Author Archive

Tuesday, December 19th, 2023

Your LibraryThing 2023 Year in Review

2023 Year in Review graphic

We’ve just added a fun new page that wraps up your 20231 activity on LibraryThing.

Check out your Year in Review to see the highlights of what you’ve contributed on LibraryThing this year, including what you’ve read2 and added.

>> Your LibraryThing 2023 Year in Review

Your Year in Review answers all your most pressing questions, such as: how many IKEA Billy bookcases would be needed to store the books you added this year? Who were your top authors? Of the books you added, what had the earliest publication date? How many pages did you read this year? What colors are your 2023 books? How many Talk posts did you write? What were the top awards and honors for your books? What badges and medals did you earn?

You can share your Year in Review with others just by posting the URL, or by taking screenshots to highlight your favorite pieces (like the beautiful poster of book covers).

Take a peek at some of our Years in Review:

Check out some screenshots:

2023 Year in Review read graphic 2023 Year in Review added graphic 2023 Year in Review measure graphic 2023 Year in Review Dewey and color graphic 2023 Year in Review medals graphic

What do you think? This is the first year we’ve attempted a year-end wrap up, and we’d love your feedback. Join the discussion of the Year in Review page on Talk.


  1. These stats are based on data from January 1, 2023 through today. Have you added new books since we released Year in Review? Click the regenerate button at the bottom of the page to update your data. We’ll update it for everyone after December 31, 2023. ↩︎
  2. Data about books read is only displayed if you used reading dates to track your reading on LibraryThing. ↩︎

Labels: new features, Year in Review

Thursday, June 23rd, 2022

Join us at ALA Annual / Sneak Peek at Syndetics Unbound Lists

The American Library Association’s 2022 Annual Conference & Exhibition is returning to an in-person event this year for the first time since the pandemic began, and LibraryThing’s founder Tim Spalding (timspalding) will be there!

Tim will be showing off an exciting new “Lists” feature for Syndetics Unbound, LibraryThing and ProQuest’s (awesome) catalog enrichment product for public and academic libraries. Lists allow libraries to make attractive, custom lists in their catalog, and to share them with other libraries. Stop by the ProQuest/Clarivate booth (#2507) to catch up with the Syndetics Unbound product team and learn more.

Stay tuned for the official release of Lists to all Syndetics Unbound libraries!

Labels: ALA, Syndetics Unbound

Tuesday, April 16th, 2019

Welcome Finnegan

Welcome to Finnegan Marcus de Bree, the newest LibraryThing baby! Finnegan was born on April 11 (5lbs 10 oz, 20.5 inches) to Kristi de Bree and her husband Chris.

Finnegan

You can see all past LibraryThing baby announcements here, going back 13 years to the birth of Tim’s son Liam!

Labels: LibraryThing babies

Tuesday, December 11th, 2018

Top Five Books of 2018

Every year we make a list of the top five books every LT staff member has read this year. You can see past years’ lists here.

We also like seeing your favorite reads, so we compiled a list that all of LibraryThing can add to. We’re interested in not just the most read books of 2018, but the best of the best. What were your top five for this year? Note: books on this list weren’t necessarily published in 2018—these are the best we’ve read this year, regardless of publication date.

» List: Top Five Books of 2018—Add your own!

Without further ado, here are our staff favorites!


Abby

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. If you want to feel gutted by excellent literature, this is the book for you.

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney. I love this book, this flaneuse, this love letter to New York, with its exquisite prose and heartbreaking history of one strong woman. I love this cover. And I love Lillian Boxfish. “The structure of the city is the structure of a dream. And me, I have been a long time drifting.”

All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung. Phenomenal. Incredibly poignant memoir about adoption, family, race, and just being a human.

Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht. This is the queer lady spy novel of my dreams.

The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel by Mary Robinette Kowal. In an alternate history where a meteorite strikes DC in 1952, bringing on the kind of climate change that could make earth uninhabitable, Elma is a mathematician and former WWII pilot who becomes involved in the space program. I cannot even begin to say how much I loved this book.

Honorable mentions
Honorable mention to the Rivers of London series which I discovered and then devoured this year.


Loranne

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Really great sci-fi that prods at the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and what a history of oppression does to people, set in space. The protagonist, Aster, is unlike any other I’ve read. Manages to feel very personal, while taking aim at the entire society Solomon has built here. Everyone should read it.

