Get id of user who authorized OAuth

Get a xml file with the Goodreads user_id for the user who authorized access using OAuth. You'll need to register your app (required).
url: http://www.goodreads.com/api/auth_user

Get the reviews for a book given a Goodreads book id

Get an xml file that contains an excerpt (first 300 characters) of the most popular reviews of a book for a given internal Goodreads book_id. The reviews are from all known editions of the book.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show   (sample url)
params:

• page: 1-N (default 1). The page number of reviews.

• key: Developer key (required).

• id: A Goodreads internal book_id

Get the reviews for a book given an isbn

Get an xml or json file that contains an excerpt (first 300 characters) of the most popular reviews of a book for a given ISBN. The reviews are from all known editions of the book.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/book/isbn   (sample url)
params:

• page: 1-N (default 1). The page number of reviews.

• callback: function to wrap JSON response if format=json

• key: Developer key (required only for XML).

• format: xml or json

• isbn: The isbn of the book to lookup.

• user_id: USER_ID (required only for JSON)

example code for using json with callback:

          <script type="text/javascript">
          function myCallback(result) {
            alert('nb of reviews for book: ' + result.reviews.length);
          }
          var scriptTag = document.createElement('script');
          scriptTag.src = "http://www.goodreads.com/book/isbn?callback=myCallback&format=json&isbn=0441172717&user_id=USER_ID";
          document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(scriptTag);
          </script>
        

Get the reviews for a book given a title string.

Get an xml file that contains an excerpt (first 300 characters) of the most popular reviews of a book for a given title/author. The book shown will be the most popular book that matches all the keywords in the input string. The reviews are from all known editions of the book.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/book/title   (sample url)
params:

• page: 1-N (default 1). The page number of reviews.

• key: Developer key (required).

• title: The title/author of the book to lookup.

Get data about a listopia list

xml version of list/show
url: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/LIST_ID.xml   (sample url)
params:

• key: Developer key (required).

Add a quote

Add a quote using OAuth. If you don't specify an author_id, it will try to look one up based on the author_name you provide. You'll need to register your app (required).
url: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes.xml
params:

• quote[body]: The quote! (required)

• quote[book_id]: id of the book from which the quote was taken

• quote[author_id]: id of the author

• quote[tags]: Comma-separated tags

• quote[author_name]: Name of the quote author (required)

• isbn: ISBN of the book from which the quote was taken. This will not override the book_id if it was provided

Add review

Add book reviews for members using OAuth. You'll need to register your app (required).
url: http://www.goodreads.com/review.xml
params:

• shelf: read|currently-reading|to-read|<user shelf name> (must exist, see: shelves.user_shelves)

• review[review]: Text of the review

• review[read_at]: Date (YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g. 2008-02-01)

• book_id: Goodreads book_id (required)

• review[rating]: Rating (1-5)

Get the books on a members shelf

Each shelf has an rss feed associated with it that gives the list of books on that shelf. Customize the feed with the below variables. No authentication is required.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss   (sample url)
params:

• page: 1

• key: Needed for private profiles. Different from developer key, and is unique to each member. Obtained from the member's rss link on the "my books page" or the lookup via email method.

• order: a, d

• per_page: 1-200

• sort: position, votes, rating, shelves, avg_rating, isbn, comments, author, title, notes, cover, review, random, date_read, year_pub, date_added, num_ratings, date_updated

• shelf: read, currently-reading, to-read, etc

Get a user's review for a given book

Get an xml file that contains the review and rating for the specified book and user
url: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show.xml   (sample url)
params:

• key: Developer key (required).

• book_id: id of the book

• user_id: id of the user

Update book reviews

Update book reviews for members using OAuth. You'll need to register your app (required). This method must be called with a PUT request and the final, numeric portion of the URL is the review ID.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/review/1212.xml
params:

• shelf: read|currently-reading|to-read|<user shelf name> (must exist, see: shelves.user_shelves)

• review[review]: Text of the review

• review[read_at]: Date (YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g. 2008-02-01)

• review[rating]: Rating (1-5)

Find an author by name

Get an xml file with the Goodreads url for the given author name.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/api/author_url   (sample url)
params:

• key: Developer key (required).

Find books by title, author, or isbn.

Get an xml file with the most popular books for the given query.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/search/search   (sample url)
params:

• page: Which page to return (default 1)

• key: Developer key (required).

• q: Query string: title or author or isbn

Add a book to a shelf

Add a book to a shelf using OAuth. You'll need to register your app (required).
url: http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/add_to_shelf.xml
params:

• book_id: id of the book to add to the shelf

• name: Name of the shelf (see: shelves.user_shelves)

Add book shelf

Add book shelves for members using OAuth. You'll need to register your app (required).
url: http://www.goodreads.com/shelf.xml
params:

• name: Name of the new shelf

Get your friend updates

Get your friend updates (the same data you see on your homepage) using the friend update RSS feed.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/home/index_rss   (sample url)
params:

• key: A required parameter, and is different from your developer key - it is unique to each member.

Get info about a member by id or username

Get an xml file with the public information about the given Goodreads user.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show   (sample url)
params:

• key: Developer key (required).

• username: Goodreads user name (not first name). Usernames are optional on Goodreads.

• id: Goodreads user id.

Get a user's friends

Get an xml file with the given user's friends.
url: http://www.goodreads.com/api/friends   (sample url)
params:

• page: 1-N (default 1)

• key: Developer key (required).

• per_page: 1-100 (default 20)

• id: Goodreads user_id (required)

Update user status

Add status updates for members using OAuth. You'll need to register your app (required).
url: http://www.goodreads.com/user_status.xml
params:

• user_status[book_id]: id of the book being reviewed

• user_status[chapter]: chapter of book

• user_status[page]: page of the book

• user_status[body]: status update

Delete user status

Delete a status update for a member using OAuth. You'll need to register your app (required).
url: http://www.goodreads.com/user_status/destroy/1.xml