25 November 2012

Sunday Salon: Got my hopes up for nothing

As I was reading Sunday Salon entries this evening, I was looking up the books that bloggers mentioned on Goodreads, as I am wont to do. If a book's synopsis strikes a chord with me, I will check my library's website to see if they have the book. Today I noticed that the Goodreads page for a book had a Libraries link among the Get a Copy links for Amazon and such. I thought to myself, "This might be a shortcut in my Sunday Salon routine." I clicked the link and saw that it led to the book's entry on Worldcat, a website that gives a user access to the collections of libraries around the world. Cool!

Unfortunately, it wasn't as cool as I thought. Worldcat does not always show the books that are available in my local library system. I tried searching for two different books that I borrowed from my library this week. Worldcat shows only one of them as being part of my library's collection. I thought it might be a problem with what edition was being pulled up so I tried all the editions and none of them showed up as being available at my library. It is nice that Goodreads is offering the option to check your local library for a book, but I wouldn't be able to trust Worldcat's results. I'll just stick to my system for now.

CURRENTLY READING: I picked up Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food last week, but it didn't really strike my fancy. I don't think I will even put it on my Goodreads' Abandoned shelf. I only read 20 pages of it so it is barely worth mentioning. I'm not saying that it is a bad book, though. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy it, I suppose.

2012 READING CHALLENGE:  As I mentioned last week, the Goodreads widget was counting books that I added to my Abandoned shelf as part of my books-read total. Once I fixed that issue, my count dropped by 10. I've read 35 books toward my 50-title goal. My college semester ends mid-December, so I may be able to meet my goal if I go on an internet fast during the last two weeks of the year. Giving up TV won't be difficult because I'm not big on holiday movies and specials, but I'm still hooked on Facebook games that cut into my reading time.

UPCOMING: My library haul this week is a hodgepodge of novels, memoirs, finance books, and social commentary. Who knows which one I will be in the mood to read this week?

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