Social Media Sites for Book Lovers
The next best thing to reading a great book is sharing a great book. Here's a look at a few incredible social networking sites for readers to meet new people and new books:
Starting with the obvious: Goodreads
If you love books and haven't explored online reading resources, this is your first stop! My favorite thing about Goodreads is that it connects me to fellow book lovers but isn't socially demanding like Facebook or Twitter. Goodreads keeps my list of books I want to read organized, it's free, has book reviews from fellow readers, lists and recommendations. Librarything is another option with similar features.
This is the Flat Stanley project in book form for any age: Bookcrossing.com
Book Crossing is a free book movement started in 2001 and currently has over 1,700,000 members and over 11,000,000 books crossing the world. The mantra is: Label, Share, Follow. The idea is, you read a book then release it to be found and read by others. You can release it "wild" as in on a park bench, doctor's office, coffee shop or a bookcrossing zone which is listed on the site. You can also do a "controlled" release giving it directly to someone. Either way you label the inside of the cover with it with it's unique number and release it for someone else to enjoy.The new temporary owner who picks up the books, can go online, type the number in, and find out where the book has been, and put in their own notes as well as where/when they release it. Some books are traveling the world. I'm starting a club at work for our summer reading. We will label our books before summer break then release the books in our various vacation spots to see where the books may go next.
Bookmooch.com
This site was started by an expat who was "frustrated by the vast number of books that were printed in just one country and not available in the other countries." I feel his pain but love my ebooks. So, for those who prefer physical books and books available outside of his/her own country's version of Amazon, Bookmooch is the answer. Membership is free. Simply type in the books you want to give away, receive requests from others, get points when you mail out your books, then use your points to request books from others. You can make wish lists and get notified when someone has a match available. Charities also have accounts so you can donate your points for them to requests books as well. Bookmovement.com
Bookmovement looks at books through the lens of a book club. Books are reviewed against how well (or not) they would work for book club discussions and the community contributes to book guides complete with questions, topics and reflections on book club dialogue. You can create a free, private web page for your book club and Bookmovement also has an app. You can organize meeting details, book selections, TBR lists for yourself and your book club and get automatic reminder. 35,000 clubs are organized through this site. Please note that this is for book clubs that meet face-to-face. Because we all love a good romance - Meetup
Let's you find book lover's social events in your area. You can also look for more specific book Meetups such as women's social, fiction readers or book swap. (I hope they are using bookcrossing before they swap) With more than a million members and 5200 Meetups currently planned across the world, this site has a bit of everything. You can also start your own Meetup group.
What are your favorite social media sites sharing the love of reading?
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