The Wanderers by Meg Howrey. Sci-fi but with lots of feelings. About a team prepping for a mission to mars, and how that impacts them and their families. Made me want to call my mom a lot.

Circe by Madeline Miller. Fans of Miller’s equally excellent previous work (The Song of Achilles) will come for the beautiful writing; everyone should stay for the righteous wrath of a witch scorned.

The Quick by Lauren Owen. This book keeps changing what it is: first it’s a Secret Garden-style childhood mope, then it’s a Young Man off to The City to Seek His Fortune, then oh wait, it’s a love story! And that’s all before the vampires show up and things get really interesting.

The Wicked + the Divine. A comic I’ve been reading for the last five years that’s drawing to a close. Great writing, great art. Every 90 years, 12 gods (from different pantheons) are reincarnated as young people—this time around, they’re pop star archetypes: Lucifer/David Bowie, Inanna/Prince, Amaterasu/Florence Welch, and so on. Mythology nerds will enjoy.

Loranne’s… mentions?

The Power by Naomi Alderman. I had such high hopes for this one, having heard rave reviews: women everywhere develop the power to electrocute via their hands. It was ultimately a disappointment: great writing, cool premise, but completely glosses over even the existence of trans/non-binary folks. What’s worse than ignoring people who don’t fit the strict gender binary: there’s a total fakeout—could have explored that character and had it be very interesting, but discarded them instead.

Crosstalk by Connie Willis. A book club read I just couldn’t get through. Maybe if you’re not into social media, don’t write a “romance” that hinges on it? Reminded me of The Circle (and that’s not a good thing).


Tim

Three Stones Make a Wall: The Story of Archaeology by Eric H. Cline. I started out disliking this book, whose early chapters go over much of the ground of Gods, Graves, Scholars, but not as entertainingly. It grew on me, and won my heart when it profiled an archaeologist (George Bass) I worked with once upon a time. It may not be perfect, but it’s so far as I know it’s a unique thing—an comprehensive, accessible, scholarly overview of world archaeology. Cat, meet catnip.

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English by John McWhorter. I love McWhorter. I just love him. That is all.

The Winged Watchman by Hilda Van Stockum. A children’s book I listened to with Liam and Lisa. It’s something of a lost classic—a story of a rural Dutch family during the German occupation that is both exciting and, in the end, true to the pervasive horror and occasional mercies of the period.

In the Land of a Thousand Gods: A History of Asia Minor in the Ancient World by Christian Marek. I’m still working my way through this, a nearly 1,000-page summary of Anatolian history. No doubt it would be dry to some. As someone whose deepest historical and archaeological interests coincide perfectly with the topic, it is quite the opposite. The parts I know already read like rereading an old love letter, and the parts that are new to me make my hair stand on end.

Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church by John W. O’Malley. John O’Malley, SJ is best known for his work on the early Jesuits (see my 2017 top-five list). In recent years he’s taken up the ecumenical councils, including a rather good basic lecture series, a history of Trent, and a history of Vatican II (on my 2011 top-five list). His history of Vatican I is similarly good, and oddly appropriate to the moment. This is all my attempt to make up for having attended Georgetown when O’Malley was teaching, not taking any of his class and indeed being completely ignorant of who he was.

Dishonorable mention

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. In my 2014 list I gave Engines of God a dishonorable mention, writing “Why do I bother reading science fiction?” In 2013 I wrote “I love good science fiction, but most of it is crap,” and proceeded to disparage Wool, The Black Cloud, Children of God, and The Midwich Cuckoos. The year before, I said the same of The Kraken Wakes. In recent years Annihilation and The Maze Runner got the stick. I think you can see where I’m going with this one. Certainly, the idea of The Three-Body Problem is clever, but Cixin, Wyndham, McDevitt and the rest: that’s not enough.


Kate

Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol by Ann Dowsett Johnston. I’ve read a great number of recovery memoirs (voyeurism? curiosity? something in between?), but this addition to the genre stands alone, at least for me. While Johnston shares pieces of her story and journey to sobriety, she also incorporates the results of years of research on the subject of women and drinking. I spent half the time reading this book with my jaw unhinged, my mouth hanging open in disbelief, and the other half reading statistics and other data aloud to my husband. I don’t think I’ve highlighted a book this much since graduate school.

