If you are using android you could try Openreads. The UI is really clean and everything is stored on the device (can be exported / imported). No social media bullshit, just tracking your reading progress and seeing some stats about it.
Comment on Why some book fans are leaving Amazon-owned Goodreads in wake of the U.S. election
conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’d love to, but the functionality of alternatives isn’t good enough for me.
I have zero interest in any of the social media stuff. I just want to track my books and make lists with UX that actually works.
passepartout@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
It’s not for me.
An app is good interface wise, but if I was going to stick to a single OS it would be iPhone. But I do want it to be server based. I need the access to their database of books to keep a reasonable list, and a big part of the reason I keep it organized is for the ability to share lists in relevant conversations. I just don’t have any interest in feeds of friends lists or any of that.
Goodreads version actually kind of sucks. A shared list doesn’t keep my ordering and doesn’t surface my reviews as part of the list. I’d also prefer to be able to put a series or author into a list, with a “review” of them as a whole over an individual book. But none of the others have an acceptable bulk edit tool that lets me go through 50 books at a time checking boxes to make bulk edits. They want me to manually search each book to add to a list one at a time, when even Amazon’s version is an incredibly tedious prospect.
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I had the best results with www.librarything.com. It’s probably the least mentioned alternative yet the most polished.
Though eventually I just went with a custom solution for myself.
conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve pretty much tried everything. They’re all relatively similar, but I don’t think any have the bulk edit option, and even with the fact that I only can manage a couple lists on goodreads (because I just read too much fiction and ended up erasing them), not having it is too much of a downgrade for me. (Though it has been a little while, and they were all pretty clearly in their infancy when I tried them.)
Rolling my own is going to have to be the way I go, too, eventually. It’s probably the only way I get series and authors as first class citizens in lists, and should make it easy for me to spin up quick lists for specific discussions in a way that is very low friction. I get sidetracked too easily and haven’t just buckled down and done it though.