Random Chit-Chat

In case anyone just wants to chat...

Too busy to chat! Too busy to read even! Spending all my time setting up groups on Leafmarks,responding as admin and galloping from pillar to post(or from LibraryThing to Leafmarks to Goodreads to Shelfari etc etc,you get the picture)
Still finding my way around. Just discovered the ''covers'' view,where I can at least SEE some covers. My import from shelfari seems to be a bit wonky,with over 500 duplicate books,and huge numbers of books without covers. I think the problem there is that I have never been interested in the nitty gritty of editing for the correct edition to put on my shelf. I would go for the prettiest,most interesting and most legible cover available,just to look good on my shelf. Or nostalgically go for a cover from 50 years ago when I first read it. Now lots of them are not available on the site,so there will be a lot of editing ahead to get it all looking good.
For the moment though,I thinkIwill designate Sundays as LibraryThing day,do editing,catch upon posts,perhaps even check out lists etc.
But for the moment,I might be conspicuous by my absence.

>2 dustydigger: Covers are not a part of importing, so that is something that needs individual attention (and when you add books individually, the cover shown on the add page is also irrelevant). On every book page there's a link to change cover, where you can choose from Amazon covers or member uploaded covers. Choosing amazon will change your ISBN to that edition, and the cover can change, if a new one for that ISBN is added to amazon; member covers are strongly recommended.
Also, LT is the opposite of what you were saying, haha, we're all about the data here, so, you can use anything you like for your covers, but we have no generic editions or anything, so the typical thing is to add in/correct all the data to be accurate for our editions, which also includes the covers. Many people, myself included, will go to lengths to make sure their covers are entirely accurate to their edition. :)

>2 dustydigger:
Wait a few days. When I did my import it seemed that none of the covers appeared, but when I checked yesterday (to start adding reviews / ratings where missing ... and yes, covers) I discovered that most of the covers are there now. Still missing reviews/ratings/tags in places, but I feel a little better ...

As long as there are covers added for the book, the system will automatically assign you one. An amazon one by default if there is a matching ISBN for one of them, otherwise it defaults to "best guess" based on the ISBN vs the ISBNs of other people's books and the covers they've chosen.

Don't know if some mentioned this but my books that have no covers often have authors like paperback, kindle etc
Interesting

You need to fix those. Then you can combine with the main work and have access to the covers. I've seen a lot of this. At work level we can do a lot if we can figure out where the book really belongs, but at book level only the member can fix things.

For example, it was easy to assume that your book Mildred Pierce was by James M. Cain. Under that assumption, I combined it with the main work, but your copy is still by Hardcover. On the other hand, I have no idea which 'Forever' your book should be combined with.

BTW I'm on several times a day and am always happy to walk people through their first combining efforts, so if you think there must be others who own your book, ask me on my profile, including the URLs of a few books that need help.

Does anyone know if there is a way to delete duplicates en masse?
Or a way to remove all books to then download the list again?

The former, I don't believe is possible. The latter you can do with power edit (the lightning bolt icon).

Thank you so much for your rapid reply!

I tend to be around a lot, when I'm not sleeping or eating. Even reading tends to be done at my desk and I randomly drop by Talk. ;P

Hi, all, not really doing a lot of chit-chatting yet as I'm learning the systems. Right now I'm crazily learning 4 places other than Shelfari (mostly following groups) and hope things will settle down. I think I'm really going to like it here once I'm used to it, though.

>12 Karin7: Welcome, we're happy to have you!

>12 Karin7: Wow, Karin! What other sites? GR, LM and here... Are you trying out Booklikes, as well?

Yes, including Booklikes, but I don't like it much at all. I had joined back in 2014 when a few Shelfarians were talking about it. Now I'm only posting reviews there, but might just quit it altogether. They have a few discussions, but not really of interest to me.

>1 LibraryCin: Took me a while to get here, anyway I have discovered the Help topics for be, well, rather helpful. Glad I already had my books here.

>16 BellaFoxx: LOL! I'm glad you've found them helpful!

So... now the "pink banner of death" at shelfari gives us a "deadline" date of May 31. I wonder why...

Thanks for posting this Cindy - I might not have checked, and I continue to need as much time as possible to get my data squared away on the various sites. I think LT is going to be my new primary site, though I plan to keep a running back-up at GR

>18 LibraryCin: No problem! Maybe there are still others who would like to use the extended time to finish a few more things up, as well.

I have decided the same, Booklover889. I am making this my primary, and just updating Goodreads once a week, or so. I must admit that I still pine for Shelfari. I guess we never forget our first love, even if it's a shelf. :)

My friend request for you is pending.

>19 Booklover889: >21 CarmenMilligan: Mwhahahaha the grand plan of the existing LT users... it is a working... mwhwahaha.... ;)

In all seriousness I'm glad that y'all have found some sort of book home here. Even if it's a little dusty *sneeze* (no, seriously, I wrote dusty and in real life sneezed... doo doo doo doo) and the owner has been obsessed with his Teeny Tiny Cat for awhile? :D

And amidst the news yesterday that Leafmarks will be shutting down, tonight is the last of shelfari, :'( I was just there and took what is likely my last long look...

>23 LibraryCin:

I guess it's official...

Going to www.shelfari.com now takes you to a Goodreads greeting page stating that the sites have 'merged', (I still don't think that word means what Amazon/GR would like it to mean...)

re: Shelfari ...
I may have made the last post - 1:11 p.m. CDT today.