The Incendiaries: A Novel by R.O. Kwon. I first heard this book mentioned on the Forever35 podcast by Doree Shafrir as “cults + North Korea + The Secret History,” which was all I needed to hear. I read The Incendiaries in a single sitting, which is definitely a testament to its excellence as I have two kids under four years old. Honestly, it exceeded expectations.

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life: Essays by Samantha Irby. Samantha Irby is a delight, y’all. I have *never* laughed so hard reading a book. Like, snort-laughing, gasping-for-air-crying. But beware that this book is essays isn’t all laughs: Irby is just as adept at discussing the difficulties of life, of which she’s had more than her fair share.

Educated by Tara Westover. Westover’s memoir of growing up in a survivalist, Mormon family and making her way to Cambridge for a PhD is as shocking as it is impressive. Although her strength, tenacity, and intelligence are laudable, I was perhaps most impressed by how delicately and respectfully she portrayed her family—even those who have obviously done her wrong.

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith. My personal favorite Cormoran Strike novel. I’m a fan of Galbraith/Rowling and I couldn’t put this one down. As my father-in-law put it upon finishing the lengthy novel: “No wonder it took her so long!”


KJ

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio. A murder mystery/campus novel/Shakespeare homage, this gem isn’t for everybody, but if you like even one of those genres, give it a try. Familiarity with Shakespearean tragedies helpful.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer. This Pulitzer winner is a deceptively small novel about a mid-career gay novelist on a scrimped together round-the-world trip. In addition to its hilarious, beautiful language, I loved how it delicately demonstrates the monumental changes travel can engender in a person.

Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat. If I ever become even a halfway decent home cook, it will be because of Samin. Also, there’s a really great Netflix series and the illustrations are gorgeous.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee. This collection of essays by one of my favorite authors covers everything from Chee’s rose garden in Brooklyn, his time as waiter for the ultra-rich, and his activism in San Francisco amid the AIDS crisis in the 80s. Come for the solid lessons on craft, stay for the illustration of a fully-lived life.

Circe by Madeline Miller. Miller made a splash with her debut novel Song of Achilles, an adaptation of The Iliad through the lens of the love of Achilles and Patroclus. Now, she tackles The Odyssey through the eyes of the witch Circe in a moving, righteously angry, and emotionally loaded interrogation of women’s place in Ancient Greece, and now.

Honorable mentions

The oeuvre of James Rollins I’ve spent most of this year on the road, and Rollins’ action thrillers made planes and buses and ferries pass more quickly. Think Dan Brown morphed with Michael Creighton with some Indiana Jones for good measure.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. What Abby said, above. Only didn’t make my top five because it’s in hers.


Chris C.

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford.

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin.

Breakfast with Socrates by Robert Rowland Smith.


Kristi

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. A compact, powerful message that must be read, broadcast, and the lessons heavily applied to the world. Read. This. Book.

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I devoured this book. The characters had depth, the stories blended together seamlessly, a page-turning plot structure…very well done.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. I was a little skeptical of how Gaiman would make retellings of Norse mythology interesting…silly me. A delightful little collection.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Great read. I loved the mundane observations Lahiri’s characters added to the overall theme of each short story. Definitely gave me more knowledge and insight into a culture I needed to learn more about—I’ll surely be looking for more.

Winter of the Gods by Jordanna Max Brodsky. Another fun read in the Olympus Bound trilogy, a modern NYC crime series intertwined with Greek mythology. The shortcomings I’ve found in this series, for me (the endings that drag on a bit and the characters that aren’t as well-developed as I’d like), are saved well enough by the good research Brodsky puts into her writing.


Kirsten

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. Narrated by the author, this novel told in verse is at once a very easy read and an incredibly powerful one. I bought the hardcover after finishing the audiobook because like a book of poetry but unlike most novels, I really wanted to be able to mark it up and revisit certain passages.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland. I’m not much for zombies, but I’m very glad I made the exception for this one. For fans of Gail Carriger, Mackenzi Lee, and NK Jemisin, and anyone who enjoys a rollicking, fast-moving historical reimagining with whip-smart characters. Justina Ireland also gives real good Twitter.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. As with much of my reading this year, I didn’t know anything about this beyond reading a brief summary before listening to it (Scribd is proving quite excellent for book roulette), and I was blown away. It was intense, and also beautiful, empowering, heartbreaking, infuriating, and inspiring. It’s one that has stayed with me and which I think of often.

