Departments

Gatherings of an Infovore*

booksThere are so many places to find good books nowadays. Here are two books recommending other books and some Web sites and blogs. I hope you enjoy them and find them useful.

BOOK LUST: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl, Seattle Librarian and Director of the Washington Center for the Book, published by Sasquatch Books, ISBN 1-57061-381-8.

BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: The 50 Most Influential Books in Human History by Andrew Taylor, journalist and author, published by Quercus Books (no ISBN in the book, but it is available via Amazon).

The Reading Room® Your Place for Books

Starting with “The Reading Room Buzz”, which gives you a newsy tidbit about something important on the day’s date, this social community contains members’ reviews and recommendations with reviews from The Guardian (UK) and The New York Times. Other interesting sections include Ebooks, Book Clubs, Previews, and Deal. If this short description has piqued your interest, please visit https://www.thereadingroom.com/home.

goodreads

A good source of good reads, this Web site sends out a monthly e-mail offering new releases from authors and genres you select. One of my favorite parts of GoodReads is Listopia . . . “best of . . .”, featured . . ., and “. . . with recent activity” lists to name a few. It’s a good thing!

BOOKBUB

For the e-book readers among us, I recommend BookBub, a free daily e-mail notification service about deep discounts on acclaimed e-books. You choose categories ranging from mysteries to cookbooks. The alerts highlight limited-time offers that become available from such retailers as Amazon’s Kindle store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and Apple’s iBookstore. Publishers offer deals for promotional purposes featuring e-books from top-tier houses along with e-books from critically acclaimed independent authors. Most prices range from $0.99 to $2.99 (and some are free).

Half Price Books horiz_redThe Half Price Blog features book reviews, music and movie reviews, and trivia and randomness about things we love. That means a whole lot of fiction, nonfiction, music, movies, games, and collectibles, including rare and out-of-print literary treasures.

books layerblogRank brings together thousands of blogs and rates them against common metrics to provide rankings in several categories, one of which is Art & Literature. There you will find the Top 50 Books blogs. Some on the list: OUPblog, Books on the Knob, London Review of Books, Reading Copy Book Blog, First Book Blog, 5 Minutes for Books, and 101 Books.

From BuzzFeed Books: 16 Little Books To Read On Long Journeys: Short enough to finish in one plane, train, or car ride.

  1. Dubliners by James Joyce
  2. Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
  3. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
  4. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
  5. Speedboat by Renata Adler
  6. Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
  7. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
  8. The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara
  9. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
  10. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  11. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
  12. We the Animals by Justin Torres
  13. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
  14. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
  15. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
  16. A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

Source: BuzzFeed Books posted by Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed Staff; for page count and snippets of each book, go to www.buzzfeed.com/ariannarebolini/little-books-toread-on-long-journeys.


*A person who indulges in and desires information gathering and interpretation. The term was introduced in 2006 by neuroscientists Irving Biederman and Edward Vessel.