Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Almost out of balloons

Let's start with GoodReads. I discovered an issue (actually a smart feature) in which you can't send the same recommendation to the same friend twice. In testing, I managed to recommend Toys by James Patterson from my own GoodReads account. I've been using it for a while. I'm friends with the guy who founded LibraryThing, which is something of a geekier competitor, so I do this with mixed emotions. But the interface is decent and the sharing options are good. One of things that drives me crazy about GoodReads is that all books have to be on one of three shelves in your collection: Read, Currently Reading, To Read. Where's "Didn't Finish?" I'd use that all the time.

Bookletters, perhaps the least recognized feature on our website. I've subscribed to the Audio and Lifestyle newsletters in both email and RSS formats forever. Added Book Sizzle because everyone else seemed so enamored of the concept.

NoveList, the capitalization of which I need to correct on our Research Tools page. I went with Science Fiction>Alternate Histories. This is a tool that really speaks for itself, but would be pretty handy for putting together book displays too.

My reading selection tools are a mix of buzz from my social networks, references from my RSS feeds and the random stuff sitting on the shelves of my house that I've never read. But I'm not nearly the voracious book reader that I once was, so I hardly need more books to never get around to reading. Sad.

4 comments:

  1. You can add bookshelves to your Goodreads shelf list. Head to your bookshelves, then click the "edit" link and you should see the "add" button. Easy peasy :)

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  2. Yes, but that doesn't remove the requirement to have your book on one of the three primary shelves, none of which are applicable to the book in question.

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  3. Greg, you can actually add additional shelves and make them "primary" ones by going to my profile > my books > edit shelves. There is an option to add shelves and make them "exclusive," just like the original three primary ones. I have shelves for both "Will Come Back to Later" and "Will Never Finish."

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  4. And...you're my hero. Gold star. Thank you!

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