When you read only part of a book....

[Cheryl, first facilitator]

... and you still want to make a record of it, what do you do? I'm talking about books you did not finish, which we've referred to before, the DNFs. *And* I'm talking about texts, anthologies, how-to guides, maybe even references like thesauri and cookbooks, maybe sacred texts....

How do you shelve these different kinds of books? Do you rate them? Review them? Put them on your 'read' shelf? Give them a date read (y'know, the field that makes the book count for the challenge if you're participating in it)?

[Sarah]

I just put them back in to-read and in the shelf DNF. I wish there was like, an official bookshelf for it.

[Cheryl, first facilitator]

Um, sorry if I wasn't clear, or maybe you really mean it....

I'm talking mainly about books that you're never going to actually finish reading, or read through. Ok, I can see that something like, say, a cookbook that you own and refer to often, can go back on to-read - but a book you actually gave up on and are *never* going to finish reading? Are you saying that you put *those* books back on to-read?

Believe me, I'm not arguing - it's fascinating to me to see everyone's different ideas on how to organize their shelves and their reading.

[Sarah]

I was being very serious, but i understand the misunderstanding. I put them on to-read because I dont want them on my read list because I keep that as my hard number of how many books I've read. I dont want it on reading because that shows up on my widgets on other blogs and that confuses my readers... and it would get really long.
Thats why its such a problen D:

[Dionisia]

Hi Sarah, have you tried creating your own exclusive shelf? Maybe even turning your "didn-t-finish" shelf into an exclusive shelf? That may fit your needs better. It would allow you to mark them as DNF without worrying that they will sully your read count or currently reading widget.

[Misfit]

Dionisia wrote: "Hi Sarah, have you tried creating your own exclusive shelf? Maybe even turning your "didn-t-finish" shelf into an exclusive shelf? That may fit your needs better. It would allow you to mark them as..."

I have my DNF and Abadoned (gave up after a couple of chapters) as exclusive shelves, which means they can't be combined with to-read, read, etc.

[Sarah]

Whaat? You guys have saved my life! I'm gonna make one right now!

[Cheryl, first facilitator]

I see other folks have a separate exclusive shelf for 'reference' which means cookbooks, etc., that they'll never read every word of, and that don't fit on any of the three default shelves. I think that's cool.