Build your own reading tracker

Leave yourself a useful note

“Recommended by Sam after we talked about cities” gives a title some context. Six months later, it may be more helpful than a rating from someone you don't know. Put that note beneath the title where you'll see it while browsing.

Start with a title, optional author, reading status, and a place for the recommendation. Make only the title required so you can capture a book quickly. You can fill in the author when you have time to look it up.

Think about where the note comes from, too. A friend's name and a link to a review are different kinds of reference. One plain-text field can accommodate both at first; separate them only if you find yourself wanting to filter by recommender.

Make the first list easy to add to

Here's a starting request for the build conversation:

Make a personal reading tracker for my phone. Each book has a required title, an optional author, a reading status, who recommended it, and why I saved it. Use want to read, reading, finished, and set aside as statuses. Show the recommendation note under the title. Let me add and edit books, search titles, and filter by status. Keep the add form short. I'll enter books manually for now.

The “set aside” status is worth considering even if you rarely stop reading a book. Otherwise an unfinished one may stay in “reading” forever or get marked finished just to clear the list. Your statuses should describe what happened without making you tidy the data to fit them.

This builds a list around information you enter. Automatic book lookup, covers, or library availability would require additional supported sources.

Find a book with only half the information

Add two made-up entries with similar titles. Leave the author blank on one and write a long note on the other. Then search for part of a title and filter to a single status. Decide whether search should also match the notes; that is useful when you remember “cities” but not the book's name.

Edit an entry and refresh to check it was saved rather than duplicated. Move one book to “set aside” and make sure it remains findable. On your phone, try adding an entry while holding the device in one hand.

If the form feels slow, ask the builder to show the title first and let you add the rest after saving. If the note is hard to read, ask for it to wrap naturally. These small changes affect every new recommendation.

A loan is a separate question

You can finish a book and lend it to a friend. If “lent out” replaces the reading status, you lose the ability to see that it was finished. Add a separate borrower field and loan date if lending is something you want to track.

Later you might want a history of loans. That would call for a separate entry for each loan, so a new borrower doesn't overwrite the old one. There's no need to build that history before you have a use for it, but noticing the distinction makes the next request clearer.

The same applies to rereading. One finished date is enough for a simple list. If you care about several readings of the same book, record each reading separately instead of replacing the previous date.

What would help you choose tonight?

It might be a filter for short books, a list of things already on your shelf, or the recommendations of one person whose taste you trust. Add the information you would actually consult. You don't have to collect publication details simply because a book has them.

An assistant can discuss your interests using the app's saved information and its own memory. Keep reading statuses and loans in the records so you can look them up directly. The app earns its place when saving a recommendation is easy and choosing a book later is a little easier too.