iHCPL #54: Social Networking Through Books

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First, a disclaimer. I wrote most of this post, so I'm already very familiar with social networking with books.

Exercise #1: I've never been a member of a book club - in person. I'm intrigued by the possibility of joining an in-person book club, I'm just not sure if I'd like "forced" reading of specific titles. On the other hand, it would probably be good for me to stretch my reading choices a bit.

Exercise #2: Well, if I'm going to implement a book club, it's going to be online. From our experience with the teen book club online, I'm a bit cautious about starting one. However, I think if we try a general book discussion, that might be better. On The Gargoyle theme, I found a discussion guide on Reading Group Choices.

Exercise #3: Well, we'll go ahead and end with The Gargoyle again. On LibraryThing it has an average rating of 4.14/5 (with 716 members having it in their collection).
On Visual bookshelf on Facebook, the average rating is 4/5 with 539 reviews.
For good measure, I also checked Good Reads (4.05/5) and Shelfari (4/5 from the community).

A point of interest, LibraryThing, Shelfari, and Visual Bookshelf all offered similar titles. LibraryThing and Shelfari both had excellent suggestions. Visual Bookshelf's suggestions weren't very good. I couldn't find anything on Good Reads that offered similar books.

I'm personally a big fan of LibraryThing and Visual Bookshelf. I like the first to catalog my books (what can I say, I am a librarian) and have a lifetime membership. I like the second because I connect to my friends who read and can see what they're reading and it's a part of a service I actively use. I do have accounts at both Good Reads and Shelfari but don't use them very often, although I may have to do more with Shelfari after the suggestions I found.