Why I Choose LibraryThing

I recently voted on something to do with social networking sites for readers. I didn't spend more than a few minutes typing it up but this is what I left as my comment.


I don’t like LibraryThing. I love LibraryThing.

I’ve been a member of LibraryThing for two years now. The day I stumbled on it became a milestone in my life. My lifetime membership status isn’t just because a friend paid for me to have more than a year of unlimited book cataloging. I love how well I can keep track of my books there. The site has terrific features that feed all of my addictions for organizing and much more. I turn to LT for anything book related before all else. LibraryThing has complete reins of which books I purchase and which books I don’t purchase. It can tell me what order a book series is in, which books I may like based on what I have already, and I haven’t even gotten started on the communication parts of it. It introduced me to some of the best people I’ve ever ‘met’ and I am very grateful for the friendships it has given me. Talking to a group of people about books you have in common is wonderful. Talking to a group a people who you know well and share many of the same book interests as is even better. I am eternally grateful to those who work hard to keep LibraryThing the outstanding place that it is.



If you're a reader and haven't discovered the amazingness that is LibraryThing yet, I suggest you go check it out.

A Knack for Titles

What do I do when feeling bored when I should actually be reading? (By now, I should be sleeping.)

I know someone with a marvelous gift to link the name of an actor to another using only the names of five other actors or actresses. Actually, I probably know a few people who can do this rather well. My point is, while some people have a knack for movies and famous people, this is how I pass time . . .

Before the glorious days of LT, I would sit down and think of as many titles of books that I own as I possibly could whose titles link them to one another. I took to writing them down, but those lists have long ago been thrown out: why do this when I have my addiction to LT to fill my time? Or when I have a TBR pile that should have fallen on me a long time ago?

The answer is, because LibraryThing goes down! (Also, my TBR pile isn't stacked, or else it would fall on me.)

Below is a basic example. I will not provide authors to any of the books I will mention below, as it's late enough as it is. (Remember, I said I should be sleeping.)

Fitcher's Brides -> The Princess Bride -> The Constant Princess

See how I went from linking the word 'bride' to linking the word 'princess'?

I really enjoy doing this and would very much enjoy sharing every link of book titles I came up with tonight, but must not get carried away. I'll stick with the ones with the most books if I can manage it.

Sixteen Book Titles:
Where Are the Children? -> Where the Heart Is -> Black Heart, Ivory Bones -> Black Thorn, White Rose -> Blood is the New Black -> Blue Bloods -> The Blue Girl -> The Onion Girl -> The Other Boleyn Girl -> Little (Grrl) Lost -> Lost in Austen -> Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict -> Lost -> Lost in a Good Book -> The Book Thief -> The Lightening Thief

Fourteen Book Titles:
The Bean Trees -> The Summer Tree -> Tapping the Dream Tree -> A Midsummer Nights’ Dream -> Animal Dreams -> The Dreaming Place -> Dreams Underfoot -> Memory and Dream -> The Memory of Running -> The Memory Keeper’s Daughter -> Daughter of the Forest -> Forests of the Heart -> Inkheart -> Inkspell

Twelve Book Titles:
Where Are the Children? -> Where the Heart Is -> Black Heart, Ivory Bones -> Black Thorn, White Rose -> Blood is the New Black -> Blue Bloods -> Snow White, Blood Red -> The Maid of the White Hands -> White as Snow -> Light on Snow -> Snow Falling on Cedars -> Falling Angels

Eleven Book Titles:
Where Are the Children? -> Where the Heart Is -> Black Heart, Ivory Bones -> Black Thorn, White Rose -> Blood is the New Black -> Blue Bloods -> The Blue Girl -> Blue is for Nightmares -> Fly by Night -> Twelfth Night -> Silent Night

Ten Book Titles:
Where Are the Children? -> Where the Heart Is -> Black Heart, Ivory Bones -> Black Thorn, White Rose -> Blood is the New Black -> Blue Bloods -> The Blue Girl -> Blue is for Nightmares -> The Bluest Eye -> The Golem's Eye


I really should italicise all of those books...but I'm way to sleepy.

I think this would be really fun to play on LT, now that I think about it. I'll have to start a thread after work tomorrow. There, the possibilities will be endless.

LibraryThing

This blog entry is all wrong for this blog (a few entries probably are) but as I've yet to create a blog less about books and because there may be a chance that certain people may read this, I'm going to post this here.

LibraryThing has been my favorite website ever since I discovered it. I love it very much and have made many friends on the site particularly in one group. When LT is down for those rare longer amounts of time such as now, I wish we'd had a website created allowing us to still chat up a storm as per usual.

I googled 'Hogwarts Express' and stared at the many trains that showed up as a result while ideas began to come to me. (On another tab right now is this one.) Because I'm all for sharing ideas and discussion before starting such a site, none can be used without contacting others in the group. *waves* Miss you guys!

The first thing I thought of is the obvious of providing a link to our group chatroom. The site should have a place where people can post so we can communite without the chatroom as well. This is with keeping in mind the average LTer cannot enter chatrooms while at work, where most LTers are when they go on LT. (Click here if your boss is coming. ;) Something I thought would be neat would be to have a list of blogs by our group members but only by those who are willing to share them.

