Goodreads Rolls Out Rereading. Yes, Really!

February 7, 2017 Miscellany 15

goodreads_vectorGoodreads has finally added tracking for the books you reread!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been wanting this feature since I first joined Goodreads. I’m so excited!

To use the new feature, just mark a book you’ve already read as “Currently Reading.” Goodreads will remember the date(s) when you read it before, and keep track of your reread. They’ve also added a widget to bottom of the Edit Review form. It shows all the dates you’ve read the book (both starting and finishing), and lets you add dates for any rereads, if you prefer to do it that way.

The Rereading function keeps track across all editions of the book, so if you’ve read it in multiple editions or formats (print and audio, for example), it should show how many times you’ve read it. The dates stay fixed to the editions you’ve read, though, so if you look at your audibook review, you won’t see the date you read it in print.

The other bonus for the Rereading function is that you can reread a book and have it count for this year’s Reading Challenge without losing the title in a previous year’s challenge. Before, if you simply changed the dates (from October 2013 to January 2017, say), to show that you had reread it this year, the book would disappear from your 2013 challenge.

To avoid that, and to keep track of when I’d read a book (instead of just how many times), I’ve been using multiple editions to keep track of rereading — even when I actually reread the same edition. For instance, I own all of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar novels in hardcover, so whenever I reread them, I added a new review of the the paperback, ebook, and/or Kindle editions, even though I had actually just reread my hardcover copy. At some point, I’d like to find the time to fix those and pull all the dates under the hardcover edition, and eliminate the paperback editions (Well, except when I really did read it on Kindle. I’ve been slowly duplicating some of my best-loved books on Kindle so they’re portable, but I’m not getting rid of hardcovers I love.)

As far as I know, you can only play with editing the dates when you’re using the desktop version of Goodreads. But the automatic tracking should work if you mark a “Read” book as “Currently Reading” in the iOS and Android apps.

Goodreads is rolling out the feature over time. I’ve already got it (in fact, I went looking for their blog post because I suddenly discovered I had the feature.) But if you don’t have it yet, don’t worry — you should get it soon!

 

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15 Responses to “Goodreads Rolls Out Rereading. Yes, Really!”

    • Stephanie

      Do you know about making shelves “exclusive”? You can create a DNF shelf and mark it “exclusive” (click edit next to the bookshelves header to get to the area where you can adjust the properties of your shelves). This works for me though not sure if you’re wanting some additional functionality.
      Stephanie recently posted…TOP TEN TUESDAY | Books That Could Use More LadiesMy Profile

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Check out Stephanie’s explanation of how to set up an exclusive “DNF” shelf (category) for those books. Create one, stick ’em in there, and give them 1 star or no stars, whichever makes sense to you. 🙂

  3. Berls

    OMG! Finally! Not only do I love this because I like to reread books and hate either (1) losing data or (2) not marking it for the current year… but I also love it because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally hit the currently reading button when organizing a book in shelves and then lost all my data 🙁 So excited! Off to see if I have it yet 🙂
    Berls recently posted…Eleventh Grave… just EVERYTHING!My Profile

  5. Melissa (My World...in words and pages)

    Oh this is interesting. I didn’t know they didn’t count re-reads before. But I like that it documents re-reads now. 🙂

  6. Rita @ View From My Books

    Lol, when I read this on GR yesterday I immediately thought of you 🙂 You mention rereading for comfort and pleasure often, and I always comment back that I don’t but wish I did. I’m happy for you and the many, many others who enjoy rereading their faves.
    Rita @ View From My Books recently posted…Review of The Golden HourMy Profile

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I re-read a lot. About half of my books last year were re-reads. It’s what I do when I’m stressed or anxious or feeling down; I turn toward the comfort of an old friend. So the new feature is going to be great for me.