The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty. This author-narrated audiobook was both a joy to listen to, and a sobering recollection of one Black man’s ancestors and the lives they endured. In the afterword, Twitty acknowledges that the book is a complete mishmash of genres: he is apologetic about it, however, while I find it to be one of the book’s greatest strengths. Part culinary memoir, part history lesson, part spiritual journey, all heart.

How Long ‘til Black Future Month? by NK Jemisin. Nothing like a surprise December title to shake up the annual top 5. This short story collection exceeded any expectations I might have had if I’d known it was coming before the day it was actually released. The variety in themes, landscapes, and characters’ experiences and demographics is incredibly refreshing in a genre that can often feel like authors are revisiting past successes or giving their take on a story that’s been told time and time again. The audiobook was top-notch, and I’ll be seeking out a couple of the narrators so I can stalk their work forever. The first and last stories in particular were fascinating and exquisitely performed.

Honorable mentions

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I’ve been told for years that I should read this, and to everyone who said so, you were right.

Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi. Mafi’s lyrical prose and Bronson Pinchot’s narration are a perfect match.

Dishonorable mentions

Julie & Julia. This books has EVERYTHING: slurs against mental illness, disparaging terms for folks with disabilities, fatphobia… hard pass, thanks. Just… wow.

The Essex Serpent. I bailed on this one despite high hopes because of the increasingly icky-feeling use of an autistic-coded character as a plot device.


Chris H.

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor.

The Mechanic’s Tale by Steve Matchett.

More?

Tell us about your favorites for 2018 on Talk, or add your own Top Five to our list!

Labels: holiday, lists, reading, recommendations, top five

Friday, January 13th, 2017

Welcome Josephine

IMG_3574

Welcome to Josephine Grey Krieger, the newest LibraryThing baby. Joey was born on December 29th, 2016—6lbs, 14oz—to our very own Kate Krieger, her husband Adam, and big brother Alex. Joey is already whiling away her days reading, and strangely enough, Kate has perhaps less time for books.

Labels: LibraryThing babies

Tuesday, April 5th, 2016

Introducing TinyCat: The OPAC for Tiny Libraries

tc_wordmark_lt_700

Today we’re happy to announce the official launch of TinyCat, the online catalog solution for tiny libraries. In other words, YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Check it out here! https://www.librarycat.org


What’s this all about? Religious institutions, community centers, small schools and other “tiny” libraries (up to 20,000 items) have used LibraryThing to catalog their collections for years. TinyCat gives them an attractive and powerful library catalog, with easy-to-use circulation and patron-account features.

  • Simple. TinyCat is simple and clean. Faceted searching adds power.
  • Mobile. TinyCat looks and works great on every device and platform.
  • Professional. Robust circulation and patron log-in features, and a “Simple Circulation” option for classroom libraries.
  • Flexible. Import and export MARC records.
  • Secure. HTTPS always.
  • Enhanced. Enhanced with optional professional and user reviews, recommendations, and more.

TC_blog

See TinyCat in action. Folio, a member-supported library and cultural center in the heart of Seattle, uses TinyCat. Check it out here.

Try it out. Already have a LibraryThing account? You can see your LibraryThing collection on TinyCat by starting here.

Find out more, including Frequently Asked Questions, pricing, and how to get started at https://www.librarycat.org.

Let us know what you think on Talk, or email tinycat@librarything.com. Join the TinyCat discussion Group on LibraryThing here: http://www.librarything.com/groups/tinycat.

Visit us at PLA. Stop by booth #437 at PLA in Denver this week to meet Tim and get an in-person demo of TinyCat!

Labels: small libraries, TinyCat

Tuesday, April 14th, 2015

Welcome Alexander!

image1
Welcome to LibraryThing’s second baby of 2015, Alexander Stephen Krieger (Alex, or Sasha if you’re feeling fancy)! Alexander was born on March 9th—6lbs 5oz—to LibraryThing for Libraries’ Kate Krieger and her husband Adam.

Baby Alex is honored to share his birthday with Tim’s son Liam!

