Hello, fellow bibliophiles!
I’ve been on the hunt for a decent Goodreads alternative for a few years now and was curious as to what the fine folks of the Lemmyverse thought of Bookwyrm.
There are so many GR alternatives that are clearly trying to be “The New Goodreads”, though the whole reason I wanted an alternative is because I’m sick of GR and its devolution into a commercialized, biased, and messy shithole. Like, if I wanted recommendations and feckless reviews straight from the putrid inner bowels of Tiktok, I’d go to Tiktok. And most of these alternatives seem to quickly turn into the same thing. I refuse to believe that GR and its copycats are our only viable option.
Bookwyrm seems promising. It’s been a bit clunky and I’m still figuring it out, but I’m enjoying the utter lack of sponsored or “pushed” content. So, thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?
I use Bookwyrm and it works for what I need: track reading, rate books, view reading lists of people who have read the same books. My partner uses StoryGraph which does seem a lot cleaner and more polished, but I haven’t felt the need to switch yet.
I’m liking Bookwyrm, it’s simple and straightforward. Granted, I’d love to give Storygraph another go, but it really seemed to hate me and my phone 😅 I really liked their recommendations.
I use storygraph, though don’t care to do anything more than track reads, set goals, and share with my wife who uses that and gr.
It’s nice though! and let’s me split content by the exact edition/format pretty easily.
I second story graph. I really like the app, it’s so user friendly. I wish more people would switch over to it.
I love storygraph but its UI could be better, especially the reviews section.
Yeah, there’s a lot of times where I’m trying to figure out how to get where I want for way too long. I don’t know if I don’t use reviews because I don’t care or if it’s bad, but it’s likely the former as I don’t go to any of these apps for recommendations. I do like their granularity as that can be helpful from time to time!
I empathise with your search for a better Goodreads. I used to be a “librarian” there, and the thought that I wasted my time on improving an Amazon service by adding books to their database makes me feel embarrassed. Worst of all, they actively harmed the database by using retarded bots to import garbage data (including DVDs and similar nonsense). When they realised they had imported too much garbage, they made a bot to delete some of it - but it deleted several books that I had added as well, perfectly fine data gone without any notification. Along with the shoddy redesign and long-time neglect and removal of some secondary functions, I got utterly sick of the site.
Everyone on Lemmy should give a chance to Bookwyrm. It’s based on similar principles as Lemmy, decentralised and open source, a part of the Fediverse. The database is taken from the Open Library (a part of the Archive.org project). I tried it out one or two years ago, so it was my first interaction with the Fediverse in general. Sadly the database does not meet my needs, since I read a lot of obscure stuff in a few different languages. I’d have to go correct or add the data on Open Library for like every other book I’ve read. Way too much work, though it would be beneficial for other people too…
There are also Storygraph and LibraryThing. The latter seems closer to my tastes and needs, very old-school. But I never signed up, because I thought it’s a paid service - indeed it used to be up until a few years ago, and now it’s free.
So anyway I just switched to entering all the data in a LibreOffice spreadsheet (equivalent to MS Excel). One column for the title, one for the author name, etc. I’m apparently a picky reader/user, so it’s probably the best solution.
Dangit, I had no idea goodreads was owned by amazon. Definitely checking out bookwyrm for that alone, let alone everything else.
That doesn’t even remotely surprise me coming from Amazon, inflating itself with garbage.
I totally agree on giving Bookwyrm a chance. To be honest, I had no clue what a “fediverse” was until a week ago, but I’m fascinated and inspired by the idea of it. I am loving all of these new, interesting platforms that aren’t run by some soulless billionaires who care more about ad revenue than actual content or users’ interests.
@antonim I felt much the same and gave up using any online cataloging system. I trust no one now. 🙄 @Fannybaws
You’re right not to trust anyone. I stopped trusting GR when it started exclusively “recommending” books that were popular on Tiktok. It was a swift and merciless breakup.
Open Library - open source, mainainted by your friends from archive.org
Another interesting platform in development is Hardcover. The devs have said they’re open to integrating with the fediverse in the future.
Is there any way you can import your book shelves from Goodreads into Bookwyrm?
I’m curious about it (and tired of the sluggishness and outdated look of Goodreads not to mention Amazon in general), but have a lot of data in Goodreads that I would like to preserve.
Yes you can. Goodreads has export instructions. On BookWyrm you upload the export file. It maintains ratings, shelves, read status/dates, etc.
Just be careful when you import: some of my titles were matched to completely wrong titles. For example, “The Color Purple” was matched to some other random book with the word Purple in the title. Fortunately, as part of the import process:
- it tells you which books it could not reasonably match and lets you manually match them, and
- it lets you edit any matches it made automatically.
Every book I had in Goodreads was available to add to my shelves on BookWyrm, even if they didn’t all happen automatically. Overall though, compared to how many books I had on shelves, only a handful were not handled automatically/properly.
@133arc585 @brand I found that when I imported I had to manually add lots of missing books and then import again. I think the import might have improved since then - adding books definitely has, as it usually finds them to import now (when I joined it was a purely manual process)
@brand As mentioned, yes. You can import from Goodreads/storygraph. The largest instance has the most books on it, but if you read one particular genre more than others, it would be interesting to join one of the smaller instances to help improve their catalogs
Both storygraph and bookworm are good, if you just want tracking. If you also use goodreads for recommendations, ratings and reviews, then GR is the only option. No other place has the same user base
Literal.club is probably my favourite. Cleanest interface of anything I’ve tried, and a really great API to use if you’re a developer. It also recommends profiles with a similar taste to yours, which can be helpful for discovering new books.
Edit: I looked into Bookwyrm and it turns out you can get book lists (e.g. currently reading) as JSON. For example, bookwyrm.social/user/mouse/books/reading.json. For anyone who wants an API, this might be enough.
It’s closed source, though.
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I’m finding Goodreads very clunky as well. Is Bookworm a lot worse?
I think it’s still in need of some development, but it does the job well. And I love the lack of useless bells and whistles.
Ooh I see that I can do a Goodreads import! I’m sold immediately!
BW is super nice but it really needs more development, it’s clear it needs some database thingy improvement, but well, given how little known it is, it’s understandable.
