# Calibre Question - Importing a List of Read Books



## Deb G (Jan 18, 2009)

Does anyone know of any easy way to do this?  And I apologize if this is already posted somewhere, I did try to find the answer before I submitted this question.  

I keep a list of the books I've read on an Excel Spreadsheet, can I use Calibre to keep track of those books for me?  And if so, is there an easy way to "import" that list so I don't have to type everything all over again (I have over 500 books on the list).  

Or should I just bite the bullet, use Calibre for converting books and use my Excel spreadsheet for keeping track of what I've read.  

Thanks Everyone, I really appreciate your help with this!


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## pidgeon92 (Oct 27, 2008)

Deb G said:


> Or should I just bite the bullet, use Calibre for converting books and use my Excel spreadsheet for keeping track of what I've read.


I think this may be your best option. Importing titles without importing the actual ebook files is not going to work.

Myself, I keep my "already read" list in Delicious Library on my iMac. I've had this going for a few years already, prior to using Calibre for my Kindle.


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## Deb G (Jan 18, 2009)

Thank you, Pidgeon92, I have a MAC too, I'm going to check out the Delicious Library, I hadn't heard of it before.


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## Basilius (Feb 20, 2010)

Deb G said:


> Does anyone know of any easy way to do this? And I apologize if this is already posted somewhere, I did try to find the answer before I submitted this question.
> 
> I keep a list of the books I've read on an Excel Spreadsheet, can I use Calibre to keep track of those books for me? And if so, is there an easy way to "import" that list so I don't have to type everything all over again (I have over 500 books on the list).
> 
> ...


I add a "+" tag to every book in Calibre that I read. This meshes up with the Catalog creation feature and marks those books as read in the catalog.

More often than not, when a question is formed like "How can I keep track of X in Calibre?" the answer involves some sort of tagging trick.

In your specific case, if you haven't imported the books yet, I'd do the following:

Import the books
Sort the books by date (this is the date they were entered into the system, not the publication date)
Select all the books you just entered, and hit the "E" key on your keyboard
Add the tag of your choosing to indicate the books are read and click OK

That should add the tag you wanted to all the selected books. You've now got all those books marked "read" and you can update newly read books as you go.


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