Labels: LibraryThing babies

Thursday, April 17th, 2014

Welcome Kirsten

We’re delighted to welcome Kirsten Griffith to the LibraryThing team! Kirsten will be working with Abby, Kate, and KJ in providing technical and customer support for our LibraryThing for Libraries products. She’ll be working from the LibraryThing HQ in Portland.*

Kirsten is a longtime LibraryThing member (member GlitterFemme), and an avid reader and book collector. She was born in Massachusetts and lived in Virginia and Puerto Rico before landing in Maine, where she has spent most of her adult life. She lived in San Francisco from 2007–2010 and did her best to clean out the Bay Area’s many independent booksellers, requiring an upgrade from a 10′ box truck to 16′ when she moved from California to Maine.

Kirsten lives with her 16-year-old brother who is a computer and video game aficionado, and their two very spoiled cats. She studies belly dance and ballet, rides a metallic purple beach cruiser, and enjoys trying to make complicated dishes in her tiny, ill-equipped kitchen.

Her favorite authors include Roald Dahl, Brandon Mull, Mercedes Lackey, and Sarah Waters.

You can follow Kirsten on Twitter at @Glitter_Fem.


*For the longest time we were a completely virtual company. We now have enough employees in town to justify the occasional pizza or—today—donuts from The Holy Donut. Progress!

Labels: employees, LTFL

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Meet up in New Orleans / Get in free to ALA exhibits

Photo by chuckyeager, released under
CC-Attribution 2.0 Generic (see on Flickr).

Cafe Du Monde meet up
We’re having a LibraryThing meet up in New Orleans! Tim and I will be around for the ALA Annual Conference, and LT member benitastrnad is coordinating a meet up.*

So, anyone who will be in New Orleans, LA for the ALA Conference, or who live in the area, can meet-up at the Cafe Du Monde on Jackson Square from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, June 25, 2011. This is a buy your own beignets and coffee event where we can gather to meet and talk about books, reading, and LibraryThing.

The Cafe Du Monde is a short distance from the New Orleans convention center by trolley or a short walk to Jackson Square from most of the main convention hotels. The Cafe Du Monde is a NOLA French Market tradition since 1862, famous for it’s chicory laced coffee and a Cajun pastry called beignets. Come join us!

Free “exhibits-only” pass to ALA
Since we’re exhibiting at ALA this year, we also have some free badges to give out. They’re exhibit-only, so you can’t get into the sessions, but it’ll let you in to walk around the exhibits, snag some free ARCs, and, of course, stop by the LibraryThing booth (booth 827) to meet Tim and Abby.

Just click here and it’ll walk you through the registration process.


*many thanks to her, since not only do I not know the area at all, I’m a little crazy getting prepared for ALA!

Labels: ALA, librarything for libraries, meet up, new orleans

Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Welcome Kate!

Welcome Kate McAngus (LT member katemcangus), who’s filling the job we posted a few months ago.

Kate is going to be working primarily on LibraryThing for Libraries—doing customer and technical support, and generally making sure Abby doesn’t go crazy.

Kate’s a librarian, with a Masters of Library and Information Science from Simmons College.* She also has a Masters in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Virginia.

She likes reading, running, yoga, dogs, Russian, breakfast tacos (the only thing Texas has on Massachusetts). Ironically, she’s a vegetarian with the last name McAngus. Kate hails from Austin, Texas and says y’all a lot. Favorite authors include, but are not limited to, Vladimir Nabokov, Eudora Welty, and Tana French.


*Bringing our total number of card-carrying librarians up to… four! (Abby, Chris C, Jeremy, and Kate)

Labels: employees, librarything for libraries

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Free books! December Early Reviewer batch is up

The December 2010 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 64 books this month, and a grand total of 1,255 copies to give out.

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Monday, January 3rd at 6PM EST. (Since we’re starting later in the month, we’re not closing the batch until after the holidays).

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Ballantine Books Bell Bridge Books W.W. Norton
HarperCollins Childrens Books B&H Publishing Group WaterBrook Press
Canongate Books Kensington Publishing Dafina
Signet William Morrow Human Kinetics
Henry Holt and Company Pook Press The Permanent Press
Taylor Trade Publishing QED Press Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
Hachette Book Group Strawberry Books Nolo
Demos Medical Publishing Random House Tundra Books
Two Harbors Press BookViewCafe Putnam Books
Faber and Faber Orca Book Publishers Clerisy Press
Menasha Ridge Press DiaMedica Gefen Publishing House
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Hunter House Maine Misadventures

Labels: early reviewers

Monday, November 29th, 2010

SantaThing – sign up ends TODAY!

Have you signed up for SantaThing yet? You have until tonight (Monday, November 29th) at 8pm Eastern time. Less than 12 hours! Go now.

