TOP TEN TUESDAY | ONLINE BOOKISH STUFF

Being a book lover isn’t usually as simple as picking up a book from time to time. I’ve noticed a tendency amongst the most dedicated bookish folk to take it several steps farther. We collect book-related stuff. There are bookmarks (often from The Book Depository) scattered throughout our houses and tucked seemingly at random into various books on our shelves. We seek out like-minded people, and the advent of the internet has made it that much easier to find them. I have a lot of online resources I love for book-related stuff. Here are some of them:

1. Book Riot. Fairly obvious, but has to be said.
2. Epic Reads’ weekly Book Nerd Problems. Short little videos that illustrate some of the experiences and troubles associated with being a book nerd.
3. Bookfinder. I love this site. It searches several online book sellers and then sorts the results by price (including shipping). Not always accurate – sometimes I’ll get a link that ends up having had a price change or one that doesn’t actually ship to my location, but it’s usually pretty good, particularly for out of print books.
4. The Storygraph. This is a relatively new find for me (thanks to Greg), but I love it. It’s kind of like Goodreads – in fact you can import your entire Goodreads library – but it not only tracks the books you read, it takes the themes and genres and sorts them into useful graphs that help you to track your reading throughout the year. I’m obsessed.
5. Chirp. I do use Audible, Rakuten Kobo and my local library for audiobooks as well, but this site has new deals every day, and the deals last for a few weeks usually. So you don’t have to rush to buy or miss out if you forget to check it for a few days. And there’s no subscription required.
6. Storykeepers podcast. This is a relatively new one, but it’s great. Hosted by Waubgeshig Rice and Jennifer David, Storykeepers is like a virtual book club for Indigenous literature. On the 4th of every month they upload a new podcast episode discussing the latest book selection (you can see upcoming books listed on the website so you can read along), and the discussions are engaging and informative. Their next book will be The Lesser Blessed by Richard Van Camp, and the podcast for that book will air on November 4th.
7. Serial Reader. I haven’t used this for a while, but I love the idea. It’s an app that takes classic books and divides them into short bits that take about 15 minutes to read. Every day, it gives you access to a new section of whichever book you selected. It’s a great way to make daunting classics feel more manageable.
8. Out of Print. I have so many t-shirts and cosy sweaters from this site, and I always have several more on my wishlist. My kid even has several kids’ sized shirts of favourite books. I love their stuff, and so far most of it has been pretty comfy.
9. Lovely Books podcast. I only recently discovered this, but I’ve been enjoying it. Sometimes the host can be a little difficult to relate to for me, but there’s enough here and so much book love that it’s well worth a listen.
10. Libby. Not exactly original, but man have I been grateful for this app over the past year! In case you aren’t familiar, Libby is an app that connects to local libraries so you can borrow digital content like ebooks, audiobooks and digital editions of magazines. I adore it, and have been able to read a ton of books in the past year because of it! (I believe it’s the same content as Overdrive, but with a more youth-friendly interface. I’m not 100% sure though.)

So that’s me! Not all super original, but each one a part of my online reading life! What about you guys? Do you use any of these? Did I introduce you to anything new? Which apps or sites have I left off that you love?

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.