Tag Archives: Goodreads

I was recently refecting on where the majority of my reading buddies reside – are they physically present in my life, or are they ones that I have developed through online relationships?

With that thought, I came to realize that with the exception of a couple of friends from work and various family members (my mom and my sisters specifically), most of my reading friends come from the social media website, Goodreads. For anyone not familiar with Goodreads, I refer to it as, Facebook for Readers and then follow that up, with saying that it is like crack. I am addicted to the website – I belong to several groups over there that I am actively involved in. I moderate or co-moderate a couple of groups (Romance Readers Reading Challenges, Nordic Noir, Outlander, Cover2Cover Challenge and Bar Belle’s), as well as being an active member in many more.

One of these groups that I am active in is Rated YA-MA. This is a group that is for adult readers who love YA fiction. The one thing I enjoy the most about the group is the ability to have in depth discussions about various YA books – either those that are super popular, or those that are less so. I especially like the fact that most of the discussions steer clear of the “OMG, Team Jacob, Team Edward, Team Peeta” discussions that seem to more often show up on other message boards that I frequent.

Another thing that I love about the group, is one of the programs that the moderators started called the Traveling Book Society. The moderators (or other members) choose a book to become a travelling book. Since the majority of the members are located in the US, they try to either get a hold of an ARC of a YA book, or one that is not readily available in the US. Members then sign-up to participate, and the book starts travelling between the members. At each stop, the members contribute postcards from the various locations the book has thus far visited, sign the book (although, I just realized that I forgot to do this for the last book) and leave notes in the book at various stages with parts that intrigue them, that they have questions etc.

I recently finished up the second book in the travelling circuit and the next person to receive the book on the list lived in the same state as me, and in fact, only lived about 45 minutes away – so it was a great opportunity for us to meet face to face. On a very hot sunday (I think it was easily 100 degrees in the shade), Evangeline and I met at a local Starbucks, to chat and hand the book over. I had a great time and look forward to meeting again in the future (since she has the next book in the travelling circuit and I’m next on the list).

Here is a picture that a nice lady, who we interrupted while she was getting her coffee took for us. I’m the one in the blue skirt.

What about you guys – do you have people in your everyday life that you talk about books with? Are you a goodreads lover? How do you think about your next great read?