I led the book club at our branch for several years. It was OK. I read books I might not normally have read, but it's not really my thing. I enjoy reading, but not necessarily discussing books.
I had joined LibraryThing before the first iHCPL and GoodReads during iHCPL. There just doesn't seem to be enough time to keep up with everything. Shelfari looks like another version of these. Again, it's fun to list some books online, but discussion just isn't my thing.
We have a book club at our branch. Trying to find a book by theme for our Asian Pacific Heritage month has been a challenge. I was using ReadingGroupChoices and ReadingGroupGuides and when I found a possible book, either HCPL didn't own the book or didn't own enough copies. I finally found a title by an author that was on ReadingGroupGuides, Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama. I don't know if we will use the book, but it is a possibility. Trying to use Firestorm by Iris Johansen didn't work, it wasn't in either of the book club sites.
It would probably work better starting with some of their lists rather than having a book and then looking to see if they have reviewed it.
I looked for Firestorm on LibraryThing, where it had 2 reviews, average rating of 3.76 and on GoodReads where it had 23 reviews and 4.02 average rating. So it was liked fairly well.
I don't think I would join any of the virtual book clubs. I just don't care for other people choosing what I would read and then discussing it. I read for pleasure and most of what I read doesn't show up on discussion sites.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Books, Readers and Beyond: Finding Books Online
Looking for bookstores in Humble, of course we have Barnes & Noble and Half-Price Books, two of my favorite stops. After those, it's mostly Christian or Children's bookstores or they are further away than what I would shop. There is a used bookstore in Humble, but I have to admit I've never been there. Barnes & Noble, online big time, Half-Price Books, just lists where they are, no way to search inventory.
Looking for the children's book, Stealing Thunder by Mary Casanova, I found it on B&N for $5.99 with no problems. Same price on Amazon with a selection of used books listed. I didn't find it as an audio book, checked HCPL, Audible, Books on Tape, Recorded Books, and Audiobooks.com. These are the most popular distributors and if they didn't have it, then I don't think it has been recorded.
When I checked adult authors, such as John Saul, I found books on our page and Audible to be downloaded and other places to buy. Popular authors can be found many places to download. I checked on Firestorm by Iris Johansen and we have it in an abridged CD and online, unabridged. It is also available through Audible.
I have an online used book site I like, it's BookCloseouts.com. It's mostly remainders and seconds, but it's great to browse and has good prices and great sales. You can also have it notify you if you are looking for something and it comes in to them. Otherwise, it's a great site to browse.
Just browsing some of the remainders and out of print stores is fun. I have a children's author I usually check for just to see if they have some of her books and the prices. AbeBooks has some copies as does Books-A-Million. Powell's Books also has some copies. I've been to Powell's and that's just amazing to browse.
Trading books online just isn't something that appeals to me. If anything, I would sell them at Half Price books or something.
Looking at some of the free sites, it's amazing what all is out there. I found a couple of places I might want to visit more and maybe do some downloading.
OK. As far as downloading one of our ebooks, I couldn't do it on my work pc. The software isn't there and I/we can't download it. So I used my personal laptop. It took 2 hours to find a way to download and install the Adobe Digital Editions. Their website wanted Flash installed, which I did multiple times, followed their and our help screens and it still wouldn't install. Finally found a page in Adobe's support that let me manually install ADE. At that point it finally let me get it installed and then download the book from our site. I don't know how many of the public would have the patience or know how to do all of this. I found it extremely!! frustrating to do this. Will now read the book.
I did a little reading before lunch. My laptop has a shiny screen which is always a little annoying, but with a book, it is distracting because it shows everything behind me. Also, it's not real light to hold in my lap. All in all, would rather read from a book. Also went to WOWIO, which was one of the sites from the original iHCPL. It lets you use its own reader, there is nothing to download. It works fairly well on the pc, but again, you are reading from the pc and are trapped in front of it. If I had a Kindle or it's equivalent, it might be better, but a computer just isn't comfortable to read in front of or carry around.
