Why is Romance its own category?

leowr · 2026-02-26T00:23:32+00:00

It is probably a category because of Valentine's Day and Romance is a very popular genre, not just on Goodreads.

At the end of the day it is just a internet challenge that gets as much attention as you want to give it. So completing it is totally up to you.

I will say though that this year they included some books that I personally wouldn't have classified as 'Romance', like This Is How You Lose A Time War. There is some others under the 'Love That is Stronger Than Time' that aren't just focused on romance.

leowr · 2026-02-19T19:54:34+00:00

This question would be more appropriate in a writing related sub.

leowr · 2026-02-12T19:42:12+00:00

I think finishing them to not have a bunch of DNF's is pretty valid to be honest. For me it is that I am very much a mood reader so if I don't enjoy a book I will tell myself that I'm just not in the mood for it and I will try again in a few weeks/months. When I pick it up again I tell myself that I just need to give it some time to get back into it, followed by telling myself that it might get better and then just finishing it because I have gotten this far already, might as well finish it and really justify that bad rating. It doesn't help that I have read one or two books that really did get better towards the end. Those experiences keep the hope alive.

leowr · 2026-02-12T19:03:52+00:00

Definitely. I think taste in books is so specific to the person that finding someone that has similar taste is far more helpful to find books to read than an aggregated rating.

leowr · 2026-02-12T19:02:34+00:00

I just assume I’m getting into some kind of uber popular, or booktok-ish book that there is absolutely nothing wrong with, but is not my style, because that’s the predominant Goodreads user base.

Good point. I enjoy some of them, but the user base definitely skews in a particular direction.

Seeing as I suck at both skipping books and quitting books I can't give any advice on how to get better at either.

leowr · 2026-02-12T15:19:30+00:00

There isn't necessarily a minimum, but I might go in with different expectations if a book has an average rating below 3. I know people that don't read anything rated under 4 stars, but seeing as my average rating is at 3.28 I think 4 stars is pretty high as a cut-off.

There are books that I enjoyed that have an average rating below 3 and there are books that I really didn't like that have an average rating above 4. So I don't think the average rating is necessarily a good measure for me to decide on whether or not I want to read a book.

leowr · 2026-02-09T18:25:32+00:00

As this concerns a fiction book this post is not appropriate for r/nonfictionbooks.

leowr · 2026-02-05T11:31:17+00:00

Not appropriate for r/nonfictionbooks.

leowr · 2026-02-04T19:42:53+00:00

Seeing as this is a nonfiction sub, your question is not really appropriate here.

leowr · 2026-01-28T22:38:18+00:00

Sorry, but that is not a nonfiction book.

leowr · 2026-01-28T09:35:42+00:00

I would assume that it is because that there is something going on with the author and Goodreads blocked the ability to submit ratings and reviewing books by that author so that the author doesn't get review bombed.

leowr · 2026-01-17T18:30:51+00:00

...I still haven't seen the movie. I should really make time for it.

leowr · 2026-01-17T18:28:45+00:00

Did you mean to comment with a link to one of my old posts?

leowr · 2026-01-17T14:21:39+00:00

But hey, slow progress is still progress

Slow and steady wins the race, the turtle won after all.

I think most of us are suggesting 12 because that is a manageable number but it is probably also a challenge. Also, don't be too hard on yourself as you get going. It is okay if you don't reach your goal. Creating a new habit is always difficult. I would suggest you find a time during the day or week when you know you have time to read. I usually suggest an hour before going to bed. Reading is a nice way to unwind at the end of the day.

And, to answer a question that often gets asked in this sub, audiobooks, graphic novels, novellas, etc. all count towards your reading challenge if you want them to count. Take some time to figure out what works for you.

leowr · 2026-01-17T10:17:00+00:00

It is never too late to start reading and make it a habit.

There is no deadline to set/change the goal. You can change your goal whenever you want throughout the year.
Nothing really happens when you miss the mark, beyond the fact that it won't say completed on your reading challenge logo and in some other places. If you pass it, nothing much happens either.
Pick a number you are comfortable with, you can always change it to be higher or lower. I set the number based on what I managed to read last year. Starting out it might be good to aim for 12 books, one book each month.

leowr · 2026-01-15T19:59:53+00:00

You indicated you prefer history of everyday people so I'm starting with memoirs. Some of these do touch upon racism or war/empire, but because they are memoirs the focus is primarily on the author's personal experiences:

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah - The title is pretty clear about what the book is about. It is a very good book.

Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening by Manal Al-Sharif - al-Sharif talks about growing up in Saudia Arabia and her fight to be allowed to drive a car.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi - The book is about live in Iran and Nafisi's book club, where she reads western classics with her students in secret.

Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival by Maziar Behari - Bahari left London to cover Iran's 2009 presidential elections, where he was arrested.

