A Virtual Library

By now you've probably noticed the new widget on the side of my blog that indicates I've joined Goodreads. This was going to happen eventually. I mean, a social networking site built around books? I'm surprised I resisted for as long as I did. But I finally bit the bullet and joined. Mostly because I wanted an easier way to track how many books I was reading in a year. Yeah, I could go through my blog and count, but this does it all automatically.

I imported all of the books I've reviewed in my blog into my goodreads bookshelf, and gave them stars based on my memories. It was fun to go through and remember little things associated with the books. I was occasionally surprised by what memories they triggered. I was also surprised by the books that haven't made it onto my blog yet. I thought I'd read The Hunger Games more recently than I did. And it's been a while since I re-read Harry Potter. But that just means that I still have a few old books that I can revisit and talk about on the blog.

Goodreads lets you review things through their site, but I think I'm going to keep everything on my blog for now. It feels a bit more personal. I can go off on tangents and talk about other things and not feel bad because it's my space. In an actual review, I'd probably feel the need to be a bit more formal. And concise.

I mostly signed up for the site for this challenge. Fifty-two books a year isn't exactly a stretch for me. It's essentially the rate I read at anyway, and you can see from that widget that I'm pretty far ahead of schedule. This is mostly because I haven't read any particularly long books yet this year. I've read two graphic novels, which don't take very long at all, and several YA novels. But there are some longer things sitting on my shelf. I also tend to slow way down in the summer. Mostly I'm just curious to see what the numbers tell me throughout the year. And maybe next year I'll try an actual challenge. Or maybe not. I enjoy books less when I don't take time to savor them.

If you have a Goodreads account, feel free to friend me over there. I'd like to see how some of the social interactions work on that site. But mostly, I'm in it for the organization and number crunching. I'm just a nerd at heart.