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raven_cromwellSo I’d been casually keeping a books read list since about 2017, after I got the brain chemistry stable. Unstable chemistry’d meant about a five-year reading drought, and my lists were more a way to mark off numbers of things read—to prove to myself and various highly brilliant professionals that yeah, the meds were slowly and surely doing their job and I could start to claw my way back toward a brainspace where getting an undergraduate—and maybe even graduate! Degree was possible.
But I still wasn’t, till the end of 2019, thinking of myself as someone who could interestingly and articulately book-babble at people, so the lists were A. rudimentary as fuck and B. a jumble in pages-long word docs. In the last half of 19, I started consciously shooting book recs at people, and to my unending if delighted surprise, they seemed to like ‘em, and I had an eclectic enough taste I could usually find something to satisfy about any craving—proud words goeth before a fall, and all that, and I’m bracing for someone to comment with some request that leaves me baffled. ;)
Fast-forward to 19’s tail-end, whereupon I thought: ooo, I’ll do a list of fav books. (as you can see, list still aint here, though it is forthcoming.) And then I hit the massive brick-wall; I had 82 things on a list in Word, with no links for short-fiction, no other real distinguishing notes, and just a column of numbers/titles/authors. Breaking that list down into a top 50 and then those fifty into draft posts of ten with actual interesting commentary’s been quite an undertaking in the spare bits of free time, complicated by rl-stuff. And it made me badly want a better solution.
delphi had already gotten me thinking on spreadsheets with her post about ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
getyourwordsout and their writing ones. It wasn’t a format I was terribly familiar with—I’d always had the vague premonition that putting in that much effort into curation would make reading feel like a chore. But I went faffing about, looking at templates and excel how-to’s.
And y’all: I think I’m in love with a form of data curation; feeling monogamous—or at the very least, inclined towards being serial. I’ve had a number of folks be fairly surprised it would appeal, considering the blindness, but even with the screen-reader, there’s something about arrowing through the orderly columns, watching the data pile up in neat stacks, and being able to go up to the top of each column to remember precisely what I wanted to make note of that has me swooning.
Below the cut’s as much of a template as DW’ll let me render: I could never find a template sheet I especially liked, particularly as I wanted one for actual books and one for the free short fiction I adore consuming. So I made my own, shamelessly stealing other folks’ brilliant ideas that appealed.
Books 1 looks something like: Full-length Work in A1. B column’s for the title, C. for the author. D’s type/genre—so I can note down stuff like series, as well as distinctions in nonfiction between essay or memoir. Lets me keep a good handle, so far, on the sorts of genres I’m most drawn too. E’s the source column, useful primarily if I wanna shriek about the audio version of something in the, hopefully, monthly rec posts of 2020. F. and G. are for start/finish dates, since I’m trying to A. increase reading speed and track if there’s any rhyme or reason to my inevitable slumps. H. and I. are for special characteristics/would I recommend, just as reminders to A. have a little outline of what the fuck I wanna say about a work and if there’re any caveats I need to warn various friends about. J.’s page count, so I can do the final calculations on just how much I’ve consumed; I also number the B. column, and I’ll be really intrigued to see if I get to as many books read as last year. But even if I don’t, having the page counts will let me know I may’ve just read longer! If fewer things.
Short-story spreadsheet’s nearly identical, save that I’m doing word instead of page count on those, for obvious reasons. Also compiling myself a podcast and journalism sheet, though those are still a work in progress. I can already tell it’s going to make reccing so much easier, even as I continue wading through the delights of 19 to ready them for public consumption.
