My five member family lives in a very small townhouse overrun with furniture from a certain Swedish do-it-yourself franchise, and books have a place in every single room. Whether they are on shelves or in baskets, they are a presence in our home that brings me joy. When I began to explore the world of blogging, a good friend of mine posted a virtual bookshelf on her blog, courtesy of Shelfari. Not too much later, I jumped into blogging head first and began to create a little space on the Internet that was all mine. I needed it to reflect me and my personality, along with my loves. So, the requisite cute pics of the kids went up, a template in shades of blue was chosen, my lovely hubby was present in my stories, and of course, books needed to have a place of their own as well. Up went my own virtual bookshelf, and I came to really appreciate what Shelfari had to offer.
With Shelfari, you can keep track of all the books in your life– the books you’re currently reading, the books that you’ve read, and the never-ending list of books that you hope to read Someday. On your account, you can give the books you’ve read starred ratings, write your own reviews and log in the date that you finished a book. You can set the privacy level of your account depending on your comfort. A public account will give other visitors access to your reviews, essentially giving you a place in a book loving community that is all yours. In addition, you can browse others’ reviews, search for books by community tags, and join groups of readers with similar interests as well.
Is there anyone out there who enjoys record keeping as much as I do? This is a perfect solution– all your books are shelved in one place, and they take up no square footage in your home! Being particular (or ornery, or anal-retentive…), I felt that I needed to have a starting point to my bookshelf, so rather than try to remember the gobs of books that I’ve read in the past, I simply started on January 1, 2008. Since then, I’ve satisfied my inner book geek by keeping track of my modest reading history, and I delight in adding books to my ‘I Plan to Read’ shelf on a regular basis. Stop by my shelf if you’d like… just don’t do the white glove test. My guess is that not even my virtual bookshelf is dust free.
Dawn wishes she had a walk-in kitchen pantry where she could hide from her children to read and eat Girl Scout cookies. She and her blog, my thoughts exactly, are currently up for exactly zero parenting awards.
Lori T. says
I prefer LibraryThing to Shelfari. I tried them both. It may be the “librarian” in me that prefers LibraryThing, but it’s just worked well.
DeSeRt RoSe says
I love Shelfari and have been using it for my books for over a year now.. It’s so much easier to keep track of the books and to add books (the most important thing) and to rate and review.. I love it..
I went to check your shelf, you might want to check mine..
http://www.shelfari.com/o1517679655/shelf
Jennifer, Snapshot (and 5M4B) says
I too have bookshelves and bins of books everywhere in my house. I haven’t quite gotten around to trying out any of these services, but you make it sound appealing.
Lisa says
I like Shelfari too!