Bestselling Books

Find the best selling book the year you were born, or for any other year.

Linkage

Read How You Want is a nifty site.

Literary Geography

This Literary Map of the World is pretty darned cool.

Four Books

Four Books Set in NYC

I'm reading The Gods of Gotham (and am enjoying it) and have read Motherless Brooklyn (and loved it). The other two will get their turn eventually.

Meanwhile, these typos in famous books are entertaining.

Journals

Some cool book journal ideas. I don't know if I would do anything like these, but some look adaptable.

Monthly Books

The Book of the Month Club has remade itself in this era of Amazon and other ways to order books online, as well as an era of online social book sites like Library Thing and GoodReads. I was never a BOMC member, though I was a member of the Paperback Book of the Month Club for many years. It was a fun way to get books, and I looked forward to getting the monthly catalogue. Now BOMC has taken the experience online. It looks interesting.

Read Harder

For folks who enjoy this sort of thing, here's the 2016 Read Harder Challenge.

Reading Hacks

I suppose these Reading Hacks might be useful to some folks. Here are my thoughts on them.

1. When You Can’t Read… Listen!
Well, no. I've tried it. I fall asleep. If I try to move around and do things while listening, I miss too much of the book as my attention wanders. Audiobooks are not for me. Also, since audiobooks have been around for decades, this isn't exactly a new concept.

2. Read Big Books In Tiny Pieces
This had me scratching my head a bit. It mostly discusses an app that will send you snippets of a book at a time, the size of the snippet up to you. Which could mean not being able to read more if it's compelling. And why can't you decide how much to read at a time. I actually prefer to slot my reading according to my own schedule, and I can usually find my own stopping point, thanks.

3. Read While You Wait
Yeah, a good idea. I read when I'm on the subway, and thanks to the Kindle app on my phone, I can easily read while waiting on long lines.

4. Lock Yourself Out of Your Phone
heh heh. Actually, I use my phone for a few things, and READING is the top of that list. I also use it to quickly check Facebook and email, and I have a pedometer app for when I'm walking. That's 90 per cent of what I use my smartphone for.

5. Spare Yourself the Reader’s Cramps With a See-Through Book Weight
Yeah, I guess keeping a fat book open this way is a good idea. I, however, read thick books on my Kindle app or my Kindle. I also own those books in hardcopy so they can grace my physical bookshelves, which makes me happy.

6. Make A Book/E-Reader Stand Out Of A Coat Hanger
Um, okay, if you need to prop it up. I just rest it on the table or hold it in one hand. Works fine for me.

7. Choose Your Next Read With A Little Creativity
This is a hack? Really? Read what you're in the mood for. Sure, trying something new is a great idea, but I'd hardly call it a hack. I have a wide variety of books, so the hard part, for me, is narrowing it down to what to read next.

8. Make a DIY Book Haven
This could be nice, I guess. "Setting up a special place for reading is a recommendation to make reading feel like a special thing for children, but we grown-ups are just taller children." Okay, if you have kids who are reluctant readers, sure. And if as an adult, you need extra incentive to read, sure. But I grew up thinking reading was nothing more special than eating or breathing, so I read anywhere and everywhere, quite often at night, in bed, under the covers by light of a flashlight when I was supposed to be sleeping. If it weren't so uncomfortable now, I'd still do it. ;) But really, anywhere is my "book haven."

9. Turn Your Physical Books Into Ebooks… For Free
This mentions an interesting app Shelfie to help you find free ebooks based on your hardcopy collection. I just Google for the books, and I don't mind spending a few dollars for them.

10. Get A Box of Books Every Month
Again, the site makes some suggestions for where to get books, mainly The Book Drop. I buy them when I see them and I have, literally, for real, a thousand or so here to be read. At the slow rate I read, I'll never get through them all, but I keep buying 'em!

11. Get Free Books
More sources suggested, such as Paperback Swap and Project Gutenberg.

Seriously, I'd hardly call ideas like this "hacks." I think the word "hack" is getting so generic and ubiquitous that it's nearly meaningless now. Most of these are just common sense ideas you could probably have figured out on your own. Or maybe you've found some ideas that work for you. If so, and if anyone is actually reading this, why not leave your "hack" in the comments.

Literary Linkies

I posted these on Cyber Chocolate, with a bunch of other links, but since these are literary, I'm crossposting them here, too.

• Literary Mugs make great gifts!
• So do Superhero Bookends.
• And what reader couldn't use a Book Brush?

Book Stuff

Wink is a cool site devoted to showing off books.

I've been scrapbooking the blank pages in my book journal and discovered that, after 40plus years, the spine is in bad shape despite my having tried to glue it a few weeks ago, and pages are coming out. So I got a new one, leather-bound this time, and I'll probably transfer all the entries into it.

New Book Journal and Old Glasses

Book Sculptures

Call me conflicted. While I find myself a bit put off by anyone doing anything with a book other than read it, I do love seeing the cool things people do with books. These sculptures are amazing.

Literary Shoes

I love these shoes, even if they're not the sort I can wear. Though at least some look like flats. hmmmm.....

Reading Room

A new (well, new to me) book place online: The Reading Room.

Do You Tumblr?

This list of book-related Tumblrs is awesome. If I followed half of them, I wouldn't ever move away from my computer.

I don't post much on Tumblr, mostly just read, but my Tumblr is Random Shelly.

Bookish Crafts

These Book Clutch bags are really nifty.

Wear a Book Around Your Neck

Truly, you can find anything on Etsy. Including scarfs printed with passages from literature: Storiarts.

Also, you can get library-related jewelry from The Written Nerd.

And here are some quotes about books, guaranteed to make you head right for the bookshelf.

BookBub

BookBub looks like a great source of info about ebooks.

Found in Books

Forgotten Bookmarks has some wonderful items, but I didn't see any of the rather gross things library staff have oft times found in returned library books.

Really Bad Book Covers

These Worst Book Covers of All Time are also pretty funny. Can you spot the fakes? Given how what's acceptable has changed over the years, I'm not sure I can. ;)

Library Thing Fun

Still reading A Clash of Kings, so while you're all waiting with bated breath for my review of it, here's a fun article about Library Thing book tags to hold you over for a bit.