Help > My Books
The data exported from kindle.amazon.com does not include reading dates, so that information isn’t Included in your Goodreads import. You can manually add the date added and date read for any book on your shelves. Here’s how:
1. Click on My Books in the header to navigate to your shelves.
2. Use the search bar at the top right of your shelves to find the book in question.
3. Under the “date read” or “date added” column header for that specific book listing, click on the “edit” link (if you don't see a "date read" or “date added” column, click "shelf settings" at the top of the page and select the appropriate checkbox).
4. Add the desired date in the pop-up menu that appears, and then click on “save.”
You’ll first need to download a spreadsheet with this information. You can do so by using the export tool available here and clicking on “Send me a spreadsheet of my book list.”
Once you’ve downloaded your reading history, here’s how you can import it to Goodreads:
1. Click on My Books in the header.
2. Click on "import/export" underneath your list of shelves.
3. Under Import from a File, click on “Choose file" and select the file from your computer. Note: The import tool works best with files of less than 2000 books. If you have more than 2000 books, we recommend splitting the files into several smaller pieces before importing.
4. Click on “Import Books.”
Importing can take a while, especially if you have a lot of books or if your books aren’t already listed in our database. If there’s a problem with the import or there are any duplicate books, we’ll let you know right on the import page.
It’s important to note that your Kindle’s user guide manuals and dictionaries will be included on the list of books that could not be imported. This is expected, since Goodreads does not include these as book records in our database.
If other books from your export are not added to your shelves once you’ve imported them, it means the book is not in our database. You can add it to the database by clicking here and filling in the title, ISBN or ASIN, author, and other book details. To do so, your account must be one day old and your email address verified. Once you’ve added it to the database, simply hover over the green Want to Read button beneath the book's cover image to add it to any of your shelves.
If you’re still having trouble with the import, please send us the file as well as the steps you’ve taken through our
Contact us form.
To remove a book from your shelf, click on the My Books link at the top of Goodreads, make sure you are on the 'table' view (an option underneath the "My Books" search bar), then click the "x" to the right of the book you'd like to remove. You can also click on the book, click 'edit my review', then click 'remove from my books' at the very bottom of the page.
When a book is removed from your shelves, it will also delete your review.
If your account is new, you must be a librarian to add books manually. Please post in the Goodreads Librarians group if you need assistance adding books. If your account is not new (more than 7 days old) and you have a verified email address, you can add your book manually here.
You can post a widget which shows off a list of books in your shelves on your website or blog. To do so, log in to Goodreads, click on edit profile from the drop-down to the right of your profile image in the header, then select the 'widgets' tab. Follow the instructions to copy the widget code into your blog. You can choose to show off any shelf you like: read, currently reading, or any shelf of your choice. Please make sure your blog software accepts javascript.
1. To add a book to your shelves, find the book by searching for its title or author in the search bar in the header. Searching by ISBN or ASIN (for Kindle editions) works best when looking for a specific edition.
2. On the book's page, you will see a green "Want to Read" button underneath its cover image. Click "Want to Read" to quickly add the book to your "to-read" shelf, or hover over the downward arrow (see image) on the right side of the button to add it to one of your other exclusive shelves (like "read" or "currently-reading"). You can also rate the book using the stars beneath the button.
1) Navigate to the book's page.
2) Underneath the book's profile picture on the top left, rate the book using the stars.
3) The "want to read" button will automatically be replaced with a "write a review" link. Click that link.
4) Write your review in the review box that will appear and save.
Please note that you have to be a Goodreads member to write a review.
If you haven't already added the book, find it by searching for its title or author in the search bar in the header. Searching by ISBN or ASIN (for Kindle editions) works best when looking for a specific edition. On the book's profile page, you will see a green "want to read" button beneath the cover image. Hover over the books icon on the right side, and you should be able to select shelves from the resulting drop-down menu.
If you have already added the book, you can search My Books to find it. Once you find the book entry, click edit under the "shelves" column, select the shelves you want, and save.
Note: Under "covers" view, there are no columns. You will have to hover over the book cover in question, and click the resulting "edit" link. A review page will pop-up - select the shelf you want from the drop-down menu, and save.
1) Navigate to your My Books section. 2) Click edit next to the bookshelves header on the left. 3) Next to your Favorites shelf, select the radio button for "feature". You should then see the favorites shelf featured on your profile.
