5 Minutes For Books

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about
5 Minutes for Books

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Well, maybe not everything (you’ll have to stick around longer to get to know us intimately), but in honor of the Ultimate Blog Party, I thought I’d give a run-down about our site. Even those of you who are regular readers might find out something you don’t know about our site.

First thing that everyone needs to know is that I, Jennifer, am not a one-man (woman) show. No way. This blog would not be nearly as interesting if I was (not to mention the fact that I would definitely not post 7 – 10 times a week!). I truly think it’s what makes our site stand out as a book review blog. You can read a little bit about each member of our team — Lauren, Dawn, Nancy, and Elizabeth — at our Reviewer Bios page, where you’ll find out what we like to read and how to find our personal blogs.

Thanks for Stopping By

I know that most of you are party-hopping and don’t have much time, so if you like what you see, the best way to keep up with us is to subscribe.

Pick your favorite way(s) to stay connected by clicking the icons below: twitter, facebook, feedreader, or via email inbox:

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All Kinds of Reviews for All Ages

  • A big team made up of women who all love to read, but all love to read different kinds of books means we can cover lots of genres. Any given month you’ll find the following reviews just for you:
  • We review children’s books too, and between the 5 of us, we have kids ranging from 3 years old to 15 — boys, girls, reluctant readers and bookworms — so we can give expert advice and recommendations mom to mom.

How to Find what You’re Looking For

Because we post on such a broad variety of topics, we know that you might just pick and choose which reviews you read, and that’s great. Want to know how to find more of what you do like? You can click on the picture to the right of the reviewer who you feel best represents your reading tastes to get to the page of all her recent reviews. You can do the same thing by clicking on her name in the category labels right above the comment box, and below the author box. If you’re reading a memoir review, the memoir label will also be linked and you can click it to find more memoir reviews.

You can get to the same place — pulling up books by category — by scrolling down to the archives by category at the bottom of the sidebar.

You can also use our search box to search for specific titles or authors. It works really well — give it a try! That’s such an important feature, it’s at the very top of the right sidebar.

Community, Giveaways, and Recommendations

Like our mama, 5 Minutes for Mom, we seek to provide a place of community. We want to give other book-loving bloggers a place to connect. The main way we do that is by hosting What’s on Your Nightstand. On the 4th Tuesday of every month, we invite you to share a little bit about what you’re reading. You can either give some mini-reviews (or link back to your posted reviews) of books you finished in the last month, or you can make a reading plan, sharing the books that you plan to make time for over the next month.

We also host at least one book giveaway a week here on Wednesdays and one each Monday in our book column at 5 Minutes for Mom. We almost always have at least 4 book giveaways current on any given day.

Another way we seek to create community is by inviting you to post. We love to have guest contributors for our On Reading column (essays about reading) and Books on Screen (reviews of movies based on books). We also have a brand new column where we will invite those who have won books to be featured, called The Winners’ Circle.

Find out how to submit your column at our Join In page.

In addition to recommending books that we think you’ll like, we also believe that books made great gifts. So when you’re looking for a hostess gift, or a teacher’s gift, or something for any bookloving friend, check out posts specifically marked with the gift ideas label.

And whether you want to make the most of your time by guaranteeing a book you’ll love or you’re trying to pick out the perfect book for a family member (of any age), keep your eye on our 5 Star Reads page. Each book that earns our best recommendation will be tagged as a 5 Star Read and added to the page. To make it easy, we also feature the most recently reviewed 5 Star Reads right on the sidebar.

Now We Want to Hear From You

If you’re a regular reader — we are so glad to have you. We never take you for granted! Can you take a minute to let us know your thoughts? What do you enjoy about our site? What would you like to see more of? Less of?

If you are new here — welcome! We’d love for you to leave us a comment to let us know you stopped by. If you want to tell us what kinds of book reviews you’d like to see, that would be great!

Do you want to show that you love books too? Put our button in your sidebar:

Comments

  1. Whenever I finish a book and am looking for another one, this site is my first stop! I love having all these “friends” recommending great books to me. I just finished my first audiobook because of one of your recommendations, Jennifer. Just downloaded #2! Love 5 minutes for books!

    • Yay — an audiobooks convert!! Nancy and I both find that they are a great way to squeeze in another book.

      Too bad we didn’t figure out that we were both readers until it was almost time for me to move 🙁

  2. I’ve wanted to try out an audiobook, but feel like I’ll be neglecting my Nook if I do. I’ll definitely bookmark this site. I didn’t even realize 5 Minutes for Mom had a book site. Yay!

    Visiting from the UBP! 🙂

    • Thanks Alicia! It’s great to know that there are folks out there enjoying our thoughts on these fabulous books!

  4. I like to read, but have neglected my books because of lack of time. I bought a book for the first time in a long time a few weeks ago, and have finished it. I think I’m ready for another, I’ll go look around.

    Visiting from the Ultimate Blog Party!

    • Yeah–once you start to make time for reading, I think it hooks you! And it is important to always have another one ready to go to keep it up!

  7. Thnaks for stopping by at my party post. I’m glad you did because my daughter does love reading! I’ll be browsing around soon.

    • As one of the contributors who LOVES to review kids’ books, I hope you find some books you think your daughter will like!

  8. I regularly read your posts on children’s books and subscribe to 5 Minutes for Books by email. Thanks to all your reviewers for their hard work in helping promote books. By the way, I’m partying this week, too, at Brimful Curiosities.

  9. I adore audio books! I’ve actually met people who don’t consider them “really reading” — like somehow you’re cheating and they are doing it the right way. But with audio books I can listen while I clean the house or cook, and when they’re read by the author I can get a deeper sense of their voice.

    • Ha Deana–I really used to sort of feel that way. But I also listen when I’m doing chores, or sometimes when I’m driving, and I couldn’t read then, so I read many more books this way.

  10. Do I love books? Oh my WORD yes!! So glad to come across your site (again!). Added it to my Reader. look forward to participating in What’s on Your Nightstand? again!

  11. Thank you for visiting my homeschool-related blog, “Fruitbearers” and leaving a comment! I love this site but had not had a chance to visit for a while. I’d love to participate in What’s On Your Nightstand? because I love reading and I constantly do book reviews :).

    • That’s great Pamela. I’m glad you found us!

      I tried to click through and the blog address you entered wasn’t valid 🙁

  14. Stopping by from UBP….looks like you’ve got a great thing going here. I love, love, love books, so I’m your newest follower. Reading The Help right now and loving it!

  15. Hello! Stopping by from the UBP! I am so glad to have found this blog; we love to read in our house. I find I don’t have a lot of time to read, so I’m glad to see information on audiobooks. I’m excited to see reviews on books since every time we go to the library I’m so out of touch with everything other than my daughter’s life 🙂 that I don’t know what to read!

    You can tell that a great deal of work goes into this site; I appreciate the ways things are divided so you can find exactly what pertains to you. I really love the “gift ideas” label. We love giving books as gifts.

    Have a great weekend!

  16. Hey there! I was stopping by from the Ultimate Blog Party 2011, and I wanted to know I love your blog! Love your site! I am always in need of new book reviews and recommendations!! Feel free to stop by my blog http://www.mommyramblings.com Have a great day!

  17. I love books though with a 7 year old, hardly has the time. Thank God for audiobooks, lol.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog, looking forward to seeing your recommendations.

    • I’m so surprised at how many people are saying that they enjoy audiobooks. That’s awesome!

      We do audiobook giveaways several times a year as well (and have one open right now).

  18. How fun-I’ll go check out your reviews. I like to review books too-mostly children’s fiction…and I don’t have kids. hahaha I just love kids books. Stopping by from UBP!

  19. It’s actually Nancy’s fault I came to your blog in the 1st place. We’ve been online friends for about 4.5 years now. But I love the variety on here. I never know when I’m reading posts if something might interest me that otherwise I never would have known about.

    I’m a 37 year old Mom of two, married 10 years, and living near Vancouver, BC. I’m a slow reader, so I don’t devour books at near the pace many people do, but my husband says this makes me lucky b/c I never run out of stuff to read.

    • Woo Nancy! She gets one recruitment point for the month.

      And yeah, when I was a kid, I didn’t like being such a fast reader, because they were over so soon, so it’s not so bad reading slowly.

  20. Wow, I honestly never knew about this resource!

    I do hope you’ll check out my book blog, Cindy’s Book Club–http://cindysbookclub.blogspot.com

    I’ve participated in the UBP before with my main blog, but this is the first time I’ve entered my book blog!

  22. Can’t think of any suggestions right now, but I’ll let you know if I ever think of anything. I think you guys do a great job reviewing a variety of genres from different viewpoints!

  24. Hi Jennifer et al!

    Thanks for stopping by Toronto Teacher Mom. This site looks like a great resource. And to answer your question: I am not much of a reader, sadly. I always found it discouraging as a kid because I was a slow reader. Now, I read mostly online: blogs, tweets, etc. I’m hooked on social media. Enjoy the rest of UBP11!

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