Dear winways,
Welcome to the January 2015 State of the Thing! This month, we've got a couple new features, and I've compiled a list of every last book ordered for SantaThing, if you're in the market for some good recommendations to kick off 2015!
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SantaThing Gifts and Stats
This year, we ordered a grand total of 1,680 books for SantaThing. That's a lot of pages! In fact, if we were somehow able to stack every last one of those books one on top of the other, the stack would be just a few feet shy of the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Hands down, the most popular gift this year was Patrick Rothfuss's fantasy novel, The Name of the Wind, with a total of 11 copies selected by our Secret Santas. The sci-fi sometimes-comedy about an astronaut stranded on Mars, The Martian, followed at a close second, with 8 copies. I'm making a whole list of all 1600+ SantaThing picks, in order from most- to least-popular. Check it out! I've more than doubled my own wishlist in the process of compiling it.
New Features
Auto-completing Tags. Gone are the days of typing out each instance of your "dystopian post-apocalyptic romance-comedy" tag manually. Now, across the site, anywhere you can add tags, be it on Add Books, Your Books, or a book page, you can begin typing any part of a tag, and you'll see a drop-down list of all tags that you've used in the past that match what you're typing. This system only auto-completes based on your own tags, so if you don't already have any books tagged as "Lovecraftian poetry," that won't come up when you type "poetry." Give it a whirl, and tell us what you think over on Talk.
Work Page Module Reordering. Work pages on LibraryThing represent the idea of each individual work (including all editions), and contain basic information like title and author. The URLs for work pages always look like this: http://www.librarything.com/work/15071787.
Now, much like the modules on the LT Home page, you can reorder the modules and sections on work pages, to suit your needs and prioritize the information you want most. Reordering modules on any one work page will carry that format over to all work pages across LT. To test it out, go to a work page and scroll all the way down to the bottom, where you should see a "reorder modules" link. From there, you'll see a list of modules that you can drag and drop to rearrange. If you have any questions or comments about reordering work page modules, post them here on Talk.
Talk of the Thing
Monthly Author Reads. Every quarter, the members of the Monthly Author Reads group votes on which authors they're going to read for the next 3 months, picking a different author for each month, and members discuss their reads on a dedicated Talk topic. This month, they're wrapping up a focus on Louise Erdich, and Virginia Woolf is slated for February. It's a great way to check out authors you've been meaning to get around to, but have missed over the years. You can see authors read for past months, and jump in and join the discussion over on the Group page.
Club Read 2015. If you'd rather play a little more fast and loose with your reading selections, without limitations of author or genre, Club Read might be the place for you. Each member begins a new thread to track and record their thoughts on the books they've read for the whole year, and other members pop by with comments on their selections, recommendations, etc. The group admin also frequently posts interesting readerly questions for members to weigh in on. It's not to late to join in for 2015!
Pushing for more Early Reviewers books for non-US members. I'm in the process of reaching out specifically to publishers outside the US, to invite them to offer their books through our Early Reviewers program. Offerings for non-US-based members have been less than stellar in recent months, and I'm working to improve things. We've already got a pretty good list going, but if there are specific publishers you'd like me to contact, I'm happy to do so. Suggestions are welcome over on this Talk topic!
Free Books: Early Reviewers
You are not currently signed up for LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. You are missing out!
Early Reviewers offers free books to members—about 100 titles a month! Since 2007, we've given out over 160,000 books. The catch? Publishes want your honest review. How you review a book won't help or hurt your chances of winning books in the future, but not reviewing your winning will.
» Sign up for Early Reviewers
The January batch of Early Reviewers books contains 2,225 copies of 86 different titles. The deadline to request a free book is Monday, January 26th at 6pm, Eastern. Look for the January batch around the 2nd.
The most requested books so far from the January batch:
More free books: Member Giveaways
At any given time, there are hundreds of books available from our Member Giveaways program. It's like Early Reviewers, but isn't limited to select publishers—any author or member can post books. Request books, or offer your own!
Hot titles this month
- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
- The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- The Storied Life of A.J. Fikrys by Gabrielle Zevin
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
- Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
- Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
- The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
That's it for this month! I'll see you all in February.
Questions, comments, ideas? Send them my way.
—Loranne (loranne@librarything.com)
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