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Tips on Goodreads, i.a.

Table of Contents

Things That Improved My Goodreads.com Experience

  • Group shelves with a prefix, e.g., "region-usa", "region-...". Goodreads sorts shelf lists in alphabetical order. Related but scattered shelves impair findability.

    • I moved shelves that are useful to me alone to the end of the list by prefixing them with "z_" or Unicode 0x3161: ㅡ
    • next to pseudo sub-shelves "computer-history", "computer-networks" and so on I'm using a separate "computer" pseudo super-shelf which contains all books from the sub-shelves (useful for shelf-intersection)

  • Create a "more-urgent" shelf from unread books, also create a "more-tempting" shelf with books not urgent but probably more fun, then intesect both shelves ("select multiple") and copy the URL in your Goodreads profile text as "[Likely next reads]" (regularly update the shelves)

  • Create an "abandoned" shelf to compensate the missing reading-status. Have the exclusive-checkbox activated

  • Track physical book location with shelves such as "shelf-kitchen" or "shelf-berlin" or "shelf-office" if the amount of books exceeds memory (Future me)

  • Limit the number of shelves to max. 1 page. Few coarse-grained shelves better than 100+ fine-grained shelves: faster to navigate and more likely to keep up-to-date for every book. Anemic shelves also render functions such as "select multiple shelves" (intersection ∩) useless.

    • avoid shelves that will likely never contain more than 3 books
    • try to minimize difference within a shelf and maximize difference between shelves (similar to cluster analysis)
    • merge strongly overlapping shelves, e.g., "politics-economy-history" or "software-testing-infosec"
    • remove shelves only good in theory but never used practically

  • Add unread books to custom shelves too. This works well with Goodreads own "select multiple" feature beneath your shelf list. It's clearer than having hundreds of books in "want-to-read" over time, and helps others discovering new books more easily. Pick your next book by intersection ∩, e.g.,

    • "want-to-read" + "non-fiction" + "lang-german"
    • "want-to-read" + "fiction" + "politics"

    Intersection

  • Negative shelves, or non-shelves: e.g., "fiction" + "lang-de" + "non-computing" would exclude nerd fiction; also useful for friends who are interested in everything but computers; most common negative shelf is "non-fiction"; limit to few but big shelves

  • Declutter the library with cardboxes and GR-shelves labeled "donations" and "resales". My city library took 30 books after receiving a link to my donations shelf. Such link may also appear in your email signature: "I give away books: ...". PS: There is a "book condition" column (shelf settings: table view, [x] condition).

  • Batch edit shelf feature (tutorial)

  • Filter reviews by language °by selecting a book edition in your language and "Filter: this edition" (described here). See new filter by language feature

  • Become a Goodreads librarian by applying there. Quickly edit wrong or missing book/author info and add cover images by yourself, combine stray book editions (take over reviews etc.)

  • Goodreads Ratings for Amazon – a Chrome-browser extension by Rubén Martínez; also reminds you of GR reviews when you're shopping on Amazon (alternatively, try my Tiny JS Injector)

  • Photos in reviews: Add photos to your reviews by uploading them to your Goodreads user profile photos. So you don't have to find and rely on external web space, e.g. paid or shady, short-lived, free image hosts.
    Such photos can be snapshots of individual book pages to give an impression of the inside of the book, but also diagrams or photos of events and lectures.
    Use the caption "for Reviews > BOOK-SHORT-TITLE #PHOTO-NUMBER" so that Goodreads later displays it like "User > Photos > for Reviews > Nice Book #1".
    Add a link to your review to the photo description box: "Review: https://...". After uploading, simply copy the image URL ("largest") into your review (<img src="URL">).

  • Check out users who rate good books. This service notifies you of new ratings for specific books. Be picky, create a special-purpose shelf with good but rare books, don't submit your whole "read" shelf to this service.