>25 BookConcierge: I don't think I saw that one, BC, so it may have been the last... :'(

I now have 2,000 tags. This same thing happened when I moved to LM. There, the LM moderator was kind enough to reduce then to 8. Is there a way to reduce my 2,000 book tags for my 820 books to a manageable number without doing each book individually?

You can use power edit to batch edit things. Or remove them all from the column before running your import? I admit I'm confused where they're all coming from if you keep removing them...

>27 jerry-book: I'm looking at your tags and I'm not sure what you mean by, they were reduced to 8? Which 8? I mean. It does look like some of them -- like "creative non-fiction" and "creative nonfiction" could be clicked on and then you change one to the other. But, overall they seem to be all individual tags about the book? Confused.

>29 DanieXJ: DanielX

When I switched from Shelfari to Leafmarks I had the problem there with 2000 shelves/tags. The moderator their reduced the number from 2000 to 8.

I just recently have been trying Librarything since Leafmarks is doomed. Here I find my 820 books have about 2000 tags when they were imported. I was looking for a way to reduce the number of tags to a more usable number without editing each of the 820 books.

>30 jerry-book: Are the tags not tags you wanted? Looking at your tags, there's an easy way to reduce the number, because you have tags like American Civil War (1) & American civil war (1) & american civil war (4) which could easily be combined into one tag. It's impossible to get them down to 8 if you want all the information in those tags. If you just want to start from scratch and limit yourself to 8 tags total, the best place to do that is Power Edit.

You mention tags in the same breath as shelves, as well. I think maybe what you want is all your tags (but fixed), but you want only 8 collections. Collections are much more akin to shelves than tags are. You can edit your collections from anywhere where there's a dropdown for collections (your books, add books, etc), and you can use power edit to put your books into whichever collection they belong after you make your collectionis.

>31 bestem: Shelves are what GR uses instead of tags. So while collections serve as a kind of digital shelf of sorts, the vocab from various sites may simply be interfering here.

>30 jerry-book: LT is more like shelfari with the tags (it's GR and LM that call them all shelves). Shelfari also had its own fixed shelves of Read, Currently Reading, To Read, Favourites, Wish List, etc. It sounds like some people have some good ideas for you if you want to preserve the information in the tags.

Me, I use lots of tags, but I do try to double check what I've already used for capitalization, spacing, spelling, etc. Even at GR and LM, I often just call(ed) them tags.

I spent ages when we moved to Leafmarks editing all my ''shelves'' down from 1200 to about 50.It was a nuisance having a lot when you wanted to tag a book''young adult'' and had to scroll down those 1200 to get to YA! Now I am here and have all those tags back,but neatly tucked away on the home page.I tag every author for reference,and its a big help for my poor old memory!

>30 jerry-book: It's Danie not Daniel (XJ is because there are many Danie's in the world).

It does sound like you're looking for 'shelves' (which on LT are called collections) that are each a different genre or sub-genre (like history, or travel, or fiction, or non-fiction).

GR Shelves=LT Collections

And LT Tags can sort of be used like Sub Collections. If I go into my Read Collection, and then I click on the mystery tag, it takes me to all the mysteries that I have read and entered. Or if I click on Bold Strokes Books while in my Read Collection then I go to all those books that were published by Bold Strokes books (and that I've remembered to add a tag for BSB to).

I'm also pretty sure that it's not something that the admins can do for you, but, as others have said. Using Power Edit (when you're in your library it's the button at the top that has a lightning bolt picture on it) makes it not totally painless, but much less painless to do. You can also remove tags with power edit once the books are in the correct collection.

>34 dustydigger: I just popped into your library. Holy crap, you tag all your authors. I'm stunned and very impressed. And I thought that I had a lot of tags... :D

lol! Danie,what can I say,I am OCD about my books,I want everything at my fingertips, dates,genres,authors,all ready to go! Nice and easy, made accessing and using your shelf very easy.

>35 DanieXJ: Danie, Dusty is also well renowned for her lists too.

>37 Andrew-theQM: >35 DanieXJ: I think "renowned" may even be an understatement! Hahaha!

>35 DanieXJ: I now get the power edit. How do I set up special collections like American Presidents or do you use tags for that?

>39 jerry-book:

That's your choice... You can edit collections, (create, delete, rename, etc), by clicking 'Your books' then click on the 'Collections' button. At the bottom of the list is 'Edit collections...'

I only have ~15 collections. I organize everything else using tags. As others have already mentioned, it's actually very much like the Shelfari way of doing things. LT is actually more powerful though since you don't really need to tag for the fields that are already available on the 'Your books' page, (author, subject, etc)...

HTH!

>39 jerry-book: So I use collections for big important things. I have a collection for books that are on my Nook, and for digital books that aren't on my Nook (got them from Humble Bundle, or Audible). I would have more collections if we could get pretty colored checkmarks for personal collections (one for things that I have the omnibus of, or for omnibuses that I have all the contents of, for example).

I use tags for subjects, and for other things I want to see at a glance. If I'm tagging the publisher, because I think it's interesting data to see what publishers I like, I'll preface the tag with the word "publisher: " and that way they'll all group together.

If I make a tag that isn't prefaced with a word, and it isn't something like genre, and has more than 100 books in it, it's probably a fairly integral part of my library and deserves a collection.

In my other account, the one I play with importing on, and am trying to catalogue my entire e-library on, I have a collection called "Import" that I try to put all the imported books into, and then I move them where they go after looking over them. I have a collection called "Trello" that once I put the book on Trello, so I can download it, and put the download link in private comments, it makes it easy for me to find a book I can download when I'm at work or on the bus. I don't use tags in that account, although, maybe one day I will.

