Goodreads: Social Networking for Readers
Sometimes, I find myself totally overwhelmed by the vast range of books we have from which to choose. Should I catch up on classics? Or is it better to stay on the cutting edge? Fiction or nonfiction? Should I judge a book by its cover? And it is easy to forget which books we have decided to read, and difficult to prioritize them.
This reading indecision and organization has been much less of a problem for me ever since I started using Goodreads, a social networking site for readers. Using Goodreads, you can make an account for storing lists of books (your “shelves”) to organize what you’re currently reading, what you’ve read in the past, and what you plan to read in the future. Your account has a profile, which you can fill out as much or as little as you please with information about you and your reading tastes.
Then, you can become Goodreads friends with other users you know in real life, or just follow other readers who seem interesting. Goodreads users frequently give books star ratings, write reviews, and make lists of books with a particular theme or style, which makes choosing a new book to read much more focused than just wandering around the bookstore or clicking haphazardly around Amazon.com.
Never again will you forget about a book you wanted to read – just add it to your Goodreads account and it will be stored on your virtual to-read shelf for as long as necessary for you to get around to it. Adding books is easy to do on-the-go with the Goodreads mobile website and iPhone app.
Feel free to have a look at my Goodreads account. As you’ll see, it is easy to accumulate very many to-read items, but at least I will never again feel like there is nothing left that I want to read!
Neat! I’m going to try this out as a way to keep track of all the books that are suggested by teachers in my classes. This would be a good way to share these titles with others in my program.
GTD! what do you think so far? any new ideas about “getting things done”?
I’ve tried using Shlefari in the past, but always find myself falling off the wagon immediately. I suspect if I was an e-reader user, it might tie in better to my habits. But, for now, it’s always just one too many clicks away.
http://www.shelfari.com/o1517062751
@Michelle – cool, hope you like it! be sure to add me as a friend!
@Brian – I haven’t been reading GTD too seriously, just bought it because I had a giftcard to use and thought I could pick up a couple of tips. Some of the theory/system gets really elaborate, and I’m kind of turned off by that. But, if there is one thing to learn from GTD, it is this: you must, must, must have somewhere reliable to store ALL of the things you need to do (whether electronic or paper). Otherwise you will never be able to clear your mind and direct all of your energy on the task at hand. In the past, I have used Cultured Code’s Things and Remember the Milk for this purpose, but am in the process of switching to Teux Deux.
Goodreads seems to be leading the pack of similar services, has a pretty large user base, and has good fb/twitter integration, so I’ve ended up keeping up with it better than I expected (also the iphone app helps, I play with it when I’m waiting in line somewhere or something). The most valuable function, in my opinion, is keeping track of books to read in the future (keeping track of books I’m reading at present or that I’ve read in the past is not quite as important). I know other people use Amazon lists in that way, but I like that Goodreads is dedicated to this purpose.