Sign up here. (Go to the page, and then click to pay with PayPal first, then go back to the sign up page, fill in your PayPal receipt ID and the rest of the info!) *

Tonight we’ll get busy with our fancy matching algorithms and give everyone a “Santee” (note, you’re not likely to be picking books for the person who’s picking for you–it’s not a straight back and forth thing).  Then tomorrow (or Wednesday, if it ends up taking longer) we’ll let you all know who to pick for, and the virtual book shopping can begin!

More info on the SantaThing page, or ask questions here.

*Remember, to participate you must have an address in one of the countries listed here.

Labels: santathing, secret santa

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

June Early Reviewers–free books!

The June 2010 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 62 books this month, and a grand total of 1350 copies to give out.

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please please please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

Some highlights: The new Mary Roach, Packing for Mars. Ridley Pearson’s In Harm’s Way. Tom Standage’s new An Edible History of Humanity. And we’re especially excited by Clay Shirky’s new book, Cognitive Surplus!

The deadline to request a copy is Friday, June 25th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the many different countries. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Henry Holt and Company Bond Street Books Canongate Books
Tundra Books The Permanent Press Doubleday Books
W.W. Norton Ballantine Books Small Beer Press
Zest Books Speir Publishing Bloomsbury
Bell Bridge Books Eerdmans Books for Young Readers Dutton
Hesperus Press Chalice Press DAW Books
Putnam Books Beacon Press Santa Fe Writer’s Project
St. Martin’s Griffin Orca Book Publishers Doubleday Canada
House of Anansi Press PublicAffairs Menasha Ridge Press
Clerisy Press The Penguin Press William Morrow
The History Press

Labels: early reviewers

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Welcome Octavia!

Welcome to Octavia, the newest LibraryThing baby!  Congratulations to Sonya and her husband Jason on the birth of their daughter last night at a healthy 8 pounds and 20.5 inches long.  All three are happy and well.

Not to be outdone by Mike and Lulu last month, Sonya live-blogged during labor. (Having had a baby myself once upon a time, I just have to say WOW/WHAT?! in amazement that she had the mental wherewithal to blog).

Post your congrats on this Talk thread.

Want more cuteness? See all the LibraryThing baby announcements here (and we’ve still got one more baby coming soon)!

UPDATE (7/30/10): The original post was lost and we were unable to save the original comments. Our apologies, but please feel free to post new comments.

Labels: LibraryThing babies

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The Concord Free Press, Gregory Maguire, and “generosity-based publishing”

The Concord Free Press is a revolutionary new publisher, doing some fantastic things. They publish books and give them away. For free. All they ask is that the reader then makes a voluntary donation to a local charity or person in need. And then pass the book along to someone else (this is definitely the hard part), and ask that they too read, donate, and pass. I think it’s fantastic. They just hit their one-year anniversary, released their third book, and have recorded more than $90,000 in donations so far (you can see a record of donations on their site).


Their third book, The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire just came out last week, and the Concord Free Press (founded by novelist Stona Fitch) gave us 14 copies to circulate among LibraryThing members. The book is great—a departure from Maguire’s typical writing (which I also love).

Book description from the Concord Free Press website:

Set in the grotty upstate town of Thebes, The Next Queen of Heaven is a Christmas tale gone horribly wrong. Clocked by a Catholic statuette, Mrs. Leontina Scales starts speaking in tongues. Tabitha Scales and her brothers scheme to save their mother or surrender her to Jesus—whatever comes first. Meanwhile, choir director Jeremy Carr, caught between lust and ambition, fumbles his way toward Y2K.

Only a modern master like Gregory Maguire can spin a tale this frantic, funny, and farcical. Novelist Ann Patchett calls it “an out-of-control carnival ride—terrifying, thrilling, a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.” And we agree.

I’m putting the copies in Member Giveaways, and we’ll send them to anyone, anywhere around the world. Request a copy now, if you’re interested! And remember, when you’re done reading, you donate, and then pass the book along. We’re hoping we can keep the books circulating among LibraryThing members—since the Concord Free Press only prints a limited run (2,500 copies), many people won’t otherwise get a chance to read it.

As it says on the back of the book:

“This novel is free. By taking a copy, you agree to give away money to a local charity, someone who needs it, or a stranger on the street. Where the money goes and how much you give—that’s your call. When you’re done, pass this novel on to someone else (for free, of course), so they can give. It adds up.”