To sum it up, I use collections for large numbers of books, and tags for smaller numbers of books. If I want to group similar tags together, I preface them with a word, or a special character.

Re: Special characters. Some sort at the beginning of the list, some at the end. And some make trouble.

I may explore using collections for some of my lists e.g.Hugo winners.For the moment I have just plonked the whole lot in a private group and will leave the headache for later.
Got enough on my plate adding about 70 titles manually from LM at the moment,and sorting out my groups. :0)
Reading itself? Terrible,havent finished a book yet this month!

>43 dustydigger: That sounds like something a bit more for tags. You can do that with collections, but having more than 15 or so collections starts getting unwieldy, as they weren't intended to be used for many small things, but few large things.

And don't worry, I've only just made a start on my first title of the month. :P

>43 dustydigger: I have about 35 collections right now and I use it for those kind of things - I prefer it to tags. At the moment, I only have the 1001 Books List but I'm intending on using them for others (such as Hugo etc.) when I have some more time. I don't find it unwieldly at all. Way back when Collections were developed and in BETA, I could see that this was a perfect way for me to use the 'Tags' view in my catalogue to do what I needed it to for browsing, i.e. give me a Windows Explorer kind of view with the collection folders along the side in a side bar and the tags functioning as a nested selection. It's still a work in progress ... life and reading get in the way ... but hopefully I will eventually be able to browse read/unread/subject tags, whatever, for each of my collections in this way. It sufficed when the launched 'Lists' feature did nothing at all I needed/wanted from a lists feature. So it really does depend how you think you'll work with it. There's no rule of thumb.

>43 dustydigger: Dusty, this is the second time this year the closure of a website has impinged on our reading!

Many people who came over from Leafmarks were using the Group 'What Are We Reading 2016' to track their reading. I know this group has moved over to Goodreads so I thought I'd set up this group so that anyone that wants to can track their reading. Hopefully this group will be made up of a small group of like minded members who like to discuss and share the books they are reading. Please feel free to join the group if this resonates with you.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/readittrackit2016

I'm looking for some active groups to join. So far I've only found a few that are very active. I so miss the group's from our old Shelfari😕 Any suggestions?

>48 Raspberrymocha: There are a ton of groups here, and quite a lot of active ones. You'd have to be a bit more specific on what you're looking for...

>48 Raspberrymocha: There are a lot of active challenge groups, RM. Is that something you would be interested in? I can suggest a few different ones if that interests you.

>48 Raspberrymocha:

It's definitely not the same as Shelfari groups, but these two are pretty active:
Literary Snobs (admit I dislike the name of the group) ... http://www.librarything.com/groups/literarysnobs
What Are You Reading Now? ... http://www.librarything.com/groups/whatareyoureadingno

OK, so I can have collections *and* tags.

I'm going through and modifying my tags from Leafmarks to LT. I know, it's a painstaking process, but my OCD brain won't let me stop until everything is "perfect." Plus, it helps me weed out some overused or unused tags that I meant to get to on Leafmarks, and I had probably clicked on on Shelfari as a quick way to tag something.

And in typical internet fashion, as soon as I click on a book to update its tag, I go somewhere else to read the reviews of that book, or find discussions, or reserve a copy at the library.

So all this activity is helping me get more familiar with LT. I think I'll start Collections next: mystery, science fiction, biography . . .

>51 BookConcierge: Thanks! I just joined both, so I'll be seeing more of you!👋🏻😀

Here's another one I found just noodling around:

http://www.librarything.com/groups/2017categorychallenge

They have different challenges run by different individuals with some interesting sounding idea.

>54 threadnsong: This is my main challenge group! It's really a lot of fun! Of course, at the moment, I'm in the 2016 group, but you get the idea! The start of 2017 might be a good time to get started with the challenge group for whoever is intersted!

>54 threadnsong: When I click that link, I get, "Problem This group does not exist or has been deleted."

>56 ScoLgo: Try this:
http://www.librarything.com/groups/2017categorychalleng

>53 Raspberrymocha: Great Rasp! Looking forward to "seeing" more of you, too.

My memory feed on facebook reminded me that it was one year ago today that the pink banner of death appeared, sharing the bad news. RIP shelfari. :-(

I'm still sad about losing Shelfari. LT works, but it isn't the same.

>60 Hope_H: There are definitely things I miss. I still miss nested threads (though I'm getting used to this).

One thing I find myself missing as I read various books is being able to log into shelfari to see the character list. In case I missed a character's introduction (especially in audio books!), I often would use the character list to figure out (or remind myself) who one of the characters is!

I recently wanted to go into shelfari to add the books mentioned (i.e. "cited") in one of the books I just finished.

I used to do quite a bit of editing of shelfari's book pages. And I used that info (especially the character lists), as well!

>61 LibraryCin:
Yes, I really miss those character lists, too!

>61 LibraryCin: >62 BookConcierge: Yep, amazing how many times you want them when they aren't there. I also miss the locations list! Made challenges so much easier!

Dratt! I keep forgetting this is here.

Belated Happy New Year to the rest of the refugees!

>61 LibraryCin:
I've been really good about including a location in my tags/shelves (both on Library Thing and GoodReads) for the last year or so. Doesn't help much with older books that I transferred from Shelfari, unless I had also listed a location. I stick to country or, if USA, the state; I don't list cities (except for Washington D.C. so as not to confuse it with the state of Washington)

>65 BookConcierge: That's a good idea. :)

I often use locations as tags, as well. Usually the country (except in the US); for Canadian books,I will use both the country and the province; in the US, I usually use the state or sometimes lump areas together (i.e. New England, American South, etc.). On rare occasions, I will use the city.