Looking for the children's book, Stealing Thunder by Mary Casanova, I found it on B&N for $5.99 with no problems. Same price on Amazon with a selection of used books listed. I didn't find it as an audio book, checked HCPL, Audible, Books on Tape, Recorded Books, and Audiobooks.com. These are the most popular distributors and if they didn't have it, then I don't think it has been recorded.
When I checked adult authors, such as John Saul, I found books on our page and Audible to be downloaded and other places to buy. Popular authors can be found many places to download. I checked on Firestorm by Iris Johansen and we have it in an abridged CD and online, unabridged. It is also available through Audible.
I have an online used book site I like, it's BookCloseouts.com. It's mostly remainders and seconds, but it's great to browse and has good prices and great sales. You can also have it notify you if you are looking for something and it comes in to them. Otherwise, it's a great site to browse.
Just browsing some of the remainders and out of print stores is fun. I have a children's author I usually check for just to see if they have some of her books and the prices. AbeBooks has some copies as does Books-A-Million. Powell's Books also has some copies. I've been to Powell's and that's just amazing to browse.
Trading books online just isn't something that appeals to me. If anything, I would sell them at Half Price books or something.
Looking at some of the free sites, it's amazing what all is out there. I found a couple of places I might want to visit more and maybe do some downloading.
OK. As far as downloading one of our ebooks, I couldn't do it on my work pc. The software isn't there and I/we can't download it. So I used my personal laptop. It took 2 hours to find a way to download and install the Adobe Digital Editions. Their website wanted Flash installed, which I did multiple times, followed their and our help screens and it still wouldn't install. Finally found a page in Adobe's support that let me manually install ADE. At that point it finally let me get it installed and then download the book from our site. I don't know how many of the public would have the patience or know how to do all of this. I found it extremely!! frustrating to do this. Will now read the book.
I did a little reading before lunch. My laptop has a shiny screen which is always a little annoying, but with a book, it is distracting because it shows everything behind me. Also, it's not real light to hold in my lap. All in all, would rather read from a book. Also went to WOWIO, which was one of the sites from the original iHCPL. It lets you use its own reader, there is nothing to download. It works fairly well on the pc, but again, you are reading from the pc and are trapped in front of it. If I had a Kindle or it's equivalent, it might be better, but a computer just isn't comfortable to read in front of or carry around.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Books, Readers and Beyond: What to Read
I'm putting this at the top of this entry so that it might be seen. Everyone doesn't read to the bottom of an entry. My favorite website for series, further reading and other authors hasn't even been mentioned. The Fantastic Fiction website can be searched by author or title, or browsed. It lists all series by an author, the author's website, suggestion/recommendations by the author, other authors to read, forthcoming books. You can also browse by most popular, New books, Coming Soon, top authors, series, etc. It's a wonderful site.
The suggestions in the interview are what I already ask. Depending on their answer, I may refer them to a coworker who reads in their genre or author for other suggestions.
Looking at the suggested lists, I'm not over impressed with Library Booklists. The lists are too long and difficult to use. Some of the breakdowns are good, so it might be helpful if you have time to look for your subject. The children's fiction and the YA lists look good.
I tried a couple of authors I like and What Should I Read Next? came up with some good suggestions on one and not so good on the other. The Fiction_L Booklist didn't have one author in their list, but the suggestions for the other were good. To me, the Library Booklists makes you work too hard to get to a suggestion list. It might work better if you had a lot of time or possibly if you wanted to do some displays or bibliographies of your own. Surprisingly NoveList Plus only found 1 suggestion for one author, but did better on the other author. I'm choosing Iris Johansen's Firestorm as a suggestion.
The Morton Grove Public Library's Webrary Fiction_L Booklist has some fun genres, characters and settings. Trying to narrow it down to the correct list might be challenging, but fun.
I like the What Should I Read Next? site. Most of the suggestions seem to apply, but some are off the wall. Even those might provide an interesting new author.
