How do you handle shelves?

[Jessica]

I apologize if this has been covered or is obvious but I seem to be having difficulty figuring out my shelves. It looks like I am forced to pick one of the shelves, either read, to-read or currently-reading. If it's an audiobook, those options don't work so well. I'd prefer not to have to choose currently-reading for a book I'm listening to.
Can anyone advise as to how best to shelve books or give me some examples? I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance!

[John, Moderator]

The system is set up so that one must choose one of those three options.

[Isabell]

However, there is also the possibility to add new shelves to those exclusive shelves. For example you could name it currently-listening or whatever you want. I have two extras for my wishlist and second editions.

When you are looking at your shelves, there is a small link called "edit" next to the pale gray "bookshelves" (under "My Books" and above the single shelves). That's where you can set other shelves as exclusive.

[binter]

I'll second what Isabell said. In addition to the read / to read / currently reading options, I've added listened / to listen / currently listening as exclusives.

After that, not marked "exclusive", I have a hodgepodge of shelves. I note what is available vs not at my local library, what I can download vs rip, whether I actually own a copy of that particular book or audiobook, etc.

Some members bookshelves are so neat and tidy - they would be useful to a follower. Unfortunately, mine are strictly for my sorting convenience.

[Kelly]

I added an exclusive shelf for Did Not Finish. For audio books I use the existing exclusive shelves plus an audio non-exclusive shelf. But I may like the idea of exclusive shelves just for audio books ...

[Jessica]

Thanks for the comments all! I had added new shelves already for currently-listening and listened-to, but it seems redundant to have to mark them as both read and listened-to. I just wanted to see if there was a way to *not* choose one of the three main shelves that perhaps I was missing.
It is interesting to see how others are sorting. I've now also added a shelf labeled audiobook after reading other discussions.
Thanks again!

[Linda]

I went pretty basic for my audio, since audio is not "primary" for me, I actually read a lot of books, so for example, I named my audio shelf - audio - and everything goes there.

[binter]

Jessica, I see that you have bookshelves called "currently listening to" and "listened to". If you mark these as EXCLUSIVE, they will join those the read/to-read/currently-reading. Then you won't be forced to mark an audiobook as "read", you can mark it as "listened-to". I think this is what you are trying to accomplish to manage your audiobooks.

To mark them as EXCLUSIVE, click on edit at the top of your list of bookshelves and check off exclusive.

See if that gets you where you want to be.

[Jessica]

Thank you so much Alief! That is exactly what I was trying to accomplish. Awesome.

[binter]

Great! So glad I could help.