Reader Connectivity

Reading tends to be a solitary activity, until you throw in book clubs. But what about people who aren't book club people? Or those who are interested in sharing their tastes with friends and family on the opposite coast? That's where social media comes to the rescue.

There's now a small collection of social networking sites dedicated to bookworms. Or there's the option of adding an application to your existing social network profile. Both can be great, and I'm going to tell you about my two favorite (also the two that I use).

The first is LibraryThing. It's a site for readers to share their libraries, review books,  and connect with each other and authors. You can be as connected as you want: include info about yourself, link to your Facebook profile, or skip those altogether. The few features I find really cool:

• recommendations for you based on other books you've added
• members with libraries similar to yours
• the author cloud: size-based text depiction of the site's author popularity. Some I'd expect (Shakespeare, JK Rowling, Terry Prachett) but then there are a few that are HUGE that I've never heard of (Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card), so it's fun to look at

You can look at my profile to see what it's like.

The next is the Reading Social app for Facebook. It's very similar to LibraryThing, but it's on your Facebook profile page. The same general idea prevails: share your library and review books; see what your friends are reading.

Of course, there are other options out there, so if you're a bookworm like me, go check them out.