So if you win a copy, please remember to read, donate, and then pass it along (maybe even put it back on Member Giveaways, so another LibraryThing member can have a chance to read it).

Labels: concord free press, gregory maguire, member giveaways

Monday, October 26th, 2009

October State of the Thing

I just sent out October’s State of the Thing, our monthly newsletter. Sign up to get it, or you can read a copy online.

This month’s State of the Thing features 2 exclusive author interviews:

Allison Hoover Bartlett, is the author of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession. Bartlett digs into the true-crime story of John Gilkey, the obsessed rare book thief and Ken Sanders, the self-appointed “bibliodick” driven to catch him.

Hope Edelman‘s newest book is The Possibility of Everything, a memoir about a week in 2000 when she traveled to Belize with her husband and three-year-old daughter to visit a shaman.

Both Hope and Allison are also participating in chats with LibraryThing members right now—stop by and ask them questions here.

Next month, one of the interviewees we have lined up is Gregory Maguire. Got a question for him? Post it here and we might use it in the upcoming interview.

Labels: author chat, author interview, state of the thing

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

October Early Reviewer Books

The October 2009 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 55 books this month, and a grand total of 1590 copies to give out.

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Friday, October 23rd at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, France, Germany, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Catalan books. A special treat this month–we have a Catalan publisher (Rovira i Virgili University Press) participating, who is offering a few books in Catalan! There are only 5 copies available for each of the books from Rovira i Virgili University Press, since they’re testing the waters to see what kind of audience there will be for Catalan books.

And of course, thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Kensington Publishing Dafina Citadel Press
B&H Publishing Group Bleak House Books South Dakota State Historical Society Press
Delacorte Press New York Review Books New American Library
Little, Brown and Company Barbour Books Rovira i Virgili University Press
Self-Counsel Press 5 Spot The Permanent Press
Hunter House Harper Paperbacks Avon Books
Random House Springer Faber and Faber
Picador Open Letter York House Press
Bloomsbury Orca Book Publishers Timber Press
Bethany House Bell Bridge Books Doubleday Books
HarperCollins

Labels: early reviewers, LTER

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Flash-mob cataloging party in Canton, OH

The Canton Museum of Art in Ohio (CantonArt.org, CantonArt on LT) is having a flash-mob catalog party. More about flash-mob cataloging.

Details:
Saturday October 3, 2009, 10:30am – 2:30pm and Sunday October 4, 2009, 1:30pm – 4:30pm

Canton Museum of Art
1001 Market Ave.
Canton, OH 44702

Space is somewhat limited, so please RSVP: Troy at talpeterAT SIGNkent.edu

Troy says: We will have tasty food and beverages. Participants should help us be “green” and bring your own mug (with your name and phone number on it). We will have valuable door-prizes throughout the day! Bring your Laptop, NetBook, iPhone/iPod Touch to help catalog, or just show up and help move things along.

The talk post.

Labels: flash mob, flash-mob cataloging

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

September State of the Thing

I just sent out September’s State of the Thing, our monthly newsletter. Sign up to get it, or you can read a copy online.

This month’s State of the Thing features 3 exclusive author interviews:

Audrey Niffenegger, author of the best-selling The Time Traveler’s Wife, who has a new book coming out next week—Her Fearful Symmetry.

Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, which has been on The New York Times best sellers list for 13 weeks now.

Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply which was called “ambitious, gripping and unrelentingly bleak” in The New York Times.

The interview with Audrey Niffenegger has a few questions that LibraryThing members came up with, in the Author interviews—you ask the questions group. We’re trying that again for next month, when I’m interviewing Allison Hoover Barlett, author The Man Who Loved Books Too Much and Hope Edelman, author of The Possibility of Everything (both were Early Reviewer books, so you might have read an advance copy recently). Have a question for Bartlett or Edelman? Post it here for Allison Hoover Bartlett and here for Hope Edelman.

Labels: author interview, state of the thing

Friday, September 18th, 2009

LibraryThing, IndieBound and love

As Tim blogged last night, we needed some help from members to link LibraryThing data on bookstores to IndieBound data. We connected 1,200 automatically, but that left 1,362 that had to be done manually—checking exact names, addresses, sometimes even creating a new “venue” on LibraryThing Local.

