Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme which poses a question or a thought for participants to discuss centering on the subject of books or reading.

I haven’t done one of these for ages, but I thought the question for this week was interesting:

Do you keep a list of the books you’ve read? How? In a journal? Through one of the online services? If so, WHY? To keep good records for future reference? To make sure you don’t accidentally reread? If not, why not? Too eager to move on to the next book? Too lazy? Never thought to bother?

I’ve only kept a list since starting my blog and I really enjoy it. Why keep a list? Well, I do get satisfaction from lists of things I’ve completed. It provides a sense of accomplishment. And it’s fun to look over and remember. At the end of the year I enjoy compiling a list of books I’ve read that year. It’s like catching up with old friends or looking through a photo album. I’ve been keeping a list for each year on my sidebar but after the first of the year I think I’ll try to compile those into one master list.

I don’t worry too much about accidentally rereading a book. I figure if I don’t remember having read it, it will probably do me good to go through it again.

I do wish I had lists from books I read from childhood. It would be interesting to see what my tastes were then, plus there are some stories that I can’t remember whether I’ve read or just seen the film of.

My most thorough lists are kept here on the blog. I do have an account at Goodreads but I’ve only recently begun to keep up with it regularly, so it only has a fraction of the books I’ve read.

Sometimes I enjoy looking through other people’s lists of books read as well, to compare notes and see if we liked the same books, to get an idea of their personality and preferences, to get ideas for my own ever-growing TBR list, etc.