This postSo, I signed up on Goodreads yesterday. It’s…addicting. The site itself is so-so — the design feels a little too padded for my tastes, and it could use some more social networking features (”Your friends who read this book and gave it five stars also read these books and gave them five stars,” etc.) — but even so, the main point is reading, and Goodreads does manage to capture some of that joy.
I’ve started entering in my reading log (see my profile), along with a long list of books I want to read, and it’s deliciously fun. I seriously think I have a separate story stomach or something — the mere thought of reading books makes me bookishly hungry, and when I walk out of the library with a stack of books, I feel like I’ve got a Thanksgiving meal on my plate.
With Goodreads, the main pull for me is being able to see what other people are reading. LibraryThing is great, but it’s more about the books you own — and I read lots of books that I don’t own. I think that holds true for others as well, which is why it’s great to see what my friends are actually reading (since they also may own books they don’t read — I know I do). And the ratings and reviews are handy (as they are on LibraryThing). Oh, I just barely discovered the tiny little “compare books” link — very cool.
All told, it’s a lot of book love, and that’s what matters. I love books. Like, I really love books. Mmm. Anyway, I’ve still got a lot of books left to add, but if you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. :)
Update: Some more quick thoughts after entering more books. First, entering the date you read a book is a pain. Pure text entry (like on LibraryThing) would be so much nicer. I’m sick of clicking the dang dropdowns.
Second, what about the books I’ve read more than once? I can only enter one date. If I’ve read The Great Divorce five times, that should show up in the system — it’s valuable data, and it says something important about the book.
Finally, and this is perhaps my biggest beef, why on earth do we have specific editions listed? I want to say I read Jane Eyre — I don’t want to say I read the Oxford Classics edition of Jane Eyre. Who cares which edition it was? Now, I do realize that you can apparently combine editions together, but they still display as being a particular edition, and that bothers me. With combined editions they ought to strip off everything but the core title and the author. I feel bad every time I add a book where the default edition listed is hardcover and the one I read was softcover, for example. Not bad enough to add the book manually :P, but still.
I do have to say that if LibraryThing fixed the social networking — right now it’s kind of clunky and doesn’t really fit — and made it possible to add lists of books you’ve read or want to read but don’t own (wishlists), then bye-bye Goodreads. But until then, looks like I’ll be living in both worlds.
