SoulCradler

I’m a big fan of Visual Bookshelf, by Living Social, which is a Facebook (and stand alone) application that allows users to search for and display books they are reading in real life.

Moreover, it allows for categorisation of books into ‘Already Read’, ‘Reading Now’ and ‘Want to Read’. The marketing part of the application also allows users to select whether they ‘Own’ or ‘Want to Own’ each listed book. Users can rate books, write reviews, and view other users that also have that book listed.

It has also come in handy for ‘recommending’ to my husband which books I might like to receive for my birthday - he just logged into my Facebook and selected a couple from my ‘Want to Read’ list. How romantic.

The only issue I had with Visual Bookshelf was that it was not embeddable…until now. Check out my new page on this blog for My Bookshelf. The widget doesn’t embed in the sidebar very well, so I’ve just given it its own page. That keeps my home page uncluttered too.

I know many others are using Shelfari, which has similar features, but as I’ve gone to the effort of listing and reviewing over 400 books, I’m not quite ready to jump into Shelfari as well! Perhaps if they add an ‘import’ feature I’ll be more receptive.

I returned from my honeymoon (of sorts) on Thursday. I say of sorts because it was a rather casual meander down the Great Ocean Road; we spent much of it hanging out with my bridesmaid and her partner; and we ran into the rather un-romantic Schoolies Week in Lorne.

So I have been thinking about my holiday reading, and how the best intents are often tainted by Other Things.

Those Other Things while down the coast were quite worth it:

• Spending time with my wonderful husband (!) and two of my greatest friends; friends that I don’t get to see often as they live in Sydney;
• Enjoying amazing fresh local produce at some very swish restaurants
• Walks along the beach, through the forest and around volcanoes
• (This one sounds bad, but) TV - we don’t have any TV reception at home, so I indulged in some while away.

So I took 4 books with me, with the best intents, but didn’t quite get to them…in fact, I have been reading the same 219 page novel for the last 3 weeks. Pretty meagre, huh? Since our return, domestic preoccupations and a couple of engagement parties have kept me from reading anything more than the weekend papers.

And even though the Other Things were definitely worth it, I really want to get some reading done before I become a Tecaher With No Time And Therefore No Life.

So, in order to get me going, I am going to list here the books that I intend to finish before the Big Move (on the weekend before Christmas). They are:

Dharma Rain. After a few heavy fiction books, some non-fiction is in order. Shambhala publications are never disappointing, and SouleMama’s forthcoming book is one from them that I am also hanging on.