What Books to Read:
Reviews, Bibliographies
This page:
Book Reviews |
Social Sites for Booklovers |
Bibliographies |
Automated Book Recommendations |
Citing Electronic Resources
Book Reviews
- Online Literary Criticism Collection - Links to over 4,000 sites for literary criticism (Internet Public Library)
- Booklist - A review of books recommended for public libraries (Paid subscription)
- Peter's Booklist-Amazon Proxy - Find Booklist reