How do you track your reading progress?

June 15, 2011 10:05 PM

How do you track your reading progress (not just "Books Read" progress)?

I know there are services to track what books you've read and want to read, but what about a service or program for tracking daily book/page counts?

Is there a site/service/program that has a more extensive system of tracking reading progress, maybe even giving statistics?

I suppose a simple excel spreadsheet could be a self-made possibility, so I'd also appreciate suggestions (in addition) for functions or ideas for that as well (doesn't have to be a specific 'how-to-excel' tutorial either, general ideas are fine).

Thanks!

posted by coldblackice to Writing & Language (11 answers total)

ReadMore is an app for the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad that tracks what you're describing.
posted by plokent at 10:38 PM on June 15, 2011

Best answer: Goodreads is a website and iPhone app that lets you track your progress within a book. You can find the exact edition of a book you're reading and make status updates of which books you're reading, and what page you're on. While you're reading books, it will show you a bar graph of how far you are on a certain book, as well as what percent of the way through the book you are. I enjoy that site a lot for that feature alone. There are other stats features also.
posted by malapropist at 12:17 AM on June 16, 2011 [4 favorites]

Seconding ReadMore, I use it constantly. I tend to have 2 or 3 books on the go simultaneously and it's absolutely perfect for keeping track of where I am in each of them and for queueing up books I want to get from the library or buy. It also shows you averages for your reading time etc that are pretty cool.
posted by Happy Dave at 1:49 AM on June 16, 2011

Not being snarky, but I'm just curious what advantage tracking your reading progress on a web site has over doing it the old fashioned way with a bookmark? I read constantly (my partner says he's a novel widower) and would definitely do this if I felt it would allow me to get more out of reading.
posted by hazyjane at 4:05 AM on June 16, 2011

As a low-tech solution, I simply created a new calendar in Google Calendar and enter daily book & page-number updates there. But after reading the other answers here, I'll probably try ReadMore or Goodreads.
posted by dfan at 6:09 AM on June 16, 2011

Not being snarky, but I'm just curious what advantage tracking your reading progress on a web site has over doing it the old fashioned way with a bookmark?

Dunno about the original poster, but for me 1) it's fun to track things! and 2) it's motivational, especially for technical books that are a bit of a slog.
posted by dfan at 6:10 AM on June 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just to toss in my two cents, I have tried all of the various apps and websites for tracking and keep returning to simple spreadsheet.
posted by highfidelity at 6:25 AM on June 16, 2011

I also use Goodreads, for the same reasons as Happy Dave.
posted by immlass at 6:53 AM on June 16, 2011

nthing Goodreads.
posted by Jairus at 8:41 AM on June 16, 2011

Response by poster: Great suggestions, thanks friends!
posted by coldblackice at 3:39 PM on June 16, 2011

Just to talk up the awesome tracking abilities of Goodreads some more: in addition to tracking page count for your current reads (and progress count for audiobooks, too!), you can also set a goal for number of books to read in a year. Goodreads will tell you how far ahead or behind you are on track for hitting that goal. I get a dorky sort of cheer from seeing that "Great work, you're 2 books ahead!" message.
posted by houndsoflove at 5:18 PM on June 16, 2011