  • Force view settings, e.g., unify the quasi-random view settings when browsing (other people's) shelves, by rewriting Goodreads URLs via Einar Egilsson's Redirector Chrome browser extension (or my Tiny JS Injector). Once you are familiar with the Redirector user interface, you can simply copy/paste these values into the appropriate fields:

    Description: Goodreads Shelves: 100 books per page, sort by user-rating (highest first), covers-view
Example    : https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/13055874?per_page=20&sort=reviews&view=table&shelf=ㅡxx-xx&page=2
Pattern    : (https://www\.goodreads\.com/review/list/[^?]+)(?=(?:.*[?&](page=\d+))?)(?=(?:.*[?&](shelf=[^&]+))?)
Redirect   : $1?per_page=100&sort=rating&order=d&view=covers&$2&$3
Type       : Regular Expression

    Description: Goodreads "All Editions": Expanded details (language etc), 100 per page
Example    : https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/80128-silence-on-the-wire?expanded=false&utf8=✓&sort=num_ratings&filter_by_format=Nook
Pattern    : (https://www\.goodreads\.com/work/editions/[^\?]*)\?*(.*)
Redirect   : $1?expanded=true&$2&per_page=100
Type       : Regular Expression

    All expressions takes inexact matches like "page" ∈ "per_page", randomly ordered or missing parameters and Unicode values into account. Given duplicate query arguments, the last one applies.

Discovering Non-Fiction Books

  • checkout the bibliography section of a good book (best signal-to-noise ratio); I use a separate "bibliogr-to-check" Goodreads shelf to keep track of unchecked books
  • notice books mentioned in the footnotes and literature sections of Wikipedia articles
  • notice books mentioned in magazine articles
  • notice alternative books mentioned in book reviews
  • notice names dropped in magazine articles and check them against Amazon
  • scan interesting websites/blogs for books
  • search books.google.com for "specific interest"; try Google's Talk to Books (since April 2018)
  • search Google scholar profiles for label:MY_AREA_OF_INTEREST and check profile names against Amazon's book search
  • Google Alerts: "new book" + "specific interest"
  • follow Goodreads users with interesting libraries
  • investigate a list of authors similar to the authors in your shelves on Goodreads (my GR toolbox)
  • inspect Goodreads books common among members you follow (my GR toolbox)
  • check the Amazon and Goodreads profiles of users who comment good books
    • get notified of new reviewers for your favourite books (my GR toolbox)
  • follow small or specialized publishers through a Twitter list, RSS-feed or newsletter (works so lala)
  • reddit (r/booksuggestions, r/suggestmeabook, ...) , quora, ...
  • the better book sites:
  • recommendation engines hardly work for me: Goodreads never, Amazon sometimes
  • Bookstragram does not work for me
  • BookTube does not work for me, girls club & primarily fiction
  • common bestseller lists do not work for me
  • Parakweet's BookVibe closed in 2016, they sent you a list of books that your friends are talking about on Twitter
  • ...
  • get your keywords right: you have to know the right technical terms before learning about them; try "science books" or "textbook" over "nonfiction", all not necessarily scienctific or even academic but nonfiction is very broad; check non-english books too if you speak another language (no-brainer but st. I forgot)
  • bookmark interesting titles now and inspect them later, books must arouse interest also after one month; I use multiple Amazon wishlists, which also show current 2nd hand prices, my comments and priorization; I have a separate "(lost interest)" wishlist as an alternative to deletion; my Amazon Wishlist-Exporter helps keep the overview by filtering ~60 wishlists by price and priority.

Annotating Books

I try to develop my system for markings, notes etc in physical books, which is still at its infancy.

Tools:

  • Stabilo Boss text marker (primary color: yellow, looks cleaner than other colors)
  • sharp pencil
  • Mont Marte electric eraser (I do not like rubbing around on the book pages with classic erasers because the notes can get smeared, pages can crease and tear, or notes remain slightly readable due to caution. An electic eraser allows much more controlled erasing and brings enough abrasion power to the sheet with the rotating head, and that comfortably from any sitting or lying position)

Symbols:

  • !: important
  • X: strongly disagree, faulty reasoning, ...
  • ?: don't get it, fishy, not backed up well, hard to believe but don't know counter arguments yet
  • 1, 2, 3: restructure text - these blocks are self-contained
  • Ex: examples
  • Lit: literature references
  • URL: web addresses
  • circle around words: keywords in this important sentence, emphasis

Other:

  • use margin to explain unknown words ("prebendalism: ...")

Feedback

Use GitHub or see AUTHORS.md file