>61 LibraryCin: Character lists are available in Common Knowledge but it is up to the members to make the list. I am trying to remember to fill in the locations and characters, but I don't read many mainstream source books I primarily read kindle ebook editions.

>65 BookConcierge: I have been adding locations by tag. I hope to go back at end of year and chart how many countries I have travelled as well as states in the US.

>69 Bettesbooks: You should join us on our World Challenge on the Mystery and Suspense Extra Group Bette, we are trying to visit countries on continents over a two monthly period. In January and February we are targeting European Countries. So far collectively we have racked up 15 countries in January, our target is 24 countries in Europe before the end of February. Then we move to a new continent in March.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/245008

We move to North America, Central America and the Caribbean in March and April. During this two month period we will also be targeting states in the US.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/244914

>68 Bettesbooks: Thanks, Bette! I have seen that. From what I was told, they are only for names, though, not descriptions of who they are, which is often what I'd like to find out!

>71 LibraryCin: Sorry, I can't remember exactly how they worked on Shelfari, I was thinking you listed a name entered a hyphen, then listed a short description.

I'm not sure but can't we ask to do that here?

>70 Andrew-theQM:, I'll take a look in. Did you know that the Caribbean Islands are considered part of the North America?

I believe there are something like 43 nations that make up North America such as Aruba.

>72 Bettesbooks: There is a character description section in the upper right of each character page. As an example, the Sherlock Holmes page has a character description and some users have entered very brief info relating to the specific appearance in the "order" section.

>72 Bettesbooks: There were separate "boxes" to enter the name, then the description, on shelfari.

I asked once about doing it here in one of the "official" LT groups and it seemed to be frowned upon. I thought maybe we could do what you've suggested. I can't recall the reason.

Thinking more about it now, it could be that I might have asked if they could add a separate description field, and that was a no. If I could remember where I asked it, I'd point to it, but it was a while ago. If I remember, I'll let you know.

On the other hand, I suppose you could go ahead and do what you're suggesting, anyway. :-) But then, it doesn't really encourage other people to help out, without a specific "field" asking for the info, as well.

>74 amanda4242: I didn't know there were character pages. But then, that would really only refer to the character as a whole in every book, yes? I assume you'd only find that for "popular" characters, as well; less so for minor characters in one book, for instance?

What I tend to use that for (or used, over at shelfari), was more likely for a minor character. I could go find the list of characters for that specific book and be reminded that so-and-so is so-and-so's sister or aunt or whatever the relation might be.

How do you get to those character pages? Thanks.

>76 LibraryCin: Like most things here, the information available depends on someone taking the time to enter it. In the Common Knowledge section on every work page there is a People/Characters field where you can enter the info. To enter character names, just click on the field and type one name per line; info entered in parentheses after the name will be listed in the "order" section on the character page.

The field isn't limited to major characters, but I wouldn't go overboard adding names since there's no sort (the order you enter the info is the order it's displayed) and adding really minor characters (random waiter, delivery boy, etc.) is frowned upon as it makes it hard to find the characters who are actually relevant to the story/having a meaningful relationship to a major character. The characters don't have to appear in any other books either: for example, I just entered characters for the stand-alone novel Strata, so that will most likely be the only book ever listed on the characters' pages.

After the character's name has been entered and saved on the work page, it turns into a link which will take you to the character's page. On that page, there is a field in the upper right corner to enter a character description.

Hope that helps!

ETA: you may find the Common Knowledge wiki and the Common knowlege group helpful resources.

>77 amanda4242: Thank you. I have seen it and I knew I could enter the names. Good to know I can click on it to get to a character's page (I guess I'd never tried). I guess the next time I am trying to figure out who a character is in a book, I'll check to see if anyone has 1. entered the name and 2. entered a description. I'm not too hopeful that minor characters will have descriptions to help me out, though.

What happens with characters who only have a first name, though... of if there is the same name of a character in two different books. Not the same character, just the same name?

Just playing around with this with the current book I'm reading. None of the characters have descriptions on their pages.

But, I do like clicking on the places and seeing other books listed with that place as one of the book's locations.

>78 LibraryCin: For characters with only a first name or a really common one, put some sort of clarifying info, like series name or book title, inside brackets after their name and they'll get their own page.

>80 amanda4242: Thank you!

>79 LibraryCin: Just started playing around with the characters and descriptions that you brought up.

It is kinda cool how it works in a series. Check out the LT entry Mechanics of Murder by RaeAnne and A Wrench in the Plan by RaeAnne Hadley. I like the way you can add new characters and show the relationships as the series develops.

I am trying to remember to take the time to add characters and locations to each book as I read it. Only in series will I probably want to go back to older books.

>82 Bettesbooks: I have looked at it a couple of times (though not with a series... I'll check it out), but haven't (yet) added anything. I just might start, though.

Hello! I haven't been around for a while (health and stuff), so I thought I'd stop in and say hello. Hello! :) I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the weather whatever it is where you are. We're one week into spring here, and I'm already completely over the summer heat and horrible humidity. SMH

Have a great week!

My photo on my front page is missing and so are some of the pictures from my titles. Is there a problem or is it me?

http://www.librarything.com/topic/265644

Seems to be harder to fix than they thought.

My photos are working now so it seems that they fixed it. Thanks!

Popped over here to see if there were any posts that I'd missed in this group. Nothing, but it's sure nice looking at the photo of the old shelfari shelf...

I miss the shelfari bookshelf too!

>88 LibraryCin: >89 JulieLill: And nesting! 😢

>90 Andrew-theQM: Yes, that, too.

Nesting and bookshelves...sigh... "don't know what you've got till its gone."

I check every week and always love seeing those bookshelves. Gosh, I miss Shelfari.

I can't recall if anyone here is part of the 2017 Challenge group? Or, if there is anyone interested in choosing challenges for next year, the 2018 group is now up and we will start hashing out challenge ideas soon, in case anyone here is interested:

https://www.librarything.com/groups/2018categorychalleng

Oh, My Stars! It's December already .... Hope everyone has a happy holiday season.

>94 LibraryCin: Thank you LibraryCin! I'll have to review some of these challenges and see how they can tie into my TBR list.

And I so miss nesting and the lovely LT shelf!

>96 threadnsong: Yeah, I miss the nesting and the shelfari shelf, too!

Happy New Reading Year!

Happy New Year to you, BC, and everyone else!

Just have to stop in and look at the pretty shelves once in a while.

>100 BookConcierge: LOL! Good thought!

Sure hope the recent wonkiness here at LT isn't a portent of bad things to come.

>102 BookConcierge: No I think they were just doing maintenance.

>103 EadieB: Nah, "unscheduled maintenance" = "CRAP! We broke it!" ;=)

>104 tealadytoo: They have an app called Litsy (look under the Groups here). I believe they are cleaning up this site because they may have plans to expand Litsy. I seriously do believe they are not closing down but moving forward for the future.

Oh, I don't think they have any plans to go away. But I do think there was a serious unintentional meltdown this weekend. No idea what triggered it, but something done for Litsy is certainly a possibility. This stuff just happens sometimes. At least they kept us informed, which was a nice touch.

>106 tealadytoo: I think they were changing servers.

Just came by to look at the lovely shelves ... I miss Shelfari's shelves!

>108 BookConcierge: Me too!

>108 BookConcierge: Have to admit, I didn't check if the image was copyright protected (oops!), but I'm really glad I looked for such an image to use for this group!

Hello:

Auntie Nanuuq here, I forgot we had a group here...

Mostly I post on Goodreads & on the Goodreads: Bookchat group I created on FB.

Strange: Most all of my covers were imported.

I gave up on Leafmarks, but I do not remember why....

>113 Auntie-Nanuuq: I was on Leafmarks and that folded too, so if you gave up on it-don't worry about it!

I come here once in awhile and was quite surprised to see comments!

>111 Auntie-Nanuuq: Well, welcome back!

>111 Auntie-Nanuuq: Hi Auntie! Nice to see you here!

>111 Auntie-Nanuuq: Long time no see!!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Hello, everyone.

In the USA we're about to celebrate Thanksgiving. Grocery stores are crowded; all the 'baking' supplies are front and center.

Among the things I'm thankful for are all my Shelfari friends who continue to keep in contact either through Library Thing or GoodReads.

>119 BookConcierge: Hi, BC! Happy (early) Thanksgiving!

>119 BookConcierge: Happy Thanksgiving!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

>122 BookConcierge: Same to you, BC!

>123 tealadytoo:,>122 BookConcierge:
Ditto!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my Book Buddies.

Merry Christmas, one and all! 🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🍾🥂

❤ Happy Valentine's Day ❤

Who's your literary crush?

For me it is Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird ... a man with integrity, calm in the face of danger, able to get along with just about anyone, and always kind.

Definitely Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice!

Roarke or Cotton Malone.

I’m male, so my passions are different. My first literary passion was for Mary Tudor (1496-1533) Queen of France, in the novel ‘When Knighthood Was In Flower’ written by Charles Major in 1898. But I didn’t read it until 1965. She was not the Queen of England known as Bloody Mary, and daughter of Henry VIII, but she was Princes Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII. She was head strong, but forced into an arranged married the King of France. She was only married to the King for a short time, when the King died, and she was returned to England. Then she married her own true love, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, against the wishes of her brother. They were almost tried for treason.

She is only my first. I have others,… if you are interested.

Another favorite of mine: Natasha Rostova from War & Peace.

Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe,
Georgette Heyer's Duke of Avon and indeed all her regency heroes
Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan
Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars
Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco.
Some of these I have adored for over 55 years!! :0)

Oh, my.

Captain Wentworth from Austen's Persuasion.
Jack Sinclair from Carla Kelly 's Softly Falling.
John Puller from David Baldacci's Puller series. Zero Day
Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing.

Last one: The Lady Mariko Buntaro in James Clavell’s Shogun.

Oh, and Rex Stout's Archie Goodwin. :=)

I miss Shelfari very much. Under a different name, I co-administered the main 'What Are You Reading?' group over there for about three years.

I have to go along with >129 Raspberrymocha:. Love that hunky Irishman, Roark!!!

>136 Molly3028: We all have a hole in our hearts where Shelfari used to reside. LibraryThing has been very good to us and I for one am extremely grateful they were here so I can stay in touch with all my friends. Andrew even figured out how we could continue with our book discussions.

>136 Molly3028: >137 Carol420: Shelfari 😭😭😭😭😭🤬🤬🤬

i was thinking about Shelfari and all the online acquaintances whom I miss. i miss the free and easy talk, discussions and down right silliness of Shelfari. LT works for keeping track of books and reading, but it sure doesnt encourage fun social groups of all kinds of readers. I cant navigate GR on my iphone, so I never go there. Besides, I'm still mad at GR for murdering Shelfari.🤷‍♀️

>139 Raspberrymocha: . . . . "mad at GR for murdering Shelfari" - LOVE that description! I feel the same way!