But I still wasn’t, till the end of 2019, thinking of myself as someone who could interestingly and articulately book-babble at people, so the lists were A. rudimentary as fuck and B. a jumble in pages-long word docs. In the last half of 19, I started consciously shooting book recs at people, and to my unending if delighted surprise, they seemed to like ‘em, and I had an eclectic enough taste I could usually find something to satisfy about any craving—proud words goeth before a fall, and all that, and I’m bracing for someone to comment with some request that leaves me baffled. ;)
Fast-forward to 19’s tail-end, whereupon I thought: ooo, I’ll do a list of fav books. (as you can see, list still aint here, though it is forthcoming.) And then I hit the massive brick-wall; I had 82 things on a list in Word, with no links for short-fiction, no other real distinguishing notes, and just a column of numbers/titles/authors. Breaking that list down into a top 50 and then those fifty into draft posts of ten with actual interesting commentary’s been quite an undertaking in the spare bits of free time, complicated by rl-stuff. And it made me badly want a better solution.
delphi had already gotten me thinking on spreadsheets with her post about getyourwordsout and their writing ones. It wasn’t a format I was terribly familiar with—I’d always had the vague premonition that putting in that much effort into curation would make reading feel like a chore. But I went faffing about, looking at templates and excel how-to’s.And y’all: I think I’m in love with a form of data curation; feeling monogamous—or at the very least, inclined towards being serial. I’ve had a number of folks be fairly surprised it would appeal, considering the blindness, but even with the screen-reader, there’s something about arrowing through the orderly columns, watching the data pile up in neat stacks, and being able to go up to the top of each column to remember precisely what I wanted to make note of that has me swooning.
Below the cut’s as much of a template as DW’ll let me render: I could never find a template sheet I especially liked, particularly as I wanted one for actual books and one for the free short fiction I adore consuming. So I made my own, shamelessly stealing other folks’ brilliant ideas that appealed.
Books 1 looks something like: Full-length Work in A1. B column’s for the title, C. for the author. D’s type/genre—so I can note down stuff like series, as well as distinctions in nonfiction between essay or memoir. Lets me keep a good handle, so far, on the sorts of genres I’m most drawn too. E’s the source column, useful primarily if I wanna shriek about the audio version of something in the, hopefully, monthly rec posts of 2020. F. and G. are for start/finish dates, since I’m trying to A. increase reading speed and track if there’s any rhyme or reason to my inevitable slumps. H. and I. are for special characteristics/would I recommend, just as reminders to A. have a little outline of what the fuck I wanna say about a work and if there’re any caveats I need to warn various friends about. J.’s page count, so I can do the final calculations on just how much I’ve consumed; I also number the B. column, and I’ll be really intrigued to see if I get to as many books read as last year. But even if I don’t, having the page counts will let me know I may’ve just read longer! If fewer things.
Short-story spreadsheet’s nearly identical, save that I’m doing word instead of page count on those, for obvious reasons. Also compiling myself a podcast and journalism sheet, though those are still a work in progress. I can already tell it’s going to make reccing so much easier, even as I continue wading through the delights of 19 to ready them for public consumption.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-07 05:06 pm (UTC)"I'd always had the vague premonition that putting in that much effort into curation would make reading feel like a chore."
That is a really good point, and funnily enough, that's why spreadsheets tend to work for me personally - because my memory needs some backup and I find a spreadsheet way less effort than any of the social media or app options. With those, updating always felt like a whole additional task, and I tend to get really hung up on formal categorization systems. Instead, I have one spreadsheet file with multiple tabs for my media, but which basically just has columns for Title, Author/Director/etc., Source (where I bought or borrowed it from), and Verdict (simply "Yes," "No," and "Maybe"). There's room at the side where I can jot down notes and any recommendations I receive, but that's about it.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-10 04:29 am (UTC)I love! how similar our spreadsheets are, particularly as I was thinking about how much you've helped expand my reading. Nonfiction, and journalism in particular, is easier somehow for my brain to digest, often. Which almost made it feel like cheating to put it on the reading lists--like it was too easy to take credit for, in an utterly bizarre fashion. I was thinking of you, and your advocacy of counting the journalistic pieces towards total read--of counting anything that takes up significant chunks of time. I adopted your mantra in gleefully put a wonderfully thought-provoking 10k longread on the Sanders organizing strategy for the primary on my reading list. ;) So yeah, thank you for the brainhack there.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-11 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-11 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-11 12:38 am (UTC)