. Then keep GR just for social purposes, and maybe delete my tags and just keep the exclusive shelves maybe. I'm the only one who cares about the data detail I've built, and if I want more data, a spreadsheet is probably the way to go.

.......

*yes, this has almost happened, more than once, and Goodreads saved me. Because let's face it, if the description appeals to me the first time, there's a real chance it might pull me in again

**this too. If I come across a book that's a sequel, I always check my Goodreads for how I felt about the one I read

***I have a DNF shelf and a Maybe-Later shelf, so if I quit a book I can tell Future Me the difference between the two. Sometimes it's just not the right time for a certain book, you know? But if it was an awful book that I know I will never want to read, I can mark it that way, so that the book description won't pull me in again

I also listened to the audio book and I loved it. I enjoyed the narration as well.

I named my son Holden also because of the book

I use Goodreads.

Same as a lot of others here - looked up a lot of words, tried my best to understand when things got opaque, but kept it moving forward for what turned out to be one of the great payoffs in modern literature….strongly recommend powering through if you can.

Yes. I just track through Goodreads cause it's easy and convenient. I track pretty much all that stuff in my life and hobbies. I have also wanted to start reading more so it's a good way to keep me motivated to see how much I've read and to see progress on goals and such. I set a goal to read 20 books this year and have already read 8.

I use StoryGraph as well and love it by and far, even though I only use the free version. I'd say for recommendations, its not as good as Goodreads I've heard. Personally, I've had to adjust my preferences a couple times to really get some good recommendations.