>139 Raspberrymocha: >140 Hope_H: Me too!

Premediated murder at that.

>139 Raspberrymocha: >140 Hope_H: >141 Andrew-theQM: Indeed. Though I didn't like the GR platform before it took down Shelfari, that was the arsenic-laden icing on the cake.

>139 Raspberrymocha: >140 Hope_H: >143 tealadytoo: That’s what got me, they kept the inferior model!

>144 Andrew-theQM: Exactly! Wouldn't it be great if some wellheeled book geeks would revive the Shelfari model for a new book site. I'd be there in a flash. I just don't participte in many groups here. The ones that interest me have gone dormant for the most part. Plus everything seems so ernest and intent in the few chat type groups, where they do not tend to welcome new faces, comments or ideas, much less silliness.

>145 Raspberrymocha: Couldn’t agree more and we all need silliness in our lives!

>146 Andrew-theQM:. Thank goodness for The Silly Book. One of my all-time favorites. :=)

>139 Raspberrymocha:
Just to be clear Goodreads did NOT murder Shelfari ..... Amazon murdered Shelfari.

Amazon bought both GR and Shelfari and didn't need two platforms. GR was far larger with millions of users so Amazon made a business decision to support the larger, more robust platform.

>145 Raspberrymocha: That's one of my goals when I win one of those huge lotteries!

It's been a long time since anyone checked in here. Just thought I'd drop in and say, "Hi."

>150 BookConcierge: I popped in here within the past couple of weeks, but can't remember if I posted anything (likely not).

I went to check the group page, and got this "error" message:

"The reported error was:

Problem with the concurrent query manager in the LibraryThing Bureau of Garbage Collections.
We have an entire room of trained monkeys working to solve the problem.."

I have to say, LT is amusing where there are errors (or the site is down).

>150 BookConcierge: Hi BC!!!!! Dusty is still here,running a group,recording my reads,but the glory days of chatting are gone.Without nesting its just not easy.We try our best on the Trove (my private group,run on old shelfari lines) but I remember when my group of 22 members back in 2015 regularly posted 1600 posts a month.We are down to about 15 members who post at least monthly,but the numbers of posts are quite low now,only a few 100 posts a month. We still have a chat thread,and manage perhaps 60-80 posts a month there,but we were regularly produced ten times that a month on shelfari and the total posts were over 1600 a month,and we were a small group! 1600 posts a month here on LT would make us one of the most prolific groups,with hundreds of members! lol
It just shows how effective a well organised nesting scenario is to engender a lively active group! Only former members of shelfari can understand it,people here rarely understand. :0(

"The birds of the air have nests; but the old Shelfarians have no where to lay their posts." Or something like that. ;=)

Happy Fall all you Northern Hemisphere Shelfarians. And Happy Spring to our Southern Hemisphere members.

I love the change of seasons, and the crisp, cool days of Autumn.

>154 BookConcierge: Absolutely. I enjoy all four seasons, but Fall is my favorite.

Happy holidays to one and all! I'm spending some time with my family (and also a former Shelfari friend whom I met in person one year!)

Enjoy the blessings of the season.

See you next year!

>156 BookConcierge: Merry Christmas! Enjoy your time with your family, and your shelfari friend! (Curious who that might be... if you're willing to share!)

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to everyone else, as well!

I blinked and missed autumn this year. We had week after week of endless wind and rain,the dirty brown leaves dropped off all mushy and nasty.Never once managed to walk through drifts of crisp colourful leaves this year! lol.Its still raining on and off and some areas of UK are flooded,ruining Xmas for many. So sad.
Anyhoo Happy holidays/Merry Xmas to everyone. Hope you get some great books .I put out strong hints for book vouchers,and am enjoying planning what to buy :0)
Just finished the last books of my multitude of challenges on LT. The Century of Books (reading a book for each year 1920-2019) was pretty tough going at times .As was my 80 book SF/Fantasy challenge over on Worlds Without End,though fortunately there was a lot of overlap. But it did take reading over 190 books to finish my challenges I intend to be a bit more relaxed this year,but unfortunately I can rarely resist a challenge,and always end up biting off almost more than I can chew!
A lot of former shelfarians congregate on Read It,Track It to record our reading. Hope to see you all there next month.
New decade,lots of books. Cant wait!

The best holiday gift is new books, for sure! Can't wait to see what comes my way.

>157 LibraryCin:
I met w/ Diana S and Marilyn - both people I met through Shelfari and now we meet in person whenever I'm in SAT.

Hope everyone is staying safe during the pandemic. Be kind to one another. Read books. Wash your hands.

>161 BookConcierge: Have to admit, I haven't yet changed much. Things are really starting to change this week. My book club all decided they'd rather meet online this week, so that happened via f/b this week. My volunteering is cancelled the next two weeks. At work, we are setting up to work from home. I expect that won't start till Monday.

I do take public transit, but to be honest, so many other people are staying home that there are very few people on the buses and trains. There is lots of space for "social distancing".

I'm sad that my public library has now closed. I had just gone through most of my monthly challenges to pick out what I'd read next month, but I will have to try again and substitute anything that was originally going to be a physical book from the library. I am concerned that the already busy ebooks and audios will be even harder to come by now, as well.

For the most part, I'm young(ish!) and healthy, so I have to admit I've not been worried.

