Hello, LibraryThing!

I'm afraid I'm not very good at keeping my sidebar up to date. I have loads of blogs and websites that I go to faithfully but that I just haven't gotten around to adding to my BlogRoll yet. I should really get on that while the year is still fresh and I am full of enthusiasm.

Another thing I've been meaning to do for ages is to get rolling with LibraryThing, which is this really cool . . . well, LIBRARY THING that allows you to catalog your books online. You can also use it to connect with other readers who share your tastes as well as to get recommendations for other books you might enjoy.

I have been stymied by my own perfectionism in getting set up with LibraryThing though. I was plagued with doubts such as would it be cheating to include library books I read? What about books I borrow? What if I read a book and then pass it on? Do I have to purge that title from my collection? As you can see, it is a lot of fun to be me. These are the issues that keep me up at night.

I finally decided to get over myself and just get started with books that I read in 2007 in order to get a feel for the system. (I was inspired by my invisible friend Kim, who keeps an Excel spreadsheet of everything she reads!) Later on I can branch out and start adding older books.

I don't think I will be rating books, at least not in the beginning. I spent a good 15 minutes this morning agonizing over how many stars to assign to each of the 3 books I've got listed thus far. I'm somewhat of a literary trollop (that's fancy talk for "book slut") who is free with my affections when it comes to books. I tend to love most of them, and a line of 5-star reviews isn't really informative when there's nothing to compare them to. ("Oh, look, Bonnie loved another book. Somebody alert the media.") Also, I would hate to hurt the feelings of the rare book that doesn't do it for me. Again, fun to be me!

So the new addition to my sidebar for today is my LibraryThing widget, which will display recent books that I have tagged with "2007." Please let me know if there are any funky display issues.

Now, to get that BlogRoll updated . . .