Exploring Goodreads

Goodreads is a free website where you can find book recommendations and weigh in with your own opinion about books you’ve read. I think of it as a social networking site for readers, book reviewers, and authors, but you don’t have to be social to enjoy the site.

At Goodreads you can do a lot or a little. You can friend people, join groups, and sign up for a newsletter. Or you can use the site just to learn more about books that interest you.

When you’re getting started, pay attention to your Goodreads account settings. Goodreads can share the books that you rate as posts on your facebook page, and you can invite friends in your address book to friend you on Goodreads. If that isn’t what you want, make sure those features are turned off.

When you join Goodreads, you automatically get virtual bookshelves that show up when you click My Books. When you rate or review a book that you’ve read, that book goes onto your read bookshelf. You can also flag books that you want to read. They go onto your to read bookshelf. You can create other bookshelves if you like.

Goodreads has recommendations for books that you haven’t read yet. The more books you rate or review, the more the recommendations reflect your likes and dislikes. This is similar to the way Suggestions for You works at Netflix based on the videos a DVDs that you’ve watched and rated.

You can search for a book or author. When you click on a book, all of its Goodreads reviews and ratings are listed. I’ve found books I like this way, and also discovered book reviewers. Some have written hundreds of book reviews. I follow a few of them and learn about new titles.

If you check out Goodreads, leave a comment and let me know if you like it.