Archive for April, 2014

Wednesday, April 30th, 2014

Congratulations to Our Edible Books Contest Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered our Third Annual Edible Books Contest! Once more, you’ve left your judges impressed, and in serious need of cake we can eat right this second. Edible Books would be impossible without you. You can see all submissions for the contest in the EdibleBooks2014 tag gallery.

The Winners

The grand prize goes to LT member nk1271’s collection of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy cake pops. Made for a “geeky” potluck, these strawberry cake pops were accompanied not only by proof that nk1271 really knows where their towel is, but also references to the ill-fated whale and pot of petunias. We loved those additions.

Along with fame and glory, nk1271 will be receiving $50 worth in books, hand-picked for them by LT staff! Additionally, we’ll be sending the following LT swag their way: a LibraryThing t-shirt, stamp, sticker, CueCat, and three lifetime gift memberships to share.

Our first runner-up (and all attendant prizes) goes to Agailbee, for this charming take on the children’s classic, Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Comprised of a whopping 21 individual cupcakes (plus a single larger cake for the head), this confection bears a striking resemblance to its inspiration. He even has feet (chocolate chips), antennae, and branches (both licorice) to climb on. Well done!

3rd Place—We have a tie!

Kudos to our second runner-up (and winner of great prizes), WildNelly, for splitting the vote. We liked two of their creations so much, the judges here at LTHQ just couldn’t decide! One the left, this delicate birthday cake was accompanied and inspired by Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds’ Nests. Below and on the right, we have WildNelly’s homage to the American Girls Mystery series. Made for a daughter who’s a fan, they also held a mystery party, at which guests were challenged to solve the cake’s inspiration, The Curse of Ravenscourt.

Honorable Mentions

The competition was very close this year, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t also tip my hat to jessipete, for their impressively intricate rendition of of Smaug the Golden, from The Hobbit. The level of detail was incredible. I’m also really curious about the Elvish-inscribed cake in the background!

Thanks, everyone!

To all our contestants, congratulations! You all did amazing (and delicious-looking) work! Thanks so much for joining us, and I look forward to seeing more scrumptiously literary creations next year.

To our winners, be sure to check your profile comments shortly for details on claiming your prizes!

Labels: contest, contests, fun

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014

Vote for June’s One LibraryThing, One Book

It’s time for our next round of One LibraryThing, One Book! Just like our selection process for the February and March picks, we’re asking for your input.

We had so many great books on our list this time that we couldn’t pick only three, so we’ve got a slate of four. Come rank the titles you’d like to see, and discuss with the community! The winner will be set and announced on Thursday, May 1st, at 11am Eastern.

» Go here or click on any of the covers below to vote!

More Info

We’ll be announcing our winner in another blog post on May 1st. You’re encouraged to start reading right away!

Official discussion will begin on Monday, June 2nd, at 12pm Eastern. As always, we’ll have the “Introduce Yourself” and “First Impressions” threads, for those who’d like to share their thoughts while reading. Stay tuned to the One LibraryThing, One Book group for updates!

If you’re new to One LibraryThing, One Book, be sure to check out the original blog post that started it all.

Questions? Comments?

As always, general questions/comments about One LibraryThing, One Book, are welcome on this thread.

Join us here to discuss the titles up for vote!

Labels: One LibraryThing One Book

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, April 8th, 2014

LibraryThing’s 3rd Annual Edible Books Contest!

April has finally arrived, and with it, LibraryThing’s THIRD annual Edible Books Contest! Members served up a tasty batch of literary delights last year, and we’re expecting another strong showing in ’14.

The Rules

1. Create an “edible book.” We’re defining this broadly, so entries can include dishes:

  • referencing a book’s title or characters (puns are entirely welcome)
  • inspired by a book’s plot
  • in the shape of an actual book (or eBook, or scroll, etc.)
  • takeoffs on the LibraryThing logo

2. Take photos of what you made. The photo on the right is the grand-prize winner from last year’s contest, inspired by David Wong’s books. You can see other submissions from last year in the EdibleBooks2013 gallery. If your creation is super realistic, take a photo cross section of your creation as you eat it!

3. Upload the photo to your LT member gallery. Sign in, then go here and click the “Add another picture” link to add the image.

4. When adding the image, be sure to tag it “EdibleBooks2014“. This will add your image to the contest gallery, and counts as your entry. If your photo doesn’t have that tag, we won’t know that you’ve entered. You can see current entries here.

5. Tell us about your literary inspiration—and how you made it—in the “Title/description” box

DEADLINE: The contest will run for three weeks. Add your photos by 6pm Eastern on Tuesday, April 29th.

