Tracking What I Read and Watch and How I Find Books and Movies to Watch and Link Love

I love being able to look at my book reading and movie watching data. I also like having lists for shopping. And I have all my reading and movie watching information spread all over, so I’m trying to streamline my to-read, have-read, to-watch, and have-watched lists. I had had bookmark folders, bullet journal lists, Goodreads lists, library lists, and Amazon lists. I’ve recently managed to eliminate the bookmark folders; I was just lazily bookmarking instead of putting books and movies on my serious lists. I’ve also streamlined my Goodreads and bullet journal lists.

I use Goodreads to track what I have read, and I recently re-organized my shelves to be able to understand the data better. I emptied my to-read list (not useful and mostly forgotten) and I don’t really use my currently reading list (pointless, in my opinion). I’ve also transferred my to re-read list to my reading notebook (I need to use that more!), and I’m starting to count my re-reads on Goodreads (yay for this option!). I have to pace my re-reads and am a moody reader, but do you have a “literary medicine cabinet”?

I put all the books that I can on my lists in my library account. For the books unavailable at my library, I have handwritten and Amazon inter-library loan lists. These combined lists are too huge to realistically be left to inter-library loans, so perhaps I will force myself to use my Kindle app or will eventually be able to buy or borrow from other people. I almost constantly have many library books on hand and am trying to keep my fiction book collection low for now because of space and my re-reading and pickiness choices. How do you choose?

I have movie to-watch lists in my bullet journal, and I’ve put some on a basic movie list in my library account. But movies are less likely to be in either of the library systems I use plus I think I just prefer my paper lists right now. I did digitize movies that I have watched already with Letterboxd. I’m still getting used to it, and I cannot customize as much as on Goodreads, but my main need (movies watched by month for blog posts) is answered.

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I find many fiction books through the blogs I read, and I find some through catalogs, searching, word of mouth, and common knowledge. I usually search for nonfiction by looking on Pulitzer History, Francis Parkman, and Bancroft Prize Winner lists, looking on Amazon, and sometimes looking on suggested reading lists. With the later two options, I often try to look up the credentials of the author. I’d prefer to read the work of a serious historian on history, an economist on economics, etc., not the work of a journalist, politician or some other amateur on the subject. Occasionally I will find authors mentioned or will read articles they’ve written which leads me to their works.

For movies I collect my lists through blog suggestions and the occasional search as well. I’m not a film buff and would prefer to keep my book reading pace far faster than my movie watching pace. I do think reading (when reading well) is a far better occupation than movie watching. And I’m afraid as a country we don’t take this seriously enough.

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I’ve added a new reading challenge page. Check out the Travel the World in Books challenge.

Also, for fun, “If Literature’s Biggest Romantics Could Text.”

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