Avid readers enjoy immersing themselves in a great story and then discussing the book with friends and other book lovers. From book clubs to reading groups, reading has always had a social element, and now social media is playing a role.
Book-themed social networks and digital groups are growing more popular, letting participants share good books, discuss great stories, and review the latest bestsellers. Here are six great book-centered social networks for avid readers to check out.
What We Like
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Over 90 million members.
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Billions of books included on the site.
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Lots of fun social communication within the book reviews area.
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Easy to track and log books you’ve already read.
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One of the best sites online to find new books to read.
What We Don’t Like
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The site can run slowly at times.
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Infrequent functional updates to the website.
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Some discussions may be unsuitable for younger children or teens.
The goal of Goodreads is to help users find great books to read by suggesting new books based on titles they’ve already read or according to what their friends are reading. It also focuses on helping readers avoid books that simply wouldn’t suit them.
Goodreads lets you build a list of your books, rate and review books, and find out what your friends are reading. Community features include a huge variety of groups to participate in, as well as discussions and an Ask the Author feature.
Another book-centered site, Shelfari, merged with Goodreads in 2016, so all Shelfari members were transitioned to Goodreads.
What We Like
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Excellent for collecting and tagging book titles you’ve read.
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Lists location-based local events for book lovers.
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Provides you with booksellers where you can buy your title choices.
What We Don’t Like
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Smaller user base than Goodreads.
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Recommendation engine is not as good as other sites.
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Site design is outdated.
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Limited to 200 books in your library for the free option.
Any avid reader will find LibraryThing to be a great way to organize their reading list. The book platform acts as an easy-to-use, library-style catalog with a community of well over two million members. Catalog books directly from Amazon, the Library of Congress, and more than 1,000 other libraries. You can even use it to catalog your movies and music if you like.
There’s a huge array of groups to join and discussion forums to participate in, with an active, engaged community.
BookCrossing is a book-based social network where members release books back into the public by leaving them on park benches, at the gym, or at school. One part social network and one part social experiment, BookCrossing lets you participate in giving back to the world of literature by passing on your favorite books. It’s a fun and interesting way to follow your book as it travels around your area, across the country, or maybe even to the other side of the world!
Social features include community forums, testimonials, recommendations, and more.
What We Like
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Lots of book reviews and photos.
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Available as iPhone and Android apps.
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Privacy settings for users.
Litsy is a book-centered social site and app that’s like a cross between Instagram and Goodreads. Litsy members can review, share, and discuss their favorite books as well as create and organize reading lists.
The site’s social aspects include in-depth and passionate discussions of books as well as recommendations. Since everything is book-centered, you can find all posts concerning a book by searching on the title.
BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books for books you’d like to read. Every time you send someone a book (you pay the postage), you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you’ve read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish. There’s the potential to interact with people all over the world!
There’s a discussion forum with a plethora of topics to participate in, making this a great social site both online and offline.
Just as the name implies, Online Book Club is an online book club where members can discuss favorite books, recommend books, and even write book reviews.
Its Bookshelves feature lets you store, track, and share the books you want to read, and book and reading forums have hundreds of thousands of welcoming members.
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