hal tweets ·11:28 AM
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
onlyyy
Tue Feb 26,2008,
17:11 GMT
GoodReads
Posted by Hal
So in addition to facebook, myspace, linkedin, friendster, twitter and probably a bunch of sites i don’t even remember joining, i’ve now joined GoodReads, a networking site for book readers. Basically you put up books you ‘ve read and give them a rating and share them with your “friends”. You can search by title and see who else has rated or reviewed it and read their reviews. Naturally I did this for my books then added all my books to my page, rating them 5 stars so that their rating would go up on the site overall. Pathetic. Maybe. No. Probably.
After that, I thought, okay, I’ll add a few books I’ve recently read and give them a rating. Then I remembered that I had already done that on Facebook, having added some book sharing application so that I could once again list my books and reccommend them highly. According to Facebook I’ve been reading Mr. Pip, a relatively short novel, since September. I’m either a really slow reader or having trouble updating my “currently reading” list. Anyway, did I want to start adding books to this GoodReads thing too, knowing full well it would probably be the first and last time I was gonna add anything?
In the end I added a few books just to see what it felt like. I added two books, actually. A book by the friend who invited me to join GoodReads (I sent her a message saying if she added my books I’d add hers and we could give each other 5 stars…pathetic? Maybe. No. Definitely.) Then I added Derek McCormac’s novel The Haunted Hillbilly about a gay vampire tailor who sucks the life out of Hank Williams while making him famous. I gave that book 5 stars. Then I started thinking about other books I might add. And I started thinking about the various writers and publishers and editors I know. And I started thinking, what if those people join GoodReads and see my ratings and are offended and then decide not to publish me or give me a grant or whatever?
I’ve been spending too much time thinking about the power of peep, clearly. But as of this moment I’m struggling. Do I really want to start rating and reviewing books for all to see? Granted, no one cares what books I like or don’t like. But it all just seems a bit too close to home. And I always get anxious and uncomfortable when people come into my office and start scrutinizing my bookshelves.
There are -3- Comments: , Add yours…
12:11
And I guess a comment about a comment would be double meta with a side of cheese.
;>
12:11
And a comment about a comment that is, in turn, a side to a side of cheese, and then mentions a blog about cheese (http://cheeseunderground.blogspot.com/) would be….oh god, I have to sit down and have a glass of milk.
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
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12:11
At what point does a blog become meta? The meta blog would be, what, a blog about blogging I guess. Which is what you’re doing. In a total multi media way, actually. Hal, what you’re doing is, like, so now!