How do you manage your reading list?

Question

How do you manage your reading list?

Like me, you probably have 12 technical books on the go at once, and that's not including the non-technical books :)

Any tips?

Regard TDG

Answer 1

Goodreads is what I use. It has a library of virtually every existing book out there, and you can mark them as to-read, currently-reading, read and rate them afterwards.

Answer 2

There are some options, most are quite similar:

• Use a personal wiki set up on a home server. This is what I do.
• Use whatever task manager you have on your cell phone or similar, each book being a task. If you are lucky, you can even set a priority for each task
• Have a booklist.txt file and edit that with your favorite editor (which I hope is vim ;-))

These are simple no-fancy solutions, if it was what you were looking for.

Answer 3

Normally I don't link to my own blog posts, but I actually blogged about this specific topic a while ago, writing about treating your reading lists like a well run software project's requirements list and constantly updating them.

My list maintenance boils down to:

1. Decide how far ahead you want to plan – far enough to avoid running out of books to read, but not so far as to make change costly.
2. Make a short list of books to read.
3. Prioritize the list.
4. Buy / borrow the first few books in the list.
5. Keep updating this shortlist as your interests change and new books are published.

The full post is here if you are interested: http://www.ext-it.com/2010/blog/the-waterfall-approach-to-reading.html

Answer 4

As with most things I need to keep outside my brain, I use Evernote

I have notes for all kinds of things, one of them being books I'm reading, and what's next. (I have a looong train commute & so read a lot of books)

I also end up pasting code snippets and other useful things I get from books to save me going back to the actual book itself.

Answer 5

I use Evince reader on Ubuntu to keep track of my progress i.e. it opens the book from last read position. I also use Aldiko on my Android to place bookmarks to the pages I like. But keeping Aldiko and Evince in sync is manual but that being said it is much easier to carry bookmarks on the go at least for technical books. And I very much like this setup.

Answer 6

I'm using livingsocial to keep track of my reading list. It has a ton of books but you can always add the isbn of your book if it's not already in there.