Now I was working on the children's request. First looking for horse stories for the girl NoveList Plus did a good job. Two I found are Stealing Thunder and Paint the Wind. Morton Grove Public Library's Kids' Webrary has a very good Kids's Booklists by subject good bibliography and lots of lists for kids. I see one for the brother as well. Stealing Thunder was on that list also, along with Snow Pony. What Should I Read Next? doesn't work for this kind of RA, unless they already have a title. And trying one come up with mostly adult titles. Library Booklists found some bibliographies. There is a link to Deschutes Public Library - Saddle Up 'N Read which has stories on several levels, again including Stealing Thunder.
1 Alanna: The First Adventure
2 In the Hand of the Goddess
3 Woman Who Rides Like a Man, The
4 Lioness Rampant
The suggestions in the interview are what I already ask. Depending on their answer, I may refer them to a coworker who reads in their genre or author for other suggestions.
Looking at the suggested lists, I'm not over impressed with Library Booklists. The lists are too long and difficult to use. Some of the breakdowns are good, so it might be helpful if you have time to look for your subject. The children's fiction and the YA lists look good.
I tried a couple of authors I like and What Should I Read Next? came up with some good suggestions on one and not so good on the other. The Fiction_L Booklist didn't have one author in their list, but the suggestions for the other were good. To me, the Library Booklists makes you work too hard to get to a suggestion list. It might work better if you had a lot of time or possibly if you wanted to do some displays or bibliographies of your own. Surprisingly NoveList Plus only found 1 suggestion for one author, but did better on the other author. I'm choosing Iris Johansen's Firestorm as a suggestion.
The Morton Grove Public Library's Webrary Fiction_L Booklist has some fun genres, characters and settings. Trying to narrow it down to the correct list might be challenging, but fun.
I like the What Should I Read Next? site. Most of the suggestions seem to apply, but some are off the wall. Even those might provide an interesting new author.
Now I was working on the children's request. First looking for horse stories for the girl NoveList Plus did a good job. Two I found are Stealing Thunder and Paint the Wind. Morton Grove Public Library's Kids' Webrary has a very good Kids's Booklists by subject good bibliography and lots of lists for kids. I see one for the brother as well. Stealing Thunder was on that list also, along with Snow Pony. What Should I Read Next? doesn't work for this kind of RA, unless they already have a title. And trying one come up with mostly adult titles. Library Booklists found some bibliographies. There is a link to Deschutes Public Library - Saddle Up 'N Read which has stories on several levels, again including Stealing Thunder.
For the ghost stories, NoveList Plus has problems finding more than 2 books. I was doing an advanced seach with book, fiction, grade 7 or 8 and older kids seaching for ghost, ghosts with a subject or no subject. Now if I take the grade level out, it does find a lot of titles, but many are the wrong age, even leaving in older kids. Choosing teens did a little better. It found Breathe: A Ghost Story and Ghost in the Tokaido Inn, that are about boys and ghosts. The problem with some of the book lists, are they are not updated, so it's hard to find new titles. The Morton Grove Public Library's Teenreads has a search engine that is OK. It found A Gathering of Shades and Restless: A Ghost's Story.
Now for the Dean Koontz question.
NoveList Plus gives me Greg Bear, John Saul and Charles Grant.
Morton Grove didn't have a list for Koontz, but they do have a Horror Picks with some good suggestions; John Saul, Joe Lansdale, Stephen King.
What Should I Read Next? gave me Iris Johansen, Stephen White, Simon Green. To have something for later posts, I will list Firestorm by Johansen.
I went to Mid-Contenent Public Library for their Juvenile Series and Sequels page and looked up Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. It found the name of the series and other titles.
Song of the Lioness series.1 Alanna: The First Adventure
2 In the Hand of the Goddess
3 Woman Who Rides Like a Man, The
4 Lioness Rampant
Friday, February 6, 2009
iHCPL next stage
Well, I was never able to finish the "you ought to be in pictures" projects. They needed a lot of time off the desk and I never was able to get that. And then December was just too busy and I didn't get to the cooking things, though I looked at some of the websites, just didn't have time for the projects.
The new projects look interesting and can be done on the desk. So I'm ready to start.
The new projects look interesting and can be done on the desk. So I'm ready to start.
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