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Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Get In Some Good Reading This Summer with Goodreads Book Recommendations

While covering for an English teacher recently, the lesson plans asked for students to update their Goodreads account. While they were working I did some browsing and found it is a new tool that I am excited to learn and use.

Goodreads is "the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. [Their] mission is to help people find and share books they love. " In other words, it is to books what Pandora is to music.

I started by importing my Amazon.com orders list and then rating the books I have already read. I browsed the site to add my all-time favorite books; a very exclusive list of just five: 

Kayla's bookshelf: coveted-top-five

To Kill a Mockingbird
5 of 5 stars
tagged: coveted-top-five
Gone with the Wind
5 of 5 stars
tagged: coveted-top-five
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
5 of 5 stars
tagged: coveted-top-five
The Bell Jar
5 of 5 stars
tagged: coveted-top-five
The Double Bind
0 of 5 stars
tagged: coveted-top-five

goodreads.com
Adding ratings to each of these books gives suggestions based on other readers with similar likes. I can also easily connect with friends from Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ to read their recommendations.

Books are organized on "shelves." By default there is a "Want to Read, "Read," and "Currently Reading." As shown above, I also have my "Coveted Top Five" shelf, although I don't think that one will be changing very soon.

My Currently Reading shelf looks like this:

As you can see, graduate school has the best of me! I'm learning so much and meeting so many inspirational people. But I'm ready to give my brain a break and do some light reading. I have subscribed to several lists already including Best Young Adult Books of 2014, Best Young Adult Books of All Time, and Books Every Highschooler Should Read.

There are so many features on this new social media tool that I still need to learn. In the meantime, I highly recommend Goodreads. Even in my limited experience I can see that it is a great tool to organize books you have read, what to read, and to meet new people. And, if you are busy like me and my other #DSMsum2014 cohorters, you need to take advantage of every spare moment you have! Life is to short to read bad books.

What books are on your summer must-read list? How about your coveted top five?

This post is cross-posted on FACS for All of Us. Come visit me!

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