The Prizes

From all entries in the EdibleBooks2014 gallery, LibraryThing staff will choose the following winners:

Grand Prize (1)

  • $50 worth of books from Sherman’s Bookstore*
  • An LT t-shirt (size/color of your choice)
  • An LT library stamp
  • A CueCat
  • An LT sticker
  • Three lifetime gift memberships
  • Great honor and prestige

Runners Up (2)

  • Your choice of one LT t-shirt, stamp, or CueCat
  • Two lifetime gift memberships

As always, we will pick a few Honorable Mentions from the batch of entries. The more entries we receive, the more Honorable Mentions we can make—and all of them will get lifetime gift memberships.

Have fun, and good luck!

Fine Print: You can enter as many times as you like, but you can only win one prize. Your dish must be made of edible ingredients (no hats, lost-wax sculptures, performance art), and by entering the contest you certify that it is your own creation. Entries submitted to previous LibraryThing Edible Books contests will not be considered. All decisions as to winners and book prize slections will be made by LibraryThing staff, and our decisions are final. LibraryThing staff and family can enter, but can only be honored as prize-less runners-up. Any images you load stay yours, or you can release them under a copyleft license, but we get a standard “non-exclusive, perpetual” right to use them.

Questions? Comments? Post them over on Talk.


*Surprise books will be chosen by LibraryThing staff from Portland, ME’s newest indie bookstore, Sherman’s! We’ll make our selections based on the winner’s library.

Labels: contest, contests, fun

Monday, April 7th, 2014

April Early Reviewers batch is live!

The April 2014 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 102 titles, and a grand total of 2,710 copies to give out. We’ve got a lot of non-fiction this month, plus the final installment in William Shakespeare’s Star Wars!

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing/email address and make sure they’re 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, April 28th at 6pm Eastern.

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, and many others. 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!

Akashic Books Riverhead Books Putnam Books
Bethany House Gefen Publishing House Chosen Books
Henry Holt and Company Lion Fiction Palgrave Macmillan
February Books Fog Ink Prospect Park Books
Prufrock Press Plume Bridgeross Communications
Random House The Permanent Press Minotaur Books
Gotham Books Medallion Press Crown Publishing
Sacred City Productions Viva Editions Dragonwell Publishing
Taylor Trade Publishing William Morrow Human Kinetics
Brine Books Publishing Elephant Rock Books Information Today, Inc.
Recorded Books Ballantine Books Thomas Dunne Books
St. Martin’s Press Createspace Del Rey
Zest Books BookViewCafe Bluffer’s Guides
Algonquin Books Galaxy Press Story Spring Publishing, LLC
Quirk Books CarTech Books Santa Fe Writers Project
Turner Publishing Eyelevel Books Meadowbrook Press
Leafwood Publishers Vinspire Publishing, LLC

Labels: early reviewers, LTER

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014

Join the April ReadaThing!

Mark your calendars, and get spring started the right way: Coming up soon is a week-long ReadaThing. All are welcome, and you don’t have to read for the full week: the goal is to have a few people from around the world reading at any given time during the ReadaThing.

This edition of ReadaThing will be kicking off at 12am (Midnight) UTC on Sunday, April 6th (that’s 8pm Eastern, Saturday April 5th), and will end at the same time on April 12am UTC the following Sunday, April 13th (8pm Eastern, Saturday, April 12th). You can see the full timeline here. April’s ReadaThing also happens to coincide with the US’s National Drop Everything and Read Day, which is celebrated every April 12th, in honor of author (and creator of Ramona Quimby) Beverly Cleary‘s birthday.

Sign up

Head directly to the April 2014 ReadaThing Wiki to sign up, or check out the announcement thread for more general information. You don’t have to pick a time slot in advance in order to participate! There’s a special place for readers who don’t want to commit to a specific schedule to sign up.

What are you reading?

Whether you’d like to check out what your fellow ReadaThing-ers are reading, or to share your own ReadaThing picks, head over to the What will you be reading? thread to see what books are slated. Remember: anything goes! You can read whatever you want, wherever you want.

Get ready to read

Once the April ReadaThing is underway, keep an eye out for the “April 2014 ReadaThing: Log Book” thread, where you can document your ReadaThing experiences. Take a peek at the Log Book from June 2013, for an example.

If you’ve never done ReadaThing before, you’re in good company—this is my first one. Give it a try, and stay tuned to the ReadaThing group for updates. Thanks to LT member jjmcgaffey for organizing this ReadaThing!

Labels: readathon