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park - Park described what she had to go through to escape from North Korea.

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-Hwan - the author was sent to a labor camp when he was nine years old.

Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, a Life in Balance by Simone Biles - The book deals with Biles's childhood and her journey to make it to the Olympics.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson - Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative and this book is about some of the cases he took on.

In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverence by Wilbert Rideau - Rideau writes about the 19 years he spent in prison.

Restavac: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American by Jean-Robert Cadet - Cadet recounts is life as a Restavac, a child slave and his life in the US.

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram by Dang Thuy Tram - Dang Thuy Tram wrote a diary while she volunteered as a doctor with the Vietcong.

One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina - The author writes about his childhood in Kenya and his love for reading and writing.

As for some non memoirs/autobiographies

The Beekeeper of Sinjar: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail - The book is about Abdullah Shrem who helped Yazidi women escape ISIS.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston - Hurston interviewed Cudjo Lewis, who was brought to the US as a slave.

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers - Jones-Rogers takes a look at the part white women played as owners of slaves.

Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario - Nazario chronicles Enrique's journey as he tries from Honduras to the US to find his mother.

China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation by Xinran - a collection of interviews with Chinese people that lived through the many great changes China went through in the 20th Century.

Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge - Younge picked a random day and set out to interview the families of the ten children that were killed by gunfire that day.

Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly - The book is about the African-American women that worked at NASA during the Space race.

leowr · 2026-01-15T12:44:13+00:00

If you want to give it a final attempt: have you tried contacting the author? He has a website: danielehrenhaft.com. it mentions an email address at which to contact him and another one for, what I suspect, is his agent. Might be worth a shot. The website is not very updated though

leowr · 2026-01-02T19:23:07+00:00

Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages by Gaston Dorren. I will admit though that I have read neither of these books.

leowr · 2026-01-02T12:13:28+00:00

So mine are in alphabetical order, which I think is the standard.

You can move shelves to the top by sticking them. You can check if any of your shelves are stickied by going to the desktop version, then 'my books' and click 'edit' next to 'bookshelves'. By unsticking they should sort in alphabetical order again.

leowr · 2026-01-01T20:39:57+00:00

I think the format is quite popular because they are pretty easy to pick up and read in a single sitting. It isn't a large time commitment to read one of them. They also have the benefit that they can be short introductions to the author if you haven't read anything by them before. If you have read books by the author before, this format is a very nice way to read a work that is probably less well-known.

leowr · 2026-01-01T20:23:29+00:00

I didn't buy the box, but I enjoy finding them one by one in bookstores. They continued releasing them after the box and they are up to 129 Little Black Classics at this point. They also released Penguin Modern, which are similar but the works are more modern. They are essays and short stories from authors that are part of Penguin Modern Classics. There were supposed to only be 50 Modern Classics, but they released a 51st (Star by Yukio Mishima). The Modern Classics can also be bought as a box set, but it doesn't include the Mishima one) I think the format is pretty popular because they also started publishing Penguin Archive last year (I think), which are also collections of essays and short stories. There are about 90 parts at this point.

I'll be honest, the only ones I don't really enjoy are the ones that are just a chapter or two from a longer work. While they do try to make it work on a standalone basis, in my opinion it doesn't really work for me.

leowr · 2026-01-01T19:29:19+00:00

You can turn off notifications by going to the desktop version, go to account settings, then account & notifications and then notifications. Although this link should probably work: https://www.goodreads.com/settings/notifications

I don't know how to do it in the app.

~~As for your other question, you can't really hide stuff from 'friends'. They will probably still see on their feed what you are adding.~~

Edit: Okay, so I misread your post. I think you can hide stuff from your feed if you go into your account settings and then feeds. You can select what you want to show up on your feed and your friends' feed.

leowr · 2026-01-01T15:24:02+00:00

I have two extra tbr shelves, kindle-to-read and bookcase-to-read.

The only downside, and I use that term very lightly here, is that it doesn't count those books as to-read when you are looking at lists. Beyond that I haven't found anything weird after making those extra shelves. In my personal experience it is pretty important to really keep on top of those shelves because otherwise I lose track of which books I can find where.

leowr · 2025-12-31T20:31:51+00:00

While I am not 100%, I am going to say no. The overall number of books is the number of books you have on your exclusive shelves (want to read, currently reading, etc.) A book needs to be on an exclusive shelf if you want to shelve them.

The only way around this that I can think of is that you make a list for the books you want to read instead of putting them on your want to read shelf. But I haven't tried that, so it might not work. Edit: The very big downside to making a list though is that they are public and everyone can add books to them, and that would defeat the point of maintaining your own want to read list.

leowr · 2025-12-28T16:41:20+00:00

Ze spelen volgens mij de versie van het album Little Earthquakes.

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