best "Be my friend on Goodreads" note ever <3

[hermionesviolin]

Dear Elizabeth S, I also attended a super-queer, super-liberal college (Smith). I keep running across your profile whenever I check out books on queer faith issues and mental health. Would you do me the honor of becoming a goodreads friend so that I, like a good friend, can raid your bookshelves for thought-provoking and interesting tomes? Best wishes, Korri

Comments

[marketsquare.livejournal.com]

At first, I thought that might be a friend of mine, whose interests and personal history are extraordinarily similar and whose name is one letter off.

The world is not only small, but small on many dimensions.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

That was totally who I thought it was at first, too!

(One of these days I will actually manage an encounter/introduction with that Kori.)

[ladyvivien.livejournal.com]

That is AWESOME. Also, should I actually join GoodReads?

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I adore it for having a place to keep a massive To Read list. (It's also a convenient way to keep track of the books you HAVE read -- it'll compartmentalize by year-read, for example.) And you can "shelve" books (like tagging), which I find really useful -- both for managing my own GR library and for browsing other people's.

There are lots of functions I don't use at all, like discussion groups and quizzes. User reviews can be hit-or-miss (as they are anywhere), since so many ~obscure books don't have any reviews. The system will prioritize your GR friends' reviews when you're looking at any given book, which can be really handy. I also like that there's a comment function -- you can both post comments as you're reading the book (which will show up somewhat separately from a full-on review) and also you can comment on other people's reviews/book-adds. And you can Like people's reviews -- which I think gets factored into the algorithm of what order reviews show up in for a given book.

I am happy to talk at great length about GR -- I'm not sure specifically what kind of information you're looking for/would be helpful to you.