To remove a shelf, click on My Books in the header, then "edit" beside the "bookshelves" header on the left. Click on the "x" next to a shelf to delete it.
If you think someone else's shelf is inappropriate, please flag it.
To add or remove books from a shelf in batches, use the "batch edit" on the top of your My Books page. The batch edit tool lets you select as many books as you like to move them from one shelf or another, or even to remove them from your profile.
Progress updates for ebooks and audiobooks default to percentage, while updates for other books (like paperbacks, etc) default to page number. However, in all cases one can change the status to switch from the default. Here's how:
1) Navigate to your home page.
2) In your "currently reading" section (on the top right of the page), click "update status" next to the book you'd like to update.
3) The "%" should be a clickable link. Just click on it to switch the updates to "pages".
You can create your own exclusive shelf for "never finished", "did not finish" or "abandoned". Here's how:
1) Click on My Books in the header.
2) Next to the "bookshelves" header on the left, click the small "edit" link.
3) On the bottom of the page, type "never finished" or "abandoned" into the "add a shelf" feature.
4) Check "exclusive" next to the new shelf when it appears on the list.
This will allow you to assign a book to this shelf, instead of having to pick between the default "read", "currently reading", and "to read" shelves.
Don’t worry, your ratings aren't lost. You probably created a new account by accident, which means you just need to find your original account. Here are some strategies:
1) Have you received email from Goodreads? If so, look at those emails to see exactly which email was sent to. Then try logging in with that email address.
2) Do you use multiple emails? If so, could you have registered your Goodreads account to another email? Try logging in with all of your email addresses.
3) Did you connect your account to Facebook or Twitter? If so, try signing in with Twitter or Facebook (using the icons on the home page) to see if they'll lead to your original account.
If you still can't find your account, contact us at support@goodreads.com for help.
There are two ways you can do this:
1) From the homepage: Look for the "currently reading" section on the top right of the page. Underneath the book you want to update, click the small "update status" link. From here, you should be able to input the page number you are on and any comments you want to add.
2) From the book page: Scroll down until you see the "My Review" section (which should be just underneath the book's description). Next to the bolded "progress" header, click the link to "update status". Similarly, you can add page numbers and comments here.
For information on how to remove a status update, go here.
1) Go to the homepage.
2) On the righthand side of the page, there should be a "currently-reading" section. Click "update status" underneath this section.
3) Under the text box is a link that says, "I'm finished." Click that link.
4) This should take you to a review page if you'd like to write a review. Click "save" and the book should be marked as "read".
Alternatively, you could go to the review page for the book (you can get there from "edit review" on the book page), and select "read" from the shelf dropdown menu. However, this method does not automatically record the date you finished the book.
You can create your own bookshelves (also known as tags or lists), and add the book to as many of them as you like. Click on edit shelves from the homepage or from my books, and create a shelf using the "add a shelf" dialogue at the bottom of the page.
You can also make any of your additional shelves mutually exclusive with the "read", "to-read", and "currently-read" shelves by clicking "make exclusive" from the same "edit shelves" page.
Goodreads does not sell ebooks. However, if you are using our Preview feature to sample a book and would like to buy it, you can do so by clicking the "Buy Full Version" button at the bottom right-hand side of the Preview screen. This will take you to the Amazon page for the Kindle edition of that book.
Alternatively, you may wish to set up your personal book links so that you can easily click to your favorite book store while browsing book pages.
1) Navigate to your Blogger dashboard.
2) Underneath "Manage Blog", click "Design".
3) Click "add a gadget" where you'd like the widget to appear.
4) A pop-up should appear. Scroll down to "HTML / Javascript".
5) Click the "+" next to it.
6) Copy-paste the widget code into the box and save.
To reread a book you can move any book on your “read” shelf to your “currently reading” shelf before marking it as read again. Alternatively, here’s how to add additional read dates to a book that you’ve already read at least once:
1) Click on My Books in the header to navigate to your shelves.
2) Use the search bar at the top of your shelves to find the book in question.
3) Click on the “edit” link in the last column on the right for that book.
4) Scroll down to the “Dates read” subheading in the pop-up that appears and click on the “Add read date” link right below your previous date(s) read.
5) Add the desired dates in the date dropdowns, and then click on “Save” at the bottom of the page.
Shelving a different edition of the book each time you’ve read it will also count towards the total number of rereads, as each edition will have its own reading sessions.
