Side project: Books
In 2009 I quit Goodreads and, inspired by Art Garfunkle, began recording my reading by writing the books down in a spreadsheet.
After a couple of years I built the spreadsheet out into a website. Just for fun. You can see the page here
I've always been particularly fond of the visualisation I made for the top of the home page.
Later still I started adding photos of the books as a way to make the site feel a bit more human.
And recently added yearly and monthly summary pages.
Of my personal sites this is perhaps my favourite. I enjoy browsing it in the same way that I can stare at a bookshelf, the aim is to have as much info per page as possible -- hence the full 16 years long reading list on the homepage -- making it easy to browse the collection, no decision making needed. It's also the site which, having been growing and changing for over a decade so far, feels most like the ideal of a digital garden, something I can prune and adapt rather than engineer into a fixed form. Next time I get to tend the pages I'd like to improve the typography for notes and maybe add a back and next button to individual book pages. Also I feel like I need to tweak the colour scheme etc. etc. etc.