Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Readers, I like to think I'm a pretty open minded guy. I certainly love it when a Goodreads reader adds a book of mine to their 'currently reading' list. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, as I'm sure it does to many of the authors here.

I think a normal human being can reasonably read a few, maybe even a dozen, books at any given time. People like to skip around, like to multitask, have different books in progress for different moods. They put things down, pick them up later. Reading is freedom, after all.

However, dear reader, if you have 50, 70... 347 books in your 'currently reading' pile, I don't believe you. I'm calling shenanigans!

Let's put it in perspective. Let's say it's reasonable to consider a book as part of the 'currently reading' (note the word CURRENTLY in there!) pile if you get around to 30 minute of it in a given week. Just on average, people read at different speeds and have busy lives and what have you.

In order to be reading 347 books at the same time, you would need to dedicate an average of 173.5 hours a week to your reading pile. That's around 24.8 hours a DAY of reading... I think you see the issue here.

My best guess is that people will start to read a book, and then keep it in 'currently reading' long after they've given up on it, set it aside for later, etc.

For the sanity of your authors, who love you very much, here's how you can curate your 'currently reading' list:

1) Click on 'My Books' at the top of the site.

2) Click on your 'currently reading' bookshelf on the left hand side.

3) Under the 'shelves' column, click 'edit' under a book that you've set aside and are not actively reading.

4) Click the little circle that says 'to-read'.

5) Revel in your level of organisation!

To anyone who really is reading hundreds of books at the same time: Godspeed, you crazy bibliophiles.

Cheers,
Bill Ricardi

I agree. I've never seen a to read list that long but that would be ridiculous. I only like to read one book at a time myself. Right now, I do have two books on my to read list but I've put one on the back burner for a long time because of reading and reviewing commitments.

Welp, call me crazy, but I think I have an estimate of 500 books in my "to-read" list. I just take one book at a time, since I want to read until the day I die. ^^;

I've been known to read two or three books at the same time. However, my current 'to-read' list is up to 2,136 and still growing. Somehow I doubt I'll ever finish my list. Lol.

Bill wrote: "Readers, I like to think I'm a pretty open minded guy. I certainly love it when a Goodreads reader adds a book of mine to their 'currently reading' list. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, as I'm su..."

I only have three books on currently reading. The first book is the only one I'm actually reading. The second book had to be returned to the library several times before I could get to finishing it. The third is a Kindle book that had to be put aside some time ago because I keep on having to prioritize other books to read on Kindle. I keep the second and third books in currently reading to remind me that I need to get back to them. They'd be lost in an ocean of books if I put them in To Read.

I usually only put books I am almost certain to review in my 'currently reading' folder so I wait until I'm (almost) certain before putting what I'm reading there. However, I have seen people with more books in their currently reading folder than I have in my to read (and I have 934 books there).

Shomeret wrote: They'd be lost in an ocean of books if I put them in To Read.

Aha, so if you follow steps 1-3 but then you create a _custom_ folder called something like 'on deck', all of your problems are solved. :)

I think that people need to separate books that they desire to read "someday" from books that they absolutely want to read right now. I've got two books in my "currently reading" and three in my "to-read" so that even I (an author), don't drive other authors insane ;)

T.C. wrote: "I think that people need to separate books that they desire to read "someday" from books that they absolutely want to read right now."

Exactly. :) And with the power of Goodreads, which lets you make custom folders, you can do that! You can even put a book in BOTH 'Someday' and 'to-read' if you still want to give your friends an idea of your interests, but want to keep track of the books in your immediate future VS the ones in the distant future. Heck, you can have custom folders for expected number of months until you get to it.

That's exactly right :) One of my friends mentioned having a "should I live to be 500" shelf!

As an author, may I just say: Whew!

Thanks for posting this :)

I gave up on tracking the to read - have read - currently reading - lists of Goodreads members a long time ago and have never personally participated in the practice.

Although I consider myself to be an avid reader and always have a book which I am currently reading near by, even while traveling, the time required to finish it depends upon the length and depth of the book and whatever else happens to be going on in my life at the time.

I cannot possibly be the only avid reader with an active social life, things to do and places to go. Reading is an important and enjoyable part of my life, but only a "part" of it.

If a goodreads member has their kindle app synced to their goodreads account, every ebook they tap to download/open automatically loads to the goodreads "currently reading" list. I imagine some of the long currently readings lists are due to this, but even if books are manually selected, the readers should of course feel free to use goodreads lists however they want. It's free advertising for authors when members add books to any list :).

I currently have 12 books on my to-read list. They are mostly childrens books so I"ll have no problems reading them.
I'm an insomniac so I stay up reading to try to fall asleep.

As a reader I'm the opposite. I have hundreds of books on my TBR but I tend to forget to mark which ones I'm currently reading. Marie makes as interesting point about "currently reading" being a default setting for a device.

As an author, it would never even occur to me to chastise readers on how they chose to manage their lists. Maybe you should do something other than hover over your book page? :/

A.W. wrote: " it would never even occur to me to chastise readers on how they chose to manage their lists. Maybe you should do something other than hover over your book page?"

Education is the silver bullet, as a wise person once said (Most recently and most famously, the great Aaron Sorkin). And as 'chastise' would imply severity in the rebuke, I wouldn't call it that. Perhaps a playful chiding accompanied by an educational solution.

But don't worry, I'm still pumping out book 2 of 'Another Stupid Trilogy', like clockwork. I would never hover over my book page during work hours, every second of that time is owed to my readers. :)

I think anything over 10 and you're probably not actually reading at least some of those books. Its fine to have a "I wanna read" list hundreds long, but your currently being read list should be pretty short.