Welcome to my books!
This is a collection of notes for books I have read, want to read, was recommended or whatever!
This note is more for myself to describe the process and intent of the tracking system. This is to remember and have a space to grow ideas.
I have no plan or idea at this time on how I want to manage multiple editions (for example there are 3 or more copies of Harry Potter in my house all different versions).
General idea
In my personal vault I can use Obsidian’s Bases feature which lets me use my notes more like a database however for publishing purposes it’s nice to have things organized a bit more like a traditional website.
Folders
- Curious About - A place for books I haven’t read yet such as recommended things.
- Reference - For now, a specific place to put non-fiction reference type books.
- todo this might go away after introduction of genre.
- Technical Reference - Like references but focused on things used for software development and technology.
Frontmatter
I use a system of prefixing frontmatter properties to help organize things in my notes. This also helps me easily rename if needed without affecting say the whole of my notes. (at the time of writing that’s over 10k note files, renaming can have a huge impact on syncing updates)
For books the prefix is simply book--
book--cover- Link to the cover art for a book.
- Used in my Obsidian vault for visual preview in Obsidian bases, and right side panel preview.
book--status- Captures the read status of books
- todo should I rename to
book--read-status?
book-genre^NEW- This will be a system of organization to help find specific kinds of books over time.
Note on Tags
I use tags for these same things in order to give more points of discovery in published notes. Currently Quartz does not render the frontmatter data. So in this case you should see the same tag created as I would use for frontmatter also using the same prefix system and naming. todo link to general note about how tags work and/or prefix system.
Genre Schema
In order to help keep things organized as things grow as well as find recommendations for friends I’ll be introducing a genre system.
Note
I am interested in keeping things organized in the filesystem as well. Because of this I’ve introduced the specific books published date (of the edition I have read for example). I think I’ll need to add author names as well to have a way of self organizing by authors as well.
Additionally, I’m interested in possibly tracking the multiple versions/editions of the same book I may own or want to own. A good example would be Ready Player One (2012) which I own on multiple digital reading platforms as well as physical copy. So not sure how I’ll handle this yet.
Use frontmatter format:
book--genre: category
or
book--genre: category/subcategoryIdeas for categorization
Note
There’s another idea I may want to introduce for categorization outside of the work itself, a personal context categorization so I can track what the work means for me. Did it inspire, change my thinking, world view, personal reflections on it, etc.
Fiction genre
- fiction/literary
- fiction/fantasy
- fiction/science-fiction
- fiction/historical
- fiction/mystery
- fiction/thriller
- fiction/romance
- fiction/horror
- fiction/classic
- fiction/short-stories
Nonfiction genre
- nonfiction/biography
- nonfiction/history
- nonfiction/science
- nonfiction/psychology
- nonfiction/philosophy
- nonfiction/self-improvement
- nonfiction/culture
- nonfiction/education
- nonfiction/politics
Reference / Practical genre
- reference/coding
- reference/design
- reference/cooking
- reference/woodworking
- reference/health
- reference/leadership
- reference/productivity
Creative / Visual genre
- creative/art
- creative/photography
- creative/writing
- creative/architecture