Book logging in plain text
Of all the ways Iβve logged books, Iβm thinking that plain text remains the best. Iβve been adding books to a text (Markdown) file for while now and itβs not pretty, but it works. And it will always work.
I publish a copy at www.baty.net/books Β books.baty.net
Like I said, it ainβt pretty. On the other hand, I use it regularly by simply running little searches. If I want to know how many books are read in 2020, itβs just grep 2020- books.md | wc -l
and I get 14
. To see the actual books, itβs even easier: grep 2020- books.md
which gives me this:
A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes (2020-01-05) | β
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How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (2020-02-05) | β
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The Instructions by Adam Levin (2020-02-15) | β
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The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan W. Watts (2020-03-06) | β
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American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins (2020-03-09) | β
Recursion by Black Crouch (2020-04-05) | β
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Devoted by Dean Koontz (2020-04-23) | β
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The Soul of an Entrepreneur by David Sax (2020-05-04) | β
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Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher Moore (2020-06-09) | β
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Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5) by Martha Wells (2020-06-24) | β
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Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (2020-07-19) | β
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The Permanent Portfolio by Craig Rowland (2020-07-22) | β
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More Effective Agile by Steve McConnell (2020-10-10) | β
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Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1) by David Wong (2020-12-27) | β
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Or, how many books have I read by Christopher Moore? grep 'Christopher Moore' books.md
:
Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore (1999-01-01)
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore (1999-01-01)
The Griff: A Graphic Novel by Christopher Moore (1999-01-01)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christβs Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore (2008-12-24)
Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore (2009-03-12)
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore (2010-12-28)
Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore (2010-12-28)
The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore (2011-01-01)
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore (2015-11-12)
Noir by Christopher Moore (2018-05-15)
Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher Moore (2020-06-09) | β
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Itβs not perfect, and leaves out any kind of social discovery, so I also enter books in both GoodReads and StoryGraph , which honestly only takes a few minutes per book so itβs hardly a burden.
I love that my plain text book log is so lightweight and simple.