Tuesday Thingers: Questions for LibraryThing users, hosted at Wendi’s Book Corner
Today’s question: Did you know that there are 1497 authors participating in LibraryThing Authors? If you haven’t checked it out, head over for a moment and see if you can find out something new about an author! If you don’t have time to go snooping, have you ever looked at the LT Author page before? Did you know that it is for authors and readers alike? Have you ever looked up a favorite or new author on LT to see what they read and if they have left any comments or reviews themselves? Have you ever told an author about LT Authors and encouraged them to check the site out?Here’s how one becomes a LibraryThing author:
To become an official LibraryThing Author, you must be a member of LibraryThing who is also a published (or about-to-be-published) author, and your book(s) must be entered into LibraryThing.
That’s all. You don’t have to be a household name, and from the looks of it, most LT authors aren’t – yet.
I have books by three LibraryThing authors in my library – Laura Fitzgerald (LauraFitzgerald), Doreen Orion (DoreenOrion), and Michelle Richmond (michrichmond) – they’re all included in the “member connections” section of my Profile page. I never visited the LibraryThing Authors page until this question came up (which is one reason I enjoy participating in Tuesday Thingers!), but I have been to two of these authors’ profile pages and library lists. The only reason I haven’t visited all three is one’s book is still in TBR; I’ll check out her page when it’s her book’s turn to be read and reviewed.
I like the fact that the author list can be sorted several ways. I assume that the “popularity” ranking reflects the number of times the authors’ books turn up in LT members’ collections; while I’ve heard of about half of the ten most popular LT authors, I’ve never read any of their books. You can also sort by author name, which is helpful if you’re looking for someone specific, but there’s no way to search by letter, so you have to scan the whole list to find that author whose name starts with T. You can also find out who has recently become an LT author, and how many books they have in their own LT collections, by sorting the list based on those considerations. The LT Authors page could be a fun place to start exploring, and when I find some time, I’d like to do that.
I’ve actually been disappointed to note how few of the authors I’ve read are on LibraryThing, and while I’ve never personally suggested LT Authors to a writer, I do suggest LibraryThing to almost every reader and book-owner I know, so it just might come up some day…
Teaser Tuesday, hosted at Should Be Reading
TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read.
- Let the book fall open to a random page.
- Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
- You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
- Please avoid spoilers!
I did it backwards – first I saw the movie, and then I got the book:
“She photographed the quintessentially heterosexual couple’s eunuch dog, too. Or at least what she could catch of him on film.” (page 150)
– Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog, by John Grogan
It’s a week or two later than you’d expect, and it may be almost a trite question, but … what were your favorite books from 2008?
In my “Year in Review, part one: Reading” post a couple of weeks ago, I named my Books of the Year in both fiction and nonfiction – “the year” in question being when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. In case you missed them the first time around, my picks were:
Fiction
The Year of Fog, by Michelle Richmond
The Ruins of California, by Martha Sherrill
The Post-Birthday World, by Lionel Shriver (4.5/5; one of my two highest-rated reads of the year)
Non-fiction
But Enough About Me: How a Small-Town Girl Went From Shag Carpet to the Red Carpet, by Jancee Dunn
So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading, by Sara Nelson
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation, by Sheila Weller
Other books that didn’t make my year-end favorites list, but were rated 4/5 or higher on my scale (links are to my review posts):
Intuition, by Allegra Goodman (the other 4.5/5 rating)
Ask Again Later, by Jill A. Davis
The Ten-Year Nap, by Meg Wolitzer
Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo, by Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller
No One You Know, by Michelle Richmond
I may have only read and reviewed 35 books last year, but I thought some of them were really good!
Did you find it difficult to choose your favorite books of last year, or did some just stand way out over the rest?
1. It’s January; goodbye holiday season, hello tax season.
2. Something warm and chocolatey is what I crave most right now (or pretty much all the time, really).
3. Cork and wine go together like a banana and its peel.
4. Spinach is so nourishing – just don’t expect me to cook it for you.
5. Let us dare to hope for something better.
6. I really need to clean my home (see my answer to #7).
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to hanging out at home with Tall Paul, tomorrow my plans include grocery shopping and chores and Sunday, I want to read, write, and maybe see a movie! (It’s not going to be one of our more exciting weekends around here, but that’s not really a problem.)