Tim posted the plea for help at about 5:30 pm last night. By 11 am this morning, it was entirely done. That’s right, in less than eighteen hours—most of which were in the middle of the night, in the US at least—LibraryThing members completed the task. That’s incredible. Insane. Fantastic.

As Tim tweeted, “IndieBound/LT demonstrates what I believe: Independent bookstores can win online if they engage the community. Love is powerful.” His sentiments were retweeted all over, and the IndieBound folks agreed. (See IndieBoundPaige, mattsupko, SarahABA on Twitter)

LibraryThing members are indeed an incredible community, and love indeed is powerful.* We’re going to add a new helper badge to recognize these folks. Thank you, thank you.

*Anyone who hasn’t seen Clay Shirky’s “The Internet Runs on Love” talk, should (blogged

Labels: bookstore integration, indiebound, love

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

September Early Reviewer books

The September 2009 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 59 books this month, and a grand total of 1310 copies to give out.

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Friday, September 25th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, Israel, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, European Union, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

Bloomberg Press Weiser Books The Permanent Press
Bell Bridge Books Tilbury House Kensington Publishing
Dafina Citadel Press Bloomsbury
B&H Publishing Group New York Review Books St. Martin’s Minotaur
Faith Words Hachette Book Group St. Martin’s Griffin
Orca Book Publishers Random House BelleBooks
Picador Gefen Publishing House Bleak House Books
HighBridge University of Wisconsin Press Barbour Books
Osprey Publishing Beach Books Doubleday Books
Kiwi Publishing Henry Holt and Company How To Books
HarperCollins Brandeis University Press University Press of New England
Bascom Hill Books

Labels: early reviewers, LTER

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Luke’s bookbuying spree

Hiring good employees is tough. So we try to sweeten the pot a bit. Last fall we offered $1,000 worth of books to anyone who could find us a good employee. Luke, genius that he is, “found” himself.

Voila Luke, holding his gift cards to Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA. Ironically, by the time we got to cashing in his prize, Luke had moved on (a new company and a new state! Now he’s conveniently located near to the fantastic Porter Square Books and, of course, me.)

The bookstore wasn’t quite sure how to handle our request for a $1,000 gift card. Apparently they’d never done that before, and the system couldn’t handle it. So Luke wound up with five $200 gift cards. All the better for sharing.

Labels: employees, luke

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Early Reviewers – September bonus batch

We have a small bonus batch of Early Reviewers up right now. The September bonus batch (hey, we’re *almost* to September!) has only 25 copies of one book from Riverhead Books in it, but we think it’s pretty fitting book for LibraryThing…

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Monday, September 7th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US only. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Labels: early reviewers, LTER

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Author interviews – you ask the questions

Each month, we conduct a few exclusive interviews with authors and then publish the interviews in LibraryThing’s monthly State of the Thing newsletter. We’re going to try something new—crowdsourcing part of the interview, and using questions from members in addition to our own questions.

How it will work
I’ve created a group: Author Interviews – you ask the questions

In the forum for that group, there’s a topic for each author I have lined up for an interview. Got questions? Ask them in the thread for that author. Then I’ll pick my favorites and send them to the author along with my own questions. The author will answer everything, and we’ll publish the interview both in the State of the Thing and on the author’s page on LibraryThing.

To start with, I need questions for Audrey Niffenegger! Add your questions for Audrey here.

Looking for inspiration? Past interviewees include Elizabeth Strout, Lisa See, David Ebershoff, Ayelet Waldman and more…

And an added twist
While I do have a slew of authors slated for upcoming interviews, there are many more out there we’d love to have. So, you can also add your own thread for an author we haven’t signed up for an interview yet. Make the author’s name the subject line, followed by “wanted”. For example, the subject could be:

Neil Gaiman (wanted)

Then add questions you have for that author. When we have a bunch of questions, I’ll write the author/publicist/publisher, begging for an interview.

Questions? Know an author who might want to be interviewed? Email abbyAT SIGNlibrarything.com

Labels: author interview, authors

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Author chats upgraded

Author chat gets a makeover! In one of his last projects before he leaves us (goodbye!), Luke gave author chats a facelift. Previously, you could only find out about author chats (current and upcoming) by going to the Author chat group.

We now have a module for the homepage, which shows current and upcoming chats (you can customize how many you want to view at once).

You’ll also see links to current, past, and future chats on all the relevant author and book pages.

Labels: author chat