Musing Mondays

Do you keep track of what and/or how many books you read? How long have you been doing this? What's your favorite tracking method, and why?If you don't keep track, why not? (question courtesy of MizB)

When I was a kid I, pretty much, read only mass market paperbacks. I would tear out the page that list all the authors works in the front of the book and in the back of the book there were always pages that had other books by the same publisher listed, I would tear those out too. Then I would cross the books off as I read them.

Now that I'm a big girl, I no longer feel the need to tear pages from books, not even the "unimportant" ones. And, there's a lovely thing on the internet called LibraryThing!

Now, some of these LTers, as we're called, are very anal and feel it should only be used for books that are actually on your shelves at home. That doesn't make much sense to me. I can see those books. I use it, not only for those books, but also for books I no longer have, for whatever reason, and books I hope to read one day. Unfortunately, I'm old and can't remember everything I've read and I get bored or distracted, by a shiny object or a title that makes me wonder if I've read something else or want to read something else, or I pick up a book I'm listing and start leafing through it, or I try to decide whether or not I want people knowing I've read a particular book (you know, Mom and Dad could drop by that list! Should I list the books in the sock drawer!), well...you see where this is going and stop listing the books I own. But, like I said, I can see those.

The answer is...I use LibraryThing. And perhaps I'll finish the list before I kick it.