#54 Social Networking Through Books

I once belonged to a book club that was with several of my friends. Our book club was simply called Friends. We would meet twice a month and for each meeting would rotate to one anothers homes. We all looked forward to it as a chance to stay in touch and share something that we all loved, reading. Unfortunatly, after about a year the group began to get smaller and smaller as friends married, had children, or moved away. I miss those days, but find my schedule not able to start another book club or join a new one. I think that the online book club might be something that I can try to look into and would accommodate my schedule.

After viewing the resources and seeing all the different book clubs available I was unable to find one on the Holocaust. That has always been something of great interest to me because I believe that it is something that generations to come should never forget. After reviewing some of the sources available I was able to find a book from Reading Group Guides. The book is intitled "A Chosen Few" by Mark Kurlansky. It is an inspiring story of people who have rebuilt their lives in the face of incomprehensible horror. It will be a must read for me.

I did search a few of the sites for the book I chose in the first post. It to is about the Holocaust, titled Echoes (only it is fiction). I checked the ratings on Library Thing and it had a three and a half star rating. I also checked on the same source for Member Reviews and it received a two to four star review. The other source checked was goodreads with an average rating of 3.90.

These past modules have been very helpful and enjoyable. I have past on many of the resources to family and friends.

#53 Finding Books Onlline

The three booksellers I found that are the closest to my branch did not have online presence. I checked out a few others and none of them had online presence that I could find. I did enjoy finding all the many different sellers that Houston.com has to offer.

After, searching some of the sites for my previos book from module #52, I was able to locate the book of interest on three different sites: Barnes & Noble, Brazos Bookstore, and Katy Budget Books. I found that all three sites price's where about the same. For a hard cover $27.00 to $29.95, a paper back $7.99, and a CD $29.95. I also, was able to find a ebook as well, on Harris County Public Library.

I did not download and ebook because I have done that before and found that I don't enjoy reading a book from my computer as much as I do the actually book in my hand. There is just something about having a good book in my hand, sitting in front of a fire in my family room or sitting under a shade tree at the park reading that I find to be relaxing. Although, I can see how it would have it's advantages burning it to a CD and have it on a long road trip to listen to in the car.

#52 What to Read

The author that I picked is Danielle Steel I have read many of her books, but one of my favorites was "Echoes". I searched NoveList Plus and found that it was very user friendly, once I found the author and title it gave me a brief description of the story and a read-alike spot to click onto. I was able to find similar read-allikes and found many that I have read in the past and many that I had not known about. After searching two of the other resources I found them to be much harder to navigate and found the results to be very different on both Fiction L Booklist and WhatShould I Read. I was able to find read-alike on Fiction L Booklist thru matchbook, but when I tried to find it a second time I was unable to locate it.

For the second part of the exercise I used NoveList Plus and found the following two books for a fourth grade girl: "Faces In The Forest" by Ron Hirsch and "Forest Bright, Forest Night" by Jennifer Ward. I also found two books for a 13 year old boy: "The William Ghost" by Wilma Alexander and "The Ghost In The Cellar" by Jacques Duquenny.

The sites I used for part three of the exercise are NoveList Plus and What Shall I Read Next. The similar authors I found from the first one are: John Saul, Dan Simmons, and Greg Bear. For the second one they are: Stephen White, Clive Cussler, and W.E.B. Griffin.

The resource used for exercise four, was once again, NoveList Plus. The other three remaining books in the series "Song Of The Lioness" are #2 "In The Hand Of The Goddess", #3 "The Woman Who Rides Like A Man", and #4 "Lioness Rampant.

I found this excercise to be very helpful for any one who works in a library and look forward to the remaining modules.