a fun way to spend time

Note, I didn't say waste. Nothing involving books could ever be considered "wasting time". Thanks to Angie for telling me about Library Thing, this fun little site. It is like flickr, but for books. You sign up for an account (get this, they never even ask for your email address or name or anything, so you can't get spam from them!) and then you start entering in your personal library. I discovered that entering ISBN numbers is easiest because there are hundreds, I mean hundreds, of different editions of Pride and Prejudice out there. I own two. For each book, it tells you how many other users also own that book. There are also groups (not explored) and forums and if your book (or author) is mentioned in a forum (or topic or conversation or whatever), then it provides a link to that conversation!

I entered my worn out copy of The Complete Father Brown by GK Chesterton (I really need a hardcover copy of this one) and discovered that it had been mentioned in a conversation with a title something like "must read British/Irish detective fiction?". Wow. A quick glance through the conversation reaped me a nice little handful authors to explore. How exciting!

Unfortunately most of my library is in boxes back home, so an extensive listing will have to wait until this summer. I got a bit of a start, though. This is a fun little site and worth exploring--check it out. And when you do, let me know so we can connect over there and check out each other's libraries!