Book Clubs :: On Book Keeping Records

stack of books

I love a good milestone and earlier this week I realized that as of this month, our book club has a book record keeping spreadsheet (including ratings) that goes back five years. If you’d like to see the list, I’ve made it shareable via a Google doc here.

I love my book club. It has been incredibly successful (written about here), and we’ve learned some things along the way (like how to pick books) that have helped us get here. When I wrote about what has made us successful, I mentioned book record keeping. (Tip #3) This list – that is so FUN to look back on – is a result of dedicated book record keeping.

What could be of value to you (if you’re in a book club or if you’re just looking for a good next read) are the ratings over the last five years. Any book that has an overall score of 4 or more, you can feel pretty confident of. If you need more context than just a number, I’ve started providing year-end wrap-ups. The last two years are here and here.

An interesting observation that I just found when I sorted the list by rating – Wiley Cash has both the highest rated and lowest rated book on our list. I remember when we read A Land More Kind than Home and thinking – this is just about the most perfect novel. It scored 4.86 – nearly perfect. We all had high hopes for This Dark Road to Mercy. With a score of 2.5, it obviously didn’t deliver. (More on why if you follow the link to my review.)

A couple of things about this list. Prior to 2013, the list is sorta sketchy. I remember going back and trying to create the list from the beginning of when I joined (approximately 2008). I did it by looking at dates read on Goodreads as well as from when I posted reviews on this blog. But I know it isn’t perfect. The books that are on the bottom of the list with no date are “BE” – “Before Elisabeth.” 🙂

Enjoy perusing our list. I hope it will encourage you to begin your own book record keeping habit.

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2 Replies to “Book Clubs :: On Book Keeping Records

    1. It is really special. I’ve been in this group for more than ten years and they were meeting before me.

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