Using Goodreads

Social media is such a part of our lives that no one, not even the ones who do not use it, can remember how it was without these apps. The wonderful thing about the 21^st century, this age known as the information age, is that there is an app for everything. No matter what it is, anything from exercising to intermediate fasting to praying and meditating or remembering to drink water, there is an app for it. Social media – those little apps that gives us the ability to chat with anyone, anywhere and at any time – is following the same trend. At least I think it is, because I found social media sites made for readers specifically, and my favourite is Goodreads.

There is a lot you can do on Goodreads and I am sure that, like with any other social media app, I am not utilising everything. I will briefly try to describe the most important features (i.e., those I enjoy the most) here in the hope you might also like and use this app.

The first and most important feature is that you can show the books you have read, want to read and are busy reading. Disclaimer – you cannot read books on the app; it is not like Kindle. So, what is the purpose then of displaying the books you read, want to read and are reading? Personally, I am always curious to know what my friends and family members are reading (I can often be annoying when I ask that question). With Goodreads I do not have to irritate anyone anymore because it will be on my feed and, like with most other social media apps, I can comment on it, like it and even follow other readers. The same goes for some authors who are on Goodreads– just imagine chatting with your favourite author – what a bonus!

I suspect, however, that the purpose of Goodreads is to see the popularity of books. Goodreads belongs to Amazon (somewhat like WhatsApp and Instagram belonging to Facebook). In other words, the popularity of books shows them where the money is and what books most people are interested in. I am totally fine with that but someone else might not like that idea as much. The interesting thing is that Amazon uses the ratings and reviews of Goodreads users, instead of paid reviewers, to determine what the general thoughts and feelings are of any specific book.

You can mark any number of books as busy reading (which is great for crazy readers such as myself) and the same count for the books you would like to read. The completed books show you how many books you have read. These you can place on your own named shelves or use the ones already available. As you read, you can update your reading progress and with that Goodreads shows you how far you are into the book. With that you can also read about the books you want to read and about the authors who wrote them, you can see if a book is part of a series and see which other books an author wrote. Additionally, Goodreads shows you which books are like the one you are reading and makes suggestions based on your shelves.

Some other small delights include belonging to a group, discussing books, asking questions of authors, collecting quotes from your favourite authors and books, and recommending books to your friends. If you are an author yourself, Goodreads allows you to market your books through them by being a Goodreads author, connecting your name to your books, and answering questions from your fans. Once a year one can also vote for your favourite books in your favourite genres. The winner in each genre is then named the best book of the year. This is great fun (if more people vote for the best presidents like readers vote for the best books the world would be a better place), but it makes you a bit sad if you see how many new books there are to read, and you have no idea when you will be able to read them all.

Two last features I would like to mention is the reading challenge and your year in books. With the reading challenge you decide how many books you want to read in a particular year and then set that as your goal. Throughout the year Goodreads will tell you how far behind or ahead you are. You can also see how many books your friends want to read, if they accepted the challenge, and how far they are in reaching their goal.

With your year in books, you can see quite a few interesting facts about your own reading. These include how many books you read and how many pages that is altogether, the shortest and longest books you have read, the average length of the books you read, the most as well as least popular book you have read, the average rating you give books, the highest rated book, your first review and your last review of the year. It is always interesting to compare the current year with the previous year and thereby see how your reading habits change or are affected by what is happening in your life.

As one can see, I am a big fan of Goodreads. I always thought of myself as a loner, and I really enjoyed that, but who said that readers should be complete loners? Technology made it possible that even readers can belong to their own community, and Goodreads is just the place to be.

(Follow me at https://www.goodreads.com/friend/i?feature=friend-invite-url&invite_token=ZGJkMjEyOTktNjgyOC00NDg0LThmNDQtOWE0NDc2ZGM0OGZh – link only valid for 30 days).