Book stuff

One of my favorite sites on the web is goodreads - thank you Manda!

Goodreads has a lot of cool features (plus it's free!!!) and they are making improvements all the time. I'm in 3 discussion groups right now and the one that I think is the most fun is "Book Buying Addicts Anonymous". No, I didn't start the group, but I could have.

One of our discussions has been "where do you get books cheap?" and (even though I haven't completely checked these sites out yet) here are (in alpha order) some of the online sources that people have mentioned.

http://www.abebooks.com/ - Mentioned as a great way to connect with independent booksellers
http://www.bookcloseouts.com/
http://bookmooch.com/ - Give away books, get points, ask for books from other people using your points
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/freebooks.htm - supposed to be a great way to get "free e-books" but I'm still reading the fine print. That and the fact that I haven't yet decided if I want to try "e-books" or not. Part of me finds the concept somehow "Orwellian" and part of me is afraid that I will go absolutely nutso for "e-books". You know, something like "Reports are coming in of a strange man running around the airport screaming 'Do you see this i-pod? i have the every book on the first floor of the Library of Congress on this i-pod and you can't have it!"
http://www.frugalreader.com/ - another bookswapping site
http://www.halfpricebooks.com/
http://www.paperbackswap.com/ - "Currently free" bookswapping site that uses the 'send a book, get a book' idea. They claim over 1.6 million books available at this time
http://www.poshpoints.com/ - this is sort of "e barter" - they trade a lot more than books
http://www.titletrader.com/
http://whatsonmybookshelf.com/ - a smaller relatively new site still in the beta stage

And of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention that bookswapping is facilitated on goodreads.com by allowing you to mark "I have a copy that I'd like to swap" any time that you rate or review a book.

This of course is not intended as any "exhaustive" list (amazon, borders and ebay all go without saying, you know) but these are sites that have been listed in our online discussion. Enjoy.