Books will only be counted towards your 2017 Reading Challenge if the "date I finished this book" field contains a date in 2017.
To check if you've set the date:
1. Navigate to the book's page.
2. Within the "My Activity" section, click "Edit" on the right.
3. Check to see that the "date I finished this book" is filled in with a date from 2017. If it's blank, add one and save. If there is a date, and it's still not being counted, contact us.
Here's how to make your status updates and reviews on Goodreads automatically appear on Twitter:
1. Click on your profile picture in the header and select Account Settings.
2. Click on the apps tab.
3. Scroll down and click on the Add Twitter Account button.
You might be asked to sign into your Twitter account so please enable popups in your browser. Goodreads can only post one tweet per thirty minutes, with up to 5 tweets per day.
Each book's cover image has 3 sizes. Sometimes, one or two of the 3 is corrupted. When that happens, the image may not appear on the book's page, but may still appear on your "my books" page, or on the "other editions" page for the book.
Librarians can fix these, so please post in the Goodreads Librarians group if you find any.
When you purchase a Google eBook, you will have instant access to that ebook on any computer or device with internet access and a working web browser.
In order to read a Google eBook in a dedicated reading device (like a Barnes & Noble Nook or Sony Reader), you will need to download a file and transfer it to your device. For more on this process, please see Google's help page.
Please note: In order to read a Google eBook on your dedicated reading device, you must first download Adobe Digital Editions software. Adobe Digital Editions is a free software tool that will decrypt the security coding on your ebook and allow you to read it.
To download Adobe Digital Editions software, go here.
For specific instructions on reading Google eBooks on various devices, please see the relevant page:
Please note that Google eBooks cannot be read on an Amazon Kindle at this time.
For more information on Google eBooks, please consult their help page.
While most of the time you will only wish to shelve a single edition, you can rate, review, and/or shelve as many editions of a book as you want. Rate and review the first edition as you would any book. Then click on the "other editions" button on the left.
On the "other editions" list, find the second edition that you wish to rate or review. Go to the second edition's page, and select "review this edition". You will then be able to enter a separate review for the second edition. If you wish to review a third (or more) edition, simply repeat the process.
You can easily import your books from LibraryThing, Delicious Library, Shelfari, and many other book cataloging sites.
First, you'll need to export your books to a CSV or spreadsheet. We support .xls, .csv, and .txt files. On LibraryThing, go to 'More' => 'Import/Export' => 'Export as tab-delimited text,' and save the file to your hard drive. On Shelfari, go to 'account settings' then click on 'Download a list of your books'. Then go to Goodreads and go to 'my books' => import and import the file. Your books, along with any reviews, ratings, and tags (we call them shelves) will be imported.
Please note that our importer will scan any other file type you input for well-formed ISBN numbers and import them. The drawback to this method is that any other data such as ratings and reviews won't import. For instance, Google Books exports into an xml file, which falls into this bucket.
To import your books from a csv, txt, or xls file, click on my books then on import/export beneath your shelf list on the left. On the top right of the following page, click "export to a csv file". The batch upload may take several minutes to process, depending on how large your file is.
You can sort your or your friends reading lists by any criteria you like, using the links at the top of the column while viewing a shelf. For example, to sort by title, click on 'title', which appears at the top of the page. Clicking again will reverse the sort. Other columns that can be sorted on are: author name, rating, my rating, shelves, publication date, date added, date read, average rating, review, number of comments, private notes, owned, and number of reviews.
Goodreads supports a set list of html tags that you can use to format your comments, reviews, and stories & writing. They are posted on the right side of most pages, and are also below:
- link: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com">my link text</a>
- link to book: use the "add book/author" link or [book: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone]
- link to author: use the "add book/author" link or [author: J.K. Rowling]
- image: <img src="http://www.goodreads.com/image..." width="40" height="100" alt="description"/> (Suggested image size in pixels: width 0-400, height 0-1000, "alt" is a description of the image. All three are optional, but recommended.)
- bold text: <b>...</b>
- italic text: <i>...</i>
- underline text: <u>...</u>
strike text: <s>...</s>- line break: <br>...</br>
- blockquote: <blockquote>...</blockquote>
- paragraph: <p>...</p>
- spoiler: <spoiler>...</spoiler>
Note: tags must be properly nested, example:
OK: <i><b>test</b></i>
Not OK: <i><b>test</i></b>
Well formed web urls automatically get turned into links:
We support emojis on the following platforms:
