Stop the reading madness!

This is getting ridiculous. How many reading applications does anyone really need? Every time a I finish a book I have to log it into three different sites. It's enough to make me turn on the television.

I joined LibraryThing first and really got into entering books I was reading, and drilling into the social network to read other people's reviews. It got discouraging when I realized how "into it" other people seemed to be, and I just couldn't compete. Also, people from all over would connect, and that sounds great, but I didn't want a LibraryThing penpal from New Zealand, or to join virtual book group recommended based on my profile. Who has the time? Now I just keep adding books, mostly because this site now has my reading history for the last few years,

Shelfari was cool because I could add it to my Facebook page. Then Facebook re-formatted their interface and it got relegated to a "box" and didn't appear on the main page anymore. I added it to this blog because it works so well with Blogger. I just update it whenever I finish a book and enjoy watching my virtual shelf fill up. Little bit of reader vanity there.

I just added Goodreads because some of my favorite teachers in the English Department are using it. The best part is that I get little feed alerts whenever someone posts a comment, a review, or even what page they are on at the moment. It really feels very dynamic in a way the other two haven't because it uses the social network of the people you know, and expands out from there. Very Facebook. Goodreads also embeds easily, so maybe I'll drop Shelfari.

In a way, this is the most authentic experience with social networking I have ever had.