The world has really changed over the past decade or so for people who love to read. There are online book clubs, discussion boards, and networks for people who love specific genres such as science fiction and romance. Some of the best resources for book lovers are places where books can be discussed, traded, or both.
One of the top current resources for book lovers is Goodreads.com, which is sort of like Facebook for the world of avid readers. Using a Goodreads account, members can list their favorite books, rank all of the books that they’ve read on a level of one to five stars, attach their own reviews to their rankings, and also discuss books with other members. Goodreads is also a good place to get recommendations.
Another great resource is PaperBackSwap.com. This site allows users to trade books for free. For example, if you’ve just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and want to read her novel The Bean Trees next, you can post The Poisonwood Bible on your account along with any other books that you are willing to swap, receive credits, and use those credits to have The Bean Trees sent right to your front door. If Goodreads is like the Facebook for the world of book lovers, then PaperBackSwap.com is like the Netflix for the world of book lovers.
One of the cool things about PaperBackSwap.com is that it helps users to save money on book purchases. While many avid readers will want to purchase and keep new editions of works by their favorite authors, there might also be books that they’ll enjoy but then happily give up. It’s these books that can be traded on the website which leads to savings for users. Recently, PaperBackSwap.com posted that, in total, users had saved over $20 million by using the service.
