Meta Monday - Discovery

I want to talk for a moment about book discovery, again mostly through the lens of the Kindle & e-books more broadly.  It used to be, I'd walk into a bookstore, browse the shelves, and pick a book. (And yes, I realize now, though I didn't then, how much that's governed by commercial concerns & displays).  If I was lucky, I could look at a library that had a good selection of what I was interested in, or (best of all) an indie bookstore or used bookstore by someone who really knew and loved my genre.

Now, I don't even bother.  My local indie bookstore is a disappointment, though I make an effort to buy books for the girls there, and to order books for me from them.  My local used bookstore folded.  I've been pleased by the selection in the library, but SFF is grouped with general fiction, so the discovery aspect is hardly strong.

I do, however, discover a lot from Twitter.  (I'm not on Facebook or Tumblr in any significant way, so it's tough to know if these can also serve as discovery platforms).  I don't really learn much from book review blogs for a few reasons: first, these seem often to be driven by marketing concerns (i.e. the book that's getting a big marketing push shows up on a lot of review blogs), but also I have difficulty reading a "typical" review (marketing copy, plot summary which repeats the marketing copy to a significant degree, then some response).  There are a handful of reviewers I will read because I learn about reading from them, but it's infrequent that a review prompts me to buy a book (or even read beyond the first few lines).

But here's the thing - I'd like to actively read new to me science fiction and fantasy (a departure from my agenda of the past few years).  I don't particularly care whether it's actually new, beyond the fact that a lot of older SFF is either difficult to find or likely to feel dated, but I'd love to get advice and recommendations.

And there are a lot of voices, particularly on Twitter, that I trust to recommend books.  I regularly email myself tweets in order to add books/authors to my To Be Read pile.

My podcast client is Overcast, which includes a feature that will show the podcasts and recommended episodes of people you follow on Twitter.  I'd love something like that for books.  Some form of bookshelf, curated, easy to follow, with buy links, closely linked to people I follow.  (It's too hard for me on the phone to get from a twitter user to a goodreads list to even check if this is a viable option).

Much as I'm dissatisfied with how Amazon handles the experience of owning and organizing books, I'm also dissatisfied with the experience of discovering new books online.  But good god there's room for someone to come in and develop an easy method to set up links to books tied closely to trusted voices.  The revenue stream is obvious.  Please? Someone? (Pinterest?)

*Unfinished - what would mine look like?

Meta Monday - A Technological Bookshelf

Partly inspired by reorganizing my bookshelves, and partly by Damien Walter's recent post about why ebooks are dissatisfying, this is the first of a short series on the things that might persuade me to move primarily to e-books.

Currently I read about half of my books on the iPhone Kindle app and half in physical form.  (I also listen to occasional audiobooks and generally enjoy the experience but they have to compete with podcasts).  My wife reads all of her books on Kindle apps, primarily on her iPad Mini.

As you can probably tell from the tweets, I have an emotional connection to books.  I like seeing them in a room.  I like organizing and reorganizing them.  I think books talk to each other, and the way you set them up matters.  I think a room without books is like a body without a soul.*

Final bookshelf shot of the day: it makes me very happy to have @nkjemisin and Le Guin shelved next to each other. pic.twitter.com/CT3msmx3ve
— Jonah Sutton-Morse (@jsuttonmorse) July 7, 2014

@jsuttonmorse what about Aeneid vs Civil War vs Tacitus and where does the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire begin?
— Jonah Sutton-Morse (@jsuttonmorse) July 8, 2014

Here's what my Kindle app looks like.

(I can also get a list instead of the covers.  I can sort by Author, title, or date last read/downloaded, I believe).

I do actually read a lot on my phone, almost entirely via the Kindle app (I've tried iBooks and Audible, and haven't found any appreciable difference in the shelving experience, or better reading through iBooks).

I'm quite confident that there's space to have really enjoyable bookshelves on electronic devices, I just haven't seen it yet.  The app that gives me that may pull me farther into the electronic realm.

*Mostly here so that I can put "up a Questionable Quotes" tag to give me an excuse to write about On The Shoulders of Giants (OTSOG) someday.

**Unfinished:

E-Reading Experience

Flipping through e-books

Used bookstores or lack thereof

Discovering books