What’s on tap for your weekend? Hope it’s more interesting than the one I’m expecting…then again, I could be surprised!
Well, my weekend began around 3 PM this afternoon, when I got off work. I briefly checked mail and looked over some blogs and then I had to tidy up my home, which was, to put it mildly, messy. Now I am reading blogs and will spend the next hour or so doing that, until I will prepare some dinner. I am tired because I had a friend over last night and it got too late. So I will watch X-factor (a talent show on Danish TV) and probably go to bed early.
Tomorrow I am going to the museum (www.glyptoteket.dk) where I used to work until June 2008, where I was laid off my regular job there. But I kept my museum-guide job and I am going there both tomorrow and Sunday to guide groups around the collections.
I am also going to work on a literature list for my MA thesis and I hope to finish my first book of the year and my first book of th Casual Classics Challenge: The Fishermen by Danish author Hans Kirk.
Tomorrow I also go to the post office to pick up a package with a dvd: the 10th season of Frasier.
And other than that….I hope I will find some time to relax.
Have a great weekend
Louise
Louise (Bogsider) – Your weekend sounds VERY busy – enjoy it!
Hi Florinda! Thanks for leaving a comment on L.A. Story and adding my blog to your roll. I’ll do the same for 3 R’s. Look forward to contributing to the LA Moms Blog!
Laura (L.A. Story) – Nice meeting you too, and thanks for stopping by! Looking forward to reading you.
I’m right there with you on number 6. Unfortunately, we have so much going on this weekend we are barely going to be home. Good thing I’m off on Tuesday whole the kids are at school so I can get caught up.
Sounds like a fine weekend – liked your fill-ins!
Mike – I’ve found that projects like major housecleaning are best accomplished when I have the house to myself too. No slacking off on Twitter on Tuesday – you have work to do :-)!
Tumblewords – Thanks for stopping by!
I have to do #6 too. I’ve been doing a lot of #2 lately with Schaffenberger unsweetened cocoa. Yummy!
My FFI is here: http://smariek.blogspot.com/2009/01/ffi-106.html
Have a great weekend!
Smariek – I think I’m going to do something about that warm-and-chocolatey craving tonight myself :-).
I am not too familiar with the LibraryThing Authors page either. Looks like I should take a closer look at that feature.
I’d forgotten about the Ten-Year Nap. I have a copy of that on my shelf and am looking forward to eventually getting to it.
It is tax season again, isn’t it? Ugh. I hear the state is going to give out IOU’s this year. I think hubby and I will actually owe the state money this year though, but I doubt they’d take an IOU from us.
Warm and chocolaty does sound good. I really wanted a mug of hot chocolate this morning, but it wasn’t meant to be. My first mug was attacked by Anya and the second I ended up spilling when I poured boiling water onto my hand as I tried to fill my mug. I gave up after that. I’m too leery to try again even tonight.
I hope you have a great week, Florinda!
Wendy (Literary Feline) – Yep, it’s tax season. Trust a blogging accountant to point that out :-). Last year we actually got a small refund from the state, but this year they may need to hang on to it to help pay some of those IOUs. California’s not quite so golden these days…
After your hot-chocolate story, I made myself a cup of chamomile tea tonight instead :-D. It was probably a good call anyway – Tall Paul has had a cold all weekend, and I think I’m catching it. Great…
I got a copy of The Post-Birthday World recently so I’m looking forward to reading it as some point. And I already have The Year of Fog on my wishlist, thanks to you!
I pretty much always crave something warm and chocolately too. LOL.
Tanabata – My sister just finished reading The Post-Birthday World and we had a good discussion about it. She didn’t like it as much as I did :-), but we agreed that if our book club hadn’t gone dormant, it would be a good pick. I’ll look forward to reading your thoughts about it!