Update from Wisconsin, March 25. The Governor has issued a "safer at home" order, effective now through April 24. (He dislikes the phrases "shelter in place" or "lockdown" ... considering both to be unnecessarily alarming to the public. Whatever he calls it, it's the same thing.) Won't be much change from what Hubby and I have been doing the past week (we go out for a grocery / pharmacy / hardware run ... and once got a carry-out food order, delivered to our car, "curbside"). I'm distressed that bookstores weren't on the "essential" list. My indie bookseller has been closed to in-store browsing for a week already (voluntarily), but offering curbside pick-up or local delivery. Now he'll have to shut entirely. I don't think his business will survive.

Update on my local indie bookseller. He was granted an "essential educational resource" exemption! He can only provide curbside pick-up, but at least we can still order books. He is not accepting any used books for turn-in at this point.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the USA (and elsewhere).

I'm particularly thankful for robust "virtual" book clubs and all my on-line reading friends.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, BC, and anyone else in the US!

Happy Holidays to all. Be safe ... live to enjoy future holiday seasons.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, All!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone. 🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅

Merry Christmas!

5 years this week since the notorious Pink Banner appeared on Shelfari.Its been a rocky road,but I finally got used to LT,had all my elements sorted for my convenience and ease of use - and now they've changed everything again! Aarrgghh!!!!!!!.
You know me and lists,I use so many,and do challenges,tabled normallyjust below currently active topic threads.Everything else I ''ignored'' at the end of each monthkept it all neat and important stuff in sight. All scattered to the winds now,I have to click on to separate pages and do lots more clicking to see my lists. I sometimes have to have up to 5 tabs open to have all my info in view. And as for old lists from early years its a pain scrolling down pages to find lists from way back,when last week they were on a few threads down the group page.Annoying.
2020 was a rocky year,and unbelievably 2021 started off even worse! lol. But there are hopes for the future. I long for the day libraries will be fully open (I havent been in one for a full year. Nightmare.) and that with vaccine protection I can once again roam the aisles looking for the next great read!

And many of us were also getting used to leafmarks before that was pulled out from under us a few months(?) after shelfari died. :-( Still miss shelfari.

ETA: And can you believe it's been 5 years!!!?

I miss Shelfari too!

Shelfari 😢

Yes, I miss my pretty shelves on Shelfari. So glad Cindy saved a screen shot that we can use here for our logo!

Nice to hear from you Dusty! We're obviously not in any of the same groups here. I spend most of my time on GoodReads. I was using that site concurrently w/ Shelfari and very familiar with layout, etc, so it was an easier transition for me. I do like having a back-up, and that's why I also maintain my books read list here as well.

As for tracking my challenges .... I use excel spreadsheets. And yes, I do sometimes have to have multiple tabs open, but that's okay with me.

>177 BookConcierge: (Shhhh - should I admit that I probably found that one online? But, I did save a lot of screenshots, actually. Hmmm, I probably could have used my own for our logo here!)

My how the time has flown! Here it is at the end of May already.

Hope many of you are fully vaccinated (or at least have had one shot) ... and can begin returning to a "new normal."

Hubby and I are going out to dinner with our neighbors this evening. We chose an early reservation to limit the crowd, but still ....

>179 BookConcierge: Enjoy! The Mr. and I went out to dinner for the first time in a year yesterday. It was great, even if we did go early and close to home.

We've gone out a few times during the pandemic. Usually a "late lunch / early dinner" ... 2:30p and you have the restaurant pretty much to yourself.
Works for us since we're retired and not tied to a work schedule.

But I do miss an evening out with friends and drinks and conviviality. Sure is good to start getting closer to that normal.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Right back at ya, JulieLill!

Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday and were able to spend time with family and friends.

Happy New Year, everyone. Hope 2022 brings you many blessings, including some great books to read!

Happy Valentine's Day. Hope everyone is both loving and being loved today.

Hello BookConcierge and everyone from Shelfari! Remembering how their shelves looked, the reading groups we had, and hope 2022 has been a good year for y'all.

>186 threadnsong: Hi! Nice to pop back into this group again. Makes me want to pull out the screenshots I took and saved. :-)

>186 threadnsong: >187 LibraryCin: I miss our Shelfari days, the bookshelves (much better then a anything else we’ve seen anywhere), the groups and the very visible and easy way you could add characters, character descriptions, settings etc.

>188 Andrew-theQM: Yes, I also miss adding the book info - characters, etc. it was easy and it was appealing to look at. (And the little competition that kept track of where you fell for number of edits prompted me to add more! I was just barely into the top 100 when shelfari shut down!)

>189 LibraryCin: Yes, that was a great feature and kept you editing.

How nice to see everyone here. Add my voice to those who miss our lovely Shelfari shelves!

Cant believe we have been here over SIX YEARS!!. Yet so many of us still yearn for those good old shelfari days.I loved the group shelves in particular,there at the top of the page everyday. At the side of the page the time and details of the latest posters and other info.The great layout,nested of course,and only showing a conversation if you wanted to see it,otherwise it was discreetly hidden.
Because of the fabulous layout we could have long conversations,with 20 or more comments all together.without disturbing the whole thread.Cant have proper conversations here because comments are separated by other topics. Its just not the same. :0(

I check in here once in awhile. I too miss Shelfari!

I like the people here, but Shelfari was just so darned beautiful!

>192 dustydigger: 6 years! Crazy! And sad... Yes, still miss the shelves and the nested conversations.

>192 dustydigger: Ditto .... especially about the conversations and nested replies.

Hope all the former Shelfarians' have a great holiday season!

>197 JulieLill: Same to you!!!

Happy Holidays to all!

