I think I've reached new heights of zealotry for Goodreads in the last few months. I've started banging on about it at social occasions and even found myself earnestly extolling its virtues to a salesman in my local book store. All unwillingly, captive audiences to be sure. Nerd.But seriously, it is just so cool. The community aspect is great and there is always someone willing to recommend a new author or genre. The compare libraries function and friend options make sure you're not sharing your pornalicious reads with a poor, aged nana or some knob trolling for followers. I've also enjoyed the groups area, although I am useless at posting anything remotely interesting and prefer to often just lurk and steal book recs.
I started my online catalog of books with Librarything a few years ago with my partner. We're both huge book geeks and have loads of them. It was a good way to keep track of what we'd brought and read from the library. But, as I started to read more and more ebooks, I found adding them to be rather painful. I'd have to manually type in most of the book data whereas Goodreads is a quick click of Add Book. Becoming a Goodreads librarian was pretty painless, but librarything seems to hold the reigns a little tighter. I do wonder if this is down to making sure content is correct on the site, but to be honest I don't imagine that there is a more anal bunch of people than bibliophiles. One only has to look at these entries for Archangel's Consort to see happy book nerds all over the world love cataloging, adding detail, finding covers and making sure everything is just SO!
The iPhone app for Goodreads really floats my boat. No more being limited to being nerdy in the privacy of my own home! Reading reviews on the go, checking that the book I'm reading has a point and that someone did say it was good! The only thing they could add is a notifications section and more access to your profile stuff, but I am sure they'll sort that at some point. It's marvy. The barcode scanner within the app is magic too, although I must admit to feeling a little weird and shifty wandering round scanning books in Borders the other week. But, it's quick and has picked up everything I've scanned to look at later.
So, geek much? Are you on Goodreads? Love it? Truly, it is awesomesauce and if you're keen, come friend me and yak about books! Do check out the Goodreads blog for more stuff too, they have some great links to reading challenges and other geekery.
