Hooked on Books discussion

Have a question about Booked for Life? Ask your BFL questions here. Your mods will attempt to answer them here.

Visit our sister site here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/...

Q: Will the challenges be different on BFL?
A: Yes, they will be different

Q: Is there something that I like about LT that is different from GR?
A: They have fun graphs and the Zeitgeist (I am inspired by this so you might see a challenge based on this at some point) and the wiki that is intriguing me. The Touchstones are eluding me so far but I am determined to figure them out. You can give 1/2 stars for the books as well. Also, I have not noticed a limit to posts like with GR. So we can do a bit more on LT. This is huge. I just found a trivia section that is fun as well. You can choose to trivia on movies or based on books that you read, etc. Talpa (search inside millions of books & covers in seconds to find books that fit a challenge), Common Knowledge (search for characters, works, etc)

Q: Are there any drawbacks to LT?
A: Yes, there are no folders BUT when I suggested adding folders I was given options by 4 different people how to organize using the tools already provided like the wiki for instance. Have we used them yet? No. We may get there but we are just starting out so you may have to bear with us while we figure it out.

Q: Is there anything similar to GR on LT?
A: Yes, there are listopia so we can utilize those. The html used is very similar but there is more that can be done. I have a tip section with links.

Q: Why did the mods create a sister site now?
A: There is a bit of a panic in the moderator support group right now. As you know Amazon owns GR. These mods feel that they do not support the groups and have been trying to get rid of them for a while. There has been talk that this is how Shelfari met its end years ago. Some mods have started the process of shutting their groups down. People are talking of leaving GR because things have slowed down so much. This last change that GR made was their final straw. They have decided to look for another site to move to. Our decision to start a sister site was in an attempt to allow our group to survive if the worst would happen here (and it may or may not). We have noticed a major slowdown. If things do take a turn here, we want our group to survive. We haven't seen any other group take any measures to survive in case GR shuts things down like they did with Shelfari. We are offering our members a place to go. We want it to be a seamless transition when the time comes. In the meantime, you just have more fun challenges to participate in.

Please feel free to talk to us about this. You are the reason we do all of this.

Donna wrote: "Please feel free to talk to us about this. You are the reason we do all of this."

Thanks for the answers to the questions, so far! I have not noticed any of the groups I'm a part of leaving GR, but I'm in mostly challenge-related groups that are very active, so we shall see how it goes. If Amazon is not interested in keeping the groups, I truly do not understand their motivation behind that. What's the point of the site otherwise? As far as tracking books goes, they've got stiff competition in both StoryGraph and Fable. If they do without the groups, they're going to lose a lot of members, I feel.

It is proactive to create a sister group at LT. I like that LT is not owned by a big corporation from what I can see. I just have a hard time with multiple platforms and remembering to check each one, but that's a matter of turning it into a new habit.

There is a lot of talk about different groups that offer book tracking. Most do not offer the groups. So I went exploring and stumbled upon LibraryThings groups. This was the one most closely oriented to our needs. Aside from the folders, I found we could do everything else. Then we have some of these extra features to play with. Yesterday, I stumbled upon the trivia section so there may be even more features that I don't know about.

Donna wrote: "There is a lot of talk about different groups that offer book tracking. Most do not offer the groups. So I went exploring and stumbled upon LibraryThings groups. This was the one most closely orien..."

Yeah, they have some neat features at LibraryThing! I love their seasonal (Monthly, maybe?) scavenger hunts.

ilovebakedgoods (Teresa) wrote: "Yeah, they have some neat features at LibraryThing! I love their seasonal (Monthly, maybe?) scavenger hunts."

Yes, thanks for reminding of the ghost hunt that is currently kicking not just my rear end but I believe Angie's as well...LOL!

Donna wrote: "ilovebakedgoods (Teresa) wrote: "Yeah, they have some neat features at LibraryThing! I love their seasonal (Monthly, maybe?) scavenger hunts."

Yes, thanks for reminding of the ghost hunt that is c..."

LOL! Did you know there is a helpful thread where people will help you find the clues? I only use it if I'm really stuck, but it's very handy.

No, I did not know that.

Donna wrote: "No, I did not know that."

I don't know how/if you can do DMs on LT, so here is the link to the "Talk" thread with scavenger hunt hints:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/36...

Donna wrote: "Yes, thanks for reminding of the ghost hunt that is currently kicking not just my rear end but I believe Angie's as well...LOL!..."

YES, it is!!! I could have sworn I knew the answers to all but one. I guess I'm not picking the correct books. I did make it to 6, but that is still not great! LOL

ETA: Now, it is showing 8 ghosts! I guess it didn't add them when I searched yesterday.

You got further than I did! I don't have the time to do all that. I found 5 ghosts.

They put a lot of time into their book engine over in LibraryThing. You can search characters in the Common Knowledge section. You can't do that here.

I only found 2 so far!

It helps when you know the site a bit better. I don't know the site very well. There are all kinds of hidden little nuggets on LibraryThing.

I just hit 9 ghosts. You will need the Common Knowledge (scroll to very bottom) section (I found I think 3 ghosts using it - one by accident) and go to the More section. I used two items in there to find a couple of ghosts.

Whoah! Talpa is a cool feature! You can search covers so easily on LT. You can just type what you are looking for and it brings up covers that meet your criteria. That is GOLDEN for us and challenges! They have the option to search inside also. This is a game changer!

You want a book with an alien invasion- it gives you a list. You want books with bats on the cover, you got it!

Donna wrote: "Whoah! Talpa is a cool feature! You can search covers so easily on LT. You can just type what you are looking for and it brings up covers that meet your criteria. That is GOLDEN for us and challeng..."

I just discovered that feature, too! Very cool.

That's also cool about the character information you mentioned above.

You can find a book by the characters. That is pretty cool. If you don't know the name of the book but you know a character in it. You can search for it.

Donna wrote: "You can find a book by the characters. That is pretty cool. If you don't know the name of the book but you know a character in it. You can search for it."

Sounds like that would work for challenges that ask for a specific character name or initials, assuming you could just use a first or last name in the search.

I think it would be helpful for those challenges. We could use a lot of those tools. Somebody over in LibraryThings has put a lot of thought into what WE actually do. These tools are directed at us.

Ha! I found all 12! I think I may now be an expert on all things LibraryThings. LOL! Their little scavenger hunt pretty much makes you use every little feature on their site. I have found other features like Litsy, which I will have to explore later.