Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Future books wish list

Since I'm such a book addict, I'm always keeping a list of books I want that aren't available yet. On this list I keep the title, author, and street date (the day the book is available for sale). This way, I can run to the store the day the book is available, snap it up, and greedily devour it as quickly as possible.

I'm constantly revising the way I keep this list. At first, I would keep it in a little notebook. This had a lot of limitations. It was hard to keep the list in date order, and I would sometimes misplace the notebook.

Next, I started putting it in my PDA's calendar. Since it wasn't a list, though, it didn't work as well. Plus, I would occasionally leave my PDA at home, thus making the list inaccessible. So, I switched to the internet.

For a long time, I kept my list on Amazon in my wish list. The problem with this method is that you can't sort your wish list by release date. Also, in order to see a future street date, you have to be in the specific book record. It doesn't show in the list view. Bummer.

I considered using my "I plan to read" section on Shelfari, but immediately discarded this idea. There are times I have the street day for a book a year in advance because I stalk, em...visit, the author's websites and blogs. The books wouldn't be found in the import book search, and I'm just too lazy to add it.

Finally, I have found a decent tool to keep track of my book list. I have an iGoogle page. On it, I added the gadget Google Notebook. This handy dandy gadget is great for jotting down lists of stuff you want to remember. You can insert new items in between current entries. To delete, you simply click the little drop down arrow on the right side of the entry and select delete.

This picture is the small view of my list. In the small view, you can click the + sign to view the full entry. You can also "Open in full page" in order so see the full list. The little side bar to the left with the arrow will get you to the list of notebooks you've made (you can make more than one list!!!). Oh, and the words in green are tags. Yep, tagging your entries is an option. Whoever created this tool, thanks! I haven't missed a street date since I've found this gadget.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooh spiffy. :D

Rich said...

nice use of google notebook. i started using it just to keep short notes while browsing the web, but i didn't keep it up.

ML's Oakton Adventure said...

Way cool!!!!! don't forget "Breaking Dawn" by Stephanie Meyer on August 2nd!
MaryLou

Gretchen Schneider said...

Thanks for the reminder Mary Lou! I am actually on the 3rd book now. Here's hoping I can get the 4th through Interlibrary Loan!

Gretchen

Audrey G. said...

Hi Gretchen! You inspired me to write/keep a blog of my own: you can find it at: http://book2it.blogspot.com

Hope you like it!
Thanks for the inspiration....I owe a lot of positive things in my life over the last few years thanks to you! Book reviewer, blog writer, trying new things....ah, the list goes on and on, you are a true inspiration and someone I am happy to call a friend!