Good Reads

by Mark WardOct 24, 2011Books, Personal4 comments

I’m becoming a big fan of GoodReads. It’s a social network built around one of my major interests—reading—instead of around… around… Oh, bother. What is Facebook built around?! Cute toddler antics, I guess—or at least that’s what my friends are most interested in posting and reading.

So I have a GoodReads-related announcement. I haven’t told the 50% of my blog readership who encounters this blog through Google Reader, but I might as well let him in on it now: I have a new page, supplied by a nice GoodReads plug-in, listing out all the books I’ve read in 2011.

I made this page first of all for myself (and before I had GoodReads), because I found I was having a hard time remembering what I read in a given year and I wanted to have at least brief notes summarizing what I gleaned. But I did it for you two, too, my faithful readers. I started this blog because I wanted to be a challenge and encouragement to a narrow slice of people, just like certain seminary friends have been for me. Perhaps you’ll find some good recommendations on the list. The most significant ones have gotten longer reviews.

Check it out.

← previous POST NEXT POST →

NEVER MISS A POST

Get each new post in your email inbox.

Review: Comanche Empire

The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hämäläinen This excellent book does what modern history is supposed to do nowadays: it gives a voice to the voiceless and the marginalized; it gives agency to the victims. And yet you can’t always predict what will happen when you go...

Review: Means of Ascent

Means of Ascent by Robert A. CaroMy rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is positively monumental. How does Caro do it? Well, I know how he does it. I read his book on the topic. He does it with a lot of hard and humble work (and some excellent help from his wife). I was...

Review: Think Again by Stanley Fish

Think Again: Contrarian Reflections on Life, Culture, Politics, Religion, Law, and Education by Stanley FishMy rating: 5 of 5 stars I have read multiple Stanley Fish books; I read quite a number of these columns when they were originally published in the New York...

Review: Why I Preach from the Received Text

Why I Preach from the Received Text is an anthology of personal testimonies more than it is a collection of careful arguments. It is not intended to be academic, and I see nothing necessarily wrong with that. But it does make countless properly academic claims, and...

« Older Entries

4 Comments

James on October 24, 2011 at 2:48 pm

Thanks! I need to start a page there. Does GoodReads also provide the sidebar plug-in of all your book covers?
Mark L Ward Jr on October 24, 2011 at 4:13 pm

Yes! I should have mentioned that! I think that’s a fun feature! I’m tossing every book I can ever remember reading into that category!
James on October 27, 2011 at 9:22 am

Follow-ups:

Do you add all your books via “click to rate” or have you used their import feature with some data file containing your library info?

I’m hoping I can use their iOS app to keep a portable copy of my library catalog. Have you tried that yet?
Mark L Ward Jr on October 27, 2011 at 11:23 am

I imported them from a list of ISBNs. I think I got that originally from Logos, Library Thing, and Google Books’ “My Library” feature. I don’t remember exactly the order!

The one problem with doing what you propose—a problem I haven’t quite decided what to do with yet—is that all your books have to be either read, to-read, or currently reading. There’s no “own” list, so you lose a good bit of the functionality of the to-read list, effectively. And I’m not sure the app keeps your library in its memory… But it is a nice little app.