Just checked the site again, and LT's homepage is loading and has a status message. Since it looks like it will work soon, I'm going to go ahead and end this entry to discuss in the right place.

"So You Think You Know Harry Potter?"

Then you better check yourself in, 'cause - I don't mean to break your heart - he's fictional. (Hehe, I had to say it. ;)

LibraryThing never came back on today, so I guess I won't be there much until next Wednesday. :( The terrible shame of this is that I received a long awaited for book this afternoon that I had mooched back in April just for using in the Harry Potter group on LT! Now I can give a Bowser laugh when at last LT is up, and I can let the other group members know it's arrived. ;) Let the questions begin! (But not till after work tomorrow, if LT is back up.)

With all the down time lately, I've picked up and finished my book. Instead of jumping into he next HP book, though, I'm reading one I mooched a while back, called The End of Harry Potter? by David Langford. After twenty pages, I'm guessing it won't be all it's made out to be, and I'm glad to say it may have only cost me $1.33.

LT *and* BM down!

LibraryThing was working again last night, but as of twenty minutes, is down again. I didn't even get a chance go on it this morning. Before I even checked their site, I checked my e-mail, and found a BookMooch wishlist e-mail. I held my breath and clicked to try to mooch the book, logged in, and found only the words "To where do you want the book sent?". Before I realized the page was done loading, I was ecstatic that I would get to mooch it. Then I got all upset, because of course BM wouldn't come back on at a time I can get the book! The site is down so frequently, that I almost want to pull all my books off it, and not return. This sort of thing has happened to me far too many times. Furthermore, it seems to be down near every time that LT is down. I know they're completely separate, but I still wonder why that happens. It's very irritating, but beyond that, as far as BM is concerned, an huge inconvenience.

LibraryThing still down

My prediction about LibraryThing taking more than five to ten minutes to be running again was quite right, as the site's been down since at least 8pm last night and has yet to work today, nearly sixteen hours later. It's times like this that I wish the people who I normally talk to there and I could chat somewhere else. I'm sure it will several hours more before the site works today. Likely, it may be an all day 'Thing' without the 'Library.' Sadly, this has happened before on days I've had off. I hope I can at least go on it tomorrow, or I won't be there much for nearly eight days because of work. :( 'Guess it's off to reading.

LT, BM, & Summer Reading

While LibrayThing is still down from last night (5-10 minutes, ha), I went on BookMooch to check for pending mooches. It's been more than a week since anyone has mooched from me. The only reason I can come up with is that my inventory is just not interesting. I have excellent feedback, and never fail to notify people who I send books to about the status of their desired book. While I'm not receiving any mooches from people, I'm not much receiving any e-mails about books on my wishlist turning up, either. I guess this is good, since I won't use up points without being able to get more, but I just love getting mail! It's always exciting to receive a book in the mail. If one doesn't arrive today, it will be five days since I last received one.

Speaking of five days, last Saturday I sent a book out of the US for the first time. It went to Africa by first-class air mail, and I was told it would take five to nine days to arrive. While I paid to to able to check if it is delivered, the postal worker never gave me the required slip of paper to do so. Today marks the nineth day, and the bookmoocher in Africa has not said the book has been received yet. I fear they may dislike the condition of the book, though I am very good about writing them. Creased spines, aged and yellow pages, I list them.

While I was checking out the pending mooches, I looked over profiles of some people who I mooched from. One has recently listed a blog, and when I visited it, I found that the book I mooched from them, Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint, was on a book challenge that he or she took. It seems this is their first book by the author, and I was shocked they were giving it away, as it seemed they rather enjoyed it and wish to read more by this author in the future. My gain, I guess. It seems they've read another of my favorite books recently as well, Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde. I may just keep checking their blog (http://readfromatoz.blogspot.com/) every so often. It seems rather interesting.

Only a few months ago, I had two copies of Dreams Underfoot. I worked up the courage to finally offer the older one on BookMooch, and it was immediately swiped up. A couple weeks later, I traded books with a friend, and gave away the second and newer copy. I didn't mind giving it to this person at all, but was rather happy I could perhaps let someone discover this author's works. I decided to replace it with another copy from a bookstore, but never much go to bookstores that sell new books, so I hadn't replaced it. I eventually decided to add it to my BookMooch wishlist, and was very happy to receive an e-mail about it being added to someone's inventory. Now, I only wait for it to arrive. After September, I plan to at long last reread Charles de Lint's Newford series in their correct order. As the author points out, they are designed to be read in any order (but must begin with Dreams Underfoot), I just have read all of them and wish to read them in chronological order now. Well, soon, not so much now. I have a lot of rereading to do for the final Harry Potter series' release, and after that, some classics and Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series for his fifth book in that series. I wouldn't be able to wait till these books are released, had I not so much prep-reading to do.

Summer Reading Schedule:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
**Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
*Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
**First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

*First time read
*New releases, also first time reads