Archive for July, 2010

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

State of the Thing: July edition

State of the Thing logoOn Monday, we sent out the July State of the Thing, LibraryThing’s monthly newsletter of  features, author interviews and various forms of bookish delight.

We have a round-up of updated and new features, the start of the t-shirt sale, information about the Early Reviewer program and popular books this month.

Check your inbox or read it online.

Backseat Saints coverThis month’s edition has an interview with Joshilyn Jackson, about her new book Backseat Saints. We talk about how a minor character can grow like kudzu until she needs a book of her own. We also find out about writing an honest-but-readable account of physical abuse, Joshilyn’s recent reads and suggestions for other Southern lit novels. Did you know Joshilyn plays World of Warcraft?

Anthropology of an American GirlHilary Thayer Hamann offers author recommendations for her book Anthropology of an American Girl, including Atlas Shrugged and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Author recommendations are the author’s suggestions for other books you might like, if you like their book. You can also decide if you might like her book, based on her recommendations.
Anthropology came out in May. You can chat with Hilary about her book in her author chat, ongoing till August 5th.

Read previous State of the Thing newsletters:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/State_of_the_Thing

If you don’t get State of the Thing, you can add it in your email preferences. You also have to have an email address listed.

Labels: state of the thing

Monday, July 19th, 2010

More “More”

I’ve pushed a major revamp of the More tab, which has expanded from one (confusing) page to eight better-organized ones.

The More tab is divided into convenient sections like Sites and Applications and Store. Helpers and Member Projects are just a start. Come talk about what’s missing here.

Labels: new features

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Teeshirt sale for the Read In Public ReadaThing

LibraryThing teeshirtUpdate: The t-shirt sale has started early! Buy your t-shirt here.

For one week only Until August 8th, we’re having a sale on LibraryThing t-shirts.

See, we’re having a ReadaThing readathon in August, and the theme is Reading In Public*, and I figured you might want to wear a LibraryThing teeshirt.

So, we’re having a sale. Our t-shirts are normally $15, but they’ll be $9 from July 26th (at noon) through 8th (whenever we remember to change it back). You don’t need a coupon code, or a secret password. Anyone who buys a shirt during that week will automatically get the sale price.

The Reading In Public ReadaThing is one of a series of readathons hosted on LibraryThing’s forum system, Talk. A readathon is a chosen period of time (24 hours, usually) where members take turns reading, as to have non-stop reading during the event. Thanks to night-owls and international participation, there can be non-stop reading

*Unlike knitting in public, RIP is an unfortunate acronym.

**We decided that reading on your porch or in a lit window count, as long as someone else can see you. It’s kind of a reverse-peeping-tom.

Labels: readathon

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

What groups are your friends in?

Following up on last night’s feature, jjwilson61 recommended turning it around. So I’ve added a stats/memes page to show the groups your connections—friends, and other people—are in.

Here’s your page.

Come talk about it.

Labels: new features

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Groups show connections

Two small changes: Group pages now show who among your friends and other connections are in the group. We’ve also restored group member-counts. Both look forward to a restored group-Zeitgeist.

Discuss here.

Labels: 1

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Welcome Julian!

A warm welcome to Julian North Catalfo, born 11:12pm on June 28—8 lbs. 5 oz., 20 inches. (We just got the first picture, to blog it.)

Julian was born to LibraryThing library developer Chris Catalfo (CCatalfo) and his wife Joanna. Older sister Ellie is adjusting well.

Julian caps LibraryThing’s odds-defying “Season of Babies“—five babies in five months! There is clearly something in the water here.

Labels: LibraryThing babies

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Free books: July’s Early Reviewer batch is open!

The July 2010 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 75 books this month, and a grand total of 1938 copies to give out.

Books to get excited about include (but are not limited to):

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, July 23rd at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to many, many 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!

Canongate Books Henry Holt and Company W.W. Norton
B&H Publishing Group Ballantine Books Sovereign
Doubleday Books William Morrow Ulysses Press
Seven Stories Press St. Martin’s Press Picador
St. Martin’s Minotaur Penguin Young Readers Group Hachette Book Group
The Permanent Press Cemetery Dance Del Rey
Tundra Books Orca Book Publishers Bloomsbury
Springer BookViewCafe Gefen Publishing House
Little, Brown and Company Hunter House DiaMedica
St. Martin’s Griffin Harper Paperbacks Avon Books
Bromera Putnam Books Thomas Dunne Books
Bethany House Chosen Books Berkley
Zed Books

Labels: early reviewers