I am in the midst of a month of vacation time at work. :-) Also just passed my 50th birthday.

>199 LibraryCin: wow Cin, we are like Book Club Twins! Not only do we have a lot of books in common, I also just turned 50 in November. Turning 40 was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I'm excited to see what this decade will have in store for me. Hope it's great for you too!

>200 Darth-Heather: Wow, that's pretty cool! And thank you!

Happy Holidays to all! Here in Wisconsin we're expecting a blizzard starting tonight. Right now we have only a few flurries, but I can see that my across-the-street neighbor's driveway is already covered with a thin layer of white fluff. Be careful out there!

>202 BookConcierge: Happy Holidays to you, too! Stay safe!

Hmm,this is like a reunion do,all these familiar folks lol. Happy Holidays to you all.
We got our nasty weather early,record low temps for nearly two weeks,regularly 20 degrees below centigrade Then literally overnight we went from 27F to 55F . Absolutely crazy!
We now think our 40 degrees present level is fantastic,practically short sleeves weather!! lol

>202 BookConcierge:
It is snowing in Illinois too and I think we are going to get a lot of snow!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Shelfarians. It’s cold here in the Midwest. We got about 6 inches of light stuff and now the wind, but it hasn’t been as bad as they predicted. Very cold though.

>199 LibraryCin: Happy Birthday Cindy.

We didn't get very much snow but the library I work at closed anyway so I got two days off!

>207 Kristelh: Thanks, Kristel!

Merry Christmas to all!

A new year ... and new books (or at least new to me).

Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy New Year, all!!

Hello, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year! Glad to share book space with all my Shelfari friends. And I soooo miss the nested conversations and the prettiness of the bookshelves. I had forgotten about being a top editor! Miss that counter. And the coziness of the group reads and the themes.

~ Happy New Year ~

I will never understand why Amazon chose to give Shelfari the boot and advance Goodreads. The Shelfari shelf-setup was grand. I was a co-administer of the main reading group with Foghorn Leghorn for a three-year period close to the end. Rustee was the name I used at Shelfari.

What I miss the most is being able to leave comments on a book's page without a review. Sometimes people (often students) would leave questions about a book and I enjoyed answering them.

I miss having a group shelf,where any member could add what they had read. And the way the icons of last few posters were at the top,so you could check if a friend had made a comment.So neat so pretty,so practical but elegant. Wonder how the designer of the site felt when all his work was just tossed away!

Hello and happy Spring and >217 dustydigger: what a great observation about the designer of the site. Someone spent a lot of time and effort and then, it just got tossed away, like you said.

The "not the river" company seems intent on wrecking everything it absorbs. They completely trashed Shelfari in favor of Good Reads. Okay, I get that GR had millions of users, while Shelfari had a MUCH smaller profile. But we adjusted. And now they are messing with features on GR that people want and giving us crap that we do NOT want. S*I*G*H

Summer's on its way! Any favorite outdoor activities? (Or time to cozy-up with a good book INDOORS for those in the southern hemisphere.)

>220 BookConcierge: My favorite summer activity is strolling around the neighborhood. With the Mr., if he is so inclined, or with an audiobook and earbuds, if he isn't. :=)

>220 BookConcierge: It's already summer here. We didn't get a spring. I want spring back! I love the rain and clouds and instead, it's far too hot and dry, causing wildfires. :-(

My favorite summertime activity is staying inside in the AC - reading, of course!

Its 7 years this month,June 2016, since I set up my group here on LT,after fraught months moving from shelfari to leafmarks to LT,struggling to import all my books each time.How time flies!
I see the Mighty River did the same to Book Depository that they did to shelfari,waiting two or three years then closed it all down. As the River also owned Abebooks since 2008,Book Depository was an inconvenient rival and had to go.Sad.

A Merry 2023 Christmas to all the old Shelfarian members still here!

>225 JulieLill: Thank you, Julie! Back at you!

>225 JulieLill: Hard to believe it's been 7.5 years since the shutdown. I just hit my 11th Thingaversary here a couple of weeks ago but still miss Shelfari's nested discussions and virtual bookshelf... <sad face>

Merry Christmas, Fellow Shelfarians!

>227 ScoLgo: 7.5 years! Wow!

>225 JulieLill: >226 LibraryCin: >227 ScoLgo: >228 tealadytoo: Happy days, still miss Shelfari 😢 How time flies. Merry Christmas everyone.🎄🎅🏼🎄🎅🏼🎄

Merry Xmas everyone.
It was a blast from the past a few days ago when ScoLgo mentioned in our SF group on LT an old shelfari member ,Mark T. We used to play a game of guessing which book had a certain first line,and Mark was absolutely brilliant at it,I think he knew almost every SF book title published! lol Shelfari was so enjoyable,I still miss it. :0(

>230 LibraryCin: Right?!?

>232 dustydigger: I remember that game fondly! Mark was easily the best of us at recalling first lines from novels. Might be worth mentioning that he published a new novel this past year. For anyone that might be interested, the title is Granger's Crossing.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! I've got THREE new book-related jigsaw puzzles to add to the dozens already waiting to be completed (LOL!).

I, too, miss Shelfari's beautiful bookshelves, and nested discussions!

Oh! Thank you all my Shelfari friends for these wonderful memories! Yes, 7.5 years it's been, and I've missed that site. LT is nice, but yeah, nested discussions. And it seemed like the monthly themes, be they historical fiction or science fiction or whatever, were so very, very cozy.

I've really enjoyed Andrew's mystery bookclub LT and the group that meets every month.

And boy, do I miss the nested discussions!!