Connecting through books

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket. ~Chinese Proverb

There are few things I enjoy more than being completely absorbed into a book with complete disregard for time and beckoning responsibilities. Unfortunately my recent attempts at escape found me stumbling through a series of severely mediocre books. I seem to be coming out of this pattern, but slowly. The last book I read was quite good — Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon. But I am still craving a really good, fun, all-absorbing novel. This weekend, via the blog BleedingEspresso, I came across a site that may just help me find one: GoodReads.com.

GoodReads allows you to rate books, write reviews, find books you'd like to read, show what your currently reading and more. You can invite friends to do the same, see how their tastes compare with yours, peruse their lists for books you might like, recommend books to each other.

I immediately followed the steps —late last night — to invite friends and family to join. Within mere minutes, my book-devouring brother, Michael, had joined and rated almost 200 books. His tastes range from Dune to Don Quixote to Harry Potter, so it was great fun going through his list and seeing where our book tastes overlapped and how our ratings compared. I found several books I'd like to read and picked out a couple I thought he would enjoy. Michael and I have always shared a love of books and an equal lack of affinity for the phone, so I look forward to being able to continue our connection through books on GoodReads.

I'd love to hear about your favorite books. Feel free to comment below or join me on GoodReads. You can find me there as Nicole Ray. Happy reading!