Thing Twenty

I visited Twitterlit. When I laughed out loud at one of the first lines of a book, a coworker came in my office asking what was so funny. If it cracks me up, I like it. Next I visited BookStumpers because as a former children's librarian, I often received this kind of inquiry from adult patrons. "I remember this book from when I was a kid in the '70s. It had a red cover, and the little boy in it had a blue tricycle...." This site could help when a librarian can't. TheBookCalendar also has some merit by introducing members to a new book each day via RSS or email. It might be worth checking out to see if I'm interested in the titles introduced.

Personally, I'm not interested in joining a book club because I like to read for my personal enjoyment or education. There are really few books I want to dissect with a bunch of other people. I read something, enjoy it, and move on to the next one. Anyway, I looked at BookGlutton and Bookmarked. I thought LitLovers was pretty cool. The free literature courses could be worthwhile and I thought the link to Book Club menus was a great idea. I do hear book clubs have good food!

Although the One Minute Critic reviewed somewhat esoteric titles (at least the ones I saw) that didn't appeal to me, the clips I listened to were good. Kinda casual presentation, yet good. I think the site is an interesting concept. BookSwim was very interesting -- didn't know those kind of sites existed. I investigated the college textbook rental section, and thought it would be worth checking into if I were a student (which thank goodness I'm not anymore!). I still think the public library is a better bet for other stuff. But I realize lots of people want what they want now, so they might not want to wait for the library's copy of the newest best seller. I also looked at Visual Bookshelf which a coworker swears by, and SwapTree, which sounds incredibly fun. That one is worth spending more time looking into.

I had no idea all these sites existed, so this thing was incredibly educational.