Second Thoughts on Goodreads and Librarything

On Saturdays, I tend to post reviews of Essays (if I even post), but I read this piece of news that made me pause.

Apparently, because Goodreads was bought by Amazon, Librarything is giving all members one year of unlimited membership. Without going into the "how many sites does Amazon.com own?" debate, this kinda sparked me to give an update of how I'm using the two sites (you can find my first comparison here).

Like how I've said before, I love the way you can catalogue books in Librarything, but Goodreads is more of a social-site for books. Unlike the last time, I've got loads more friends on Goodreads now, and it's more fun. I'm also getting in touch with more authors there.

On the other hand, I've hardly touched Librarything. I've been so afraid of reaching the 200 books max limit that I've hardly entered any books. And while it is easier to win books on Librarything (I've never won a single book on Goodreads), I've started using NetGalley, and more or less gave up entering the giveaways at both sites.

As for groups, the groups on Goodreads are way more active than Librarything. Or at least, my interest  groups on Librarything don't actually reply.... But now that I've joined Google+, I don't really need the groups anymore.

That means.... I go to Goodreads everyday to post reviews and keep track of what I have read, but I don't visit Librarything anymore. I still think that Librarything has the better cataloging system, but the limit does put a huge damper on things.

Bottom line, in my case at least, the amount of books you can track is the make-or-break factor. I'm not particular about things like apps, or what features there are (although they are nice), but with the books I read (even at my reduced speed, it's still a fairly large amount), I need a place to keep track of them. Hence, although I started using Librarything more than Goodreads, I've ended up using Goodreads almost exclusively now.

Still, with the new one-year unlimited membership for everyone, I may just start using Librarything again. I'll let you all know what happens(:

My Two Cents on Goodreads and Librarything



Strictly speaking, only one of my friends. But I'm
attempting to get more to sign up.

Since I have a lull in my reading schedule (apparently, studying and reading are two mutually exclusive activities), I decided to finally write down my thoughts on two very popular book-social/sharing sites: Goodreads and LibraryThing.

I was actually pretty much unaware of both sites until I got Zite and started reading all these blogposts about Goodreads/LibraryThing, which more or less piqued my interest. So, being indecisive, I decided to join both sites, figuring that if I wanted to, I could just delete an account. So, after about a month or so of playing around with both sites, I came to a conclusion:

Goodreads and Librarything are more complementary products than competitive products (products in competitive supply).

While this may be a very obvious conclusion, it took me quite a lot of time to figure it out. At first, I was more in favour of LibaryThing, since I wanted a place to catalog my books, and from what I heard Librarything was the winner. And it's true. LibraryThing's cataloging system is superior compared to Goodreads. While Goodreads only has shelves (which I find rather cumbersome to use), LibraryThing has categories and tags. Which means you can subdivide the books. That's pretty much why I only use LibraryThing to keep track of the books I own.

On the other hand, Goodreads is supposed to emphasise the social aspect of reading more. I don't know how true that is, since only one of my friends use Goodreads, but it does seem so. And it's somehow easier to enter a review on Goodreads (they have a dedicated review box), so I tend to use Goodreads to record the books I read but don't own (borrowed books, library books mainly).

The next thing both sites have in common are their discussion groups. Since I'm quite lazy, I tend to neglect such things, but I am making an effort to participate more. So far, what I've gathered is that LibraryThing is good for specific things - like discussions on Japanese culture, while I'm learning how to improve this blog most from the Goodreads discussion (Especially the groups Blogger Lift and Creative Reviews). Although it is difficult for me to just jump in the discussions, I got many ideas on how to improve just by reading the posts (sorry, all improvements will only be done after November 18th)

Now on to the peripherals of each site. (Basically, my studying-induced vocabulary is trying to say that I'm going to talk about the 'add-ons' of the site).

To be honest, the reason why I joined Goodreads was because of its peripherals. It had a quiz function (And I knew the answer!) and an app (which LibraryThing does not have, but is supposed to be working on). Since you can read ebooks on the app (as long as you have the ebook open when you go offline), it's yet another and very convenient way to read, since you can post updates on your reading progress and record quotes.

LibraryThing has a very interesting "Common Knowledge" section, which has interesting information such as dedications, quotations, opening and ending sentences and such.

And I think, this discussion will be incomplete without talking about their giveaway programmes. While Goodreads does let me try to win physical books, the copies are very little and there are much more participants. So the chances of winning go down dramatically. On the other hand, while I can only win ebooks from Librarything (at least so far), they have more copies and less participants (due to, I think, the lower number of members), and I've got quite a few ebooks already. Not to mention that LibraryThing divides the give aways into early reviews and member giveaways, which increases the selection (to me, anyway).

In conclusion, both sites have their unique selling points. While Goodreads is free, LibraryThing is free only up to the first 200 books. But honestly, I love the site enough that I'm considering paying the lifetime membership fee. Unfortunately, that requires a credit card, which I don't have at the moment.

Does anyone have other opinions? Whether there are any bugs in either site that I've neglected or some function I've missed out? Just leave a comment and I'll reply(:

UPDATE (30/3/2013): Here's an update after using both sites for a while

Forsaken by Andrew Van Wey

Even the cover is creepy,
which is why I try not to look at
it too much. 

 I've actually finished another book that I've gotten from the librarything.com members giveaway, although strangely, the author requested that I review it on goodreads.com. Oh well, I have accounts on both sites anyway.

But seriously, I feel that this book is indescribable. Since I don't really read thriller/horrow (hey, my first time reading Stephen King was around last month, and it was only because Carrie was so famous), this is really a first for me (the blurb pulled me in and got me to join) I stayed up all night reading it despite the fact that the only two activities I should be doing are sleeping and studying (exam season - IB IN 3 DAYS!!), which shows that's how thrilling it was. 

The book centers around a painting, which can only be called disturbing. What's masterful was how the Daniel (the protagonist) slowly breaks down under the influence of the painting, while others are merely affected by it. I think the attention to detail (such as how the other characters perceive certain events), helped to make the conclusion very persuasive and somehow very satisfying. 


Needless to say, I was already scared from the beginning, but in a good way. It's the type of thrill that made me willingly suspend disbelief, which is critical due to the fantastical elements in the book. While we normally think of living paintings as merely lifelike, this painting is really alive. It metamorphesises over the course of the novel, (Ok, not saying anymore to avoid spoilers),  and reaches -mini spoiler alert- a sense of completion at the end. This is why, shadows at the corner of your eyes can be used to instill dread and fear, after all, if there's a creepy painting with its subjects wrecking havoc, you'd have a right to be scared.

Without giving away and spoilers, I will only say that the ending was unexpected due to a very basic, but ultimately wrong assumption that I made. But on retrospect, it made perfect sense, especially when viewed with the prologue. 

The length of the book felt just right (although since I read the ebook copy, it could be different from print copies), but anyway, I felt that it was tightly written, with very little superfluous items. The writing is descriptive, but not overly so (this is important, since I'm reading another member giveaway that is much to descriptive. I can only stomach one chapter at a time.)


So if you like thriller, or want to scare yourself to take your mind off the impending exams (pretend you have them, misery loves company after all), then read this book. But don't give yourself sleepless nights over it. Remember, we have a God stronger than anything in this world, so there's nothing to be afraid of.

Experiment with Goodreads/LibraryThing - Review of The Jungle Book.

This was written on both my Goodreads and LibraryThing account. I'm still getting used to the sites, so a full review/ comparison of them will come much later.
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Previously, I only knew about The Jungle Book if it was the Disney movie, which I didn't even watch. The show looked a little infantile and frankly, I didn't really get it.

Later on, I read and loved The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which I heard was based on The Jungle Book. Interesting, but still not enough to get me to read it.

Finally, I read The God of Small Things by Arundathi Roy. In it, they quoted The Jungle Book's "We be of one blood, thou and I". After meeting all these instances of intertextuality, I had to read the book.

The book follows a fairly predictable format: story, then a poem about the story. While I was a little disappointed that not all the stories was about Mowgli, the other stories were interesting. I'm not sure about all this imperialism stuff, since I've not studied that aspect of literature in detail, but all I saw was the noble savage idea, such as that of Huckleberry Finn.

Although the stories lagged towards the end, I still enjoyed the book, if not for the content, then for all the wonderful instances of intertexualities within it.

View all my reviews