Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I need to join Mrs. Industries book club.
Once, I had most of my books entered in a Delicious library (mac program that can use an iSight or other camera to scan) but I lost that hard drive. It also did DVDs and CDs, which was cool (though I'm missing most of my cases now so had to enter them by hand). Maybe I'll do this thing someday, but probably not. I'm essentially lazy, and would rather spend my Saturday reading some of those books.
You people who can enter books from memory amaze me. One of the reasons I'm so excited about LibraryThing is that I have very little idea which books I own, and which I used to own, or read and sold, or got out of a library, or just read a review of somewhere but haven't actually seen.
I have fallen in love with my CueCat and want to scan absolutely everything.
The other big part opf my excitement, of course, is that this gives me motivation to get my boxes of books unpacked and my office organized.
I've been LibraryThinging all morning. I'm doing it mostly from memory, inspired by seeing books on other lists or simply starting with an author and going from there.
I desperately want a Cuecat, though. I only have about a sixth (seventh? eighth?) of my books here, and the rest are packed away. Entering them could get tedious.
I'm aiming for the correct cover, too, and not so much the exact edition, which is wrong like a wrong thing, but at least when I look at my library all the books *appear* correctly.
I've decided to ask for the lifetime membership for my birthday. Wheee!
I just got my CueCat yesterday, so I think I'ma start scanning stuff in momentarily...soon as I get up off the couch...any minute now...um...
It looks like about 2 hours of cataloging a day is my limit. Not so much for the cataloging, as for the figuring out how I can arrange my books so I know what's been entered and what hasn't.
Heh. I'm just going shelf by shelf. And since I paid for teh lifetime membership, am trying to NOT go "hmm, I don't really remember this book, and I don't think I liked it, maybe I won't scan it..."
Up to 94 books so far, but that's....the ones that were lying about, about three off my bedside shelves (which are mostly journals and photos) and two shelves of one of my two 6' bookcases. Um. A ways to go, yes...
I've done most of the books that were lying around and one 4-shelf bookshelf. Apparently that comes to 242. I've got at least one more stack on the floor and two more 4-shelf bookshelves, and at least 2 unpacked boxes, to go. I think I'm going to have to get another bookshelf and move the ones I have before I'm done.
Which is good, I've needed to do that for about a year, so if this makes me actually do it, yay.
I keep stopping to edit the titles I've entered -- rate them, add tags, etc.
I figure if nothing else, this is good for insurance purposes. Both so I can say "these are the ones I wanted to replace" and "No really, I DO have sixtbillion books! See!!"
One big 6' shelf done. One 6' shelf and two small shelves (overstuffed) to go.
I'm finding it very interesting to see how many people share the various books--now, granted, I started roughly from the end of the alphabet (yes, my books were at one point alphabetized, and still vaguely are)--but not surprised that Harry Potter #6 is my most shared book. Time Traveller's wife is next, and then Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (which was actually a present from a friend). Huh. And then you get Anne McCaffrey...and then Connie Willis! Higher than Diana Gabaldon! (Though that's just her last one, since as a hardback it was out of alphabetical order) Go Connie Willis! (Now write more books, Connie!)
Off to play more...
I haven't done any rating or reviewing, yet. I'm trying to tag as I go, though.
I've already found several books that I have not only never read I forgot I picked them up. And yet, I'm about to go to the library and get more books I haven't read. I'm going to have a to call a moratorium on bring unread books into the house at some point and get through the ones I have, but not today.