I overwrote my reading log

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Yesterday I accidentally overwrote my reading log (nonfiction and fiction both). No way to get the file back.

It had records of the books I'd read and ratings I'd given them over a period of five years (short of a month, basically). I had nearly 300 entries on it.

I likewise had a huge backlog - really a library of titles - saved on it.

It is all gone now.

I didn't lose anything of genuine value but I still feel kind of upset. I think in a way, what with it coming nearly five years (half a decade) after I started it, it's like a sign to move my focus onto other things.


Edit: It makes me feel kind of sick when I remember that I liked sometimes just looking at the list, like a memory of both the titles and the order/time in which it had taken place.

 

[CallmeCicada]

Similar thing happened to me awhile back. Not fun, but starting from scratch isn't so bad either.

Sorry to hear, it gets better though.

 

[Schwarzwald]

A reading log sounds rather uncomfortable and might even contain dangerous woodland critters. You should look into getting a reading recliner or something instead.

 

[Unique Username KF]

Unfortunate but only a matter of time without data backups.

 

[Sparkletor 2.0]

I saw on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation that you can take your hard drive and put it in this laser thingy and it decodes all the erased data and you will get your files back.

Just do that.

 

[Safir]

My condolences. (obligatory "did you try file recovery").

This won't restore the log, but you can
- write down what you remember, whenever you remember. "Oh I've read it" -> write. "Oh, I might have read it" -> look up synopsis or text -> write.
- look at your purchase history, library card, Calibre metadata, e-reader metadata, search history, torrent history, browser bookmarks, etc

I likewise had a huge backlog - really a library of titles - saved on it.

it's like a sign to move my focus onto other things.

Why would you quit reading ((safely) assuming you read to read, not to show off the log on peddit)?
Losing the backlog hurts, too (discovery is valuable), but as actual reading goes, you only need one recommendation at a time. There are (un)fortunately more worthy books in the world than one can read in a lifetime: with the old backlog or without it, you will have missed out on something.

 

[Lifeguard Hermit]

Why would you quit reading

I remember the exact moment and it was when I read a book called War of the rats and it was one of the only books that accurately depicted what happened to the German women at the end of the war. It basically made me hate everyone and every author I had read prior. Made me realize how many books I read that were directly related to the masturbatory habits of people with large proboscises

 

[Safir]

I remember the exact moment and it was when I read a book called War of the rats and it was one of the only books that accurately depicted what happened to the German women at the end of the war.

Oh fuck, I'm not even safe in sad threads from you solzhenitsyns. Please quit breathing.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

My condolences. (obligatory "did you try file recovery").

This won't restore the log, but you can
- write down what you remember, whenever you remember. "Oh I've read it" -> write. "Oh, I might have read it" -> look up synopsis or text -> write.
- look at your purchase history, library card, Calibre metadata, e-reader metadata, search history, torrent history, browser bookmarks, etc

Not with a dedicated file recovery program, but the whole Properties --> Backups doesn't work.
I was going to go over my Amazon orders to get all of the ones I looked at for Kindle (which is basically all of them). The better stuff is in my memory anyways. Likewise I already have an inventory of my books, so I can rebuild the list of what I've read on Kindle (almost all of it past a point).

Why would you quit reading ((safely) assuming you read to read, not to show off the log on peddit)?

In part because it STARTED as reading to read, and tracking it made it go better, but over time it morphed, subconsciously, into reading to inflate the number.

I also spend a huge amount of time on reading. Much of it is junk, but I feel guilty (both about the cost of the book and the time and not finishing it) if I stop. Even what i like I don't generally remember in any meaningful detail (as far as nonfiction goes).

Does that make sense? By tracking something you can make a job out of it.

In my limited time I need to work more (on my career) and there are other hobbies I could be spending time at. One I was doing was instruments. The problem is that I don't enjoy my instruments when I'm home, only when I visit my parents. Like a cloud that settles on me in one place but not the other. It's been a long time since I touched them. There are things I could do to get more value out of it, like find adults to play with (hard, particularly for one that you're an adult beginner at) and take the time to make and hold myself to a specific, productive training program.

I could also replace the nonfiction time with trying to write.


Edit: Actually, it originally goes back to me trying to clear my physical library. I had, from professors giving away personal libraries mainly, acquired a ton of books and at some point I realized that I looked like a poser, and it was just generally absurd, having this thing that I never touched. I had morphed, over high school and college, from a reader to a gamer. But as I read a lot I got to where my interests in reading were developed that I knew what i wanted to read regardless of if it was in that library.

Keeping a check of what I'd done lead to me gradually pushing up my numbers. And it did eventually lead to me prioritizing shorter books even though my favorites are usually long epics.

 

[Neodanthril]

And that is why you back up data in triplicate in regular intervals on separate drives in separate locations

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

I know how you feel. I didn’t back up my cloud storage and lost thousands of good memes from mid 2019 to 2023.

 

[glass_houses]

I feel for you, I really do. Both in the abstract sense of years of detailed data lost without a trace, and in the specific sense of losing your reading log. I've lost both on multiple occasions, and the sensation squirming around your body is sickening.

 

[RougeRed]

Have you tried some kind of undelete program? If the deletion was recent and you haven't done a lot on the computer since, it should be pretty likely you can get it back.

 

[Neodanthril]

Have you tried some kind of undelete program? If the deletion was recent and you haven't done a lot on the computer since, it should be pretty likely you can get it back.

He didn't delete it he overwrote it

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

LOL I appreciate you all relating to my First World problem.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Well, it turns out I had updated my inventory (which includes my Kindle books) recently enough that it wasn't a huge deal filling it in, and I had made a post that ALREADY curated my nonfiction reading that I ranked favorably or even somewhat acceptably all the way up to about a year ago, which would pretty much include all the ones I never held physical copies of, so I can basically sort it all into a single list.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/history-books-worth-reading.155968/#post-15460601

And there was genuinely good stuff I got through the library that I could have forgotten the name of/forgot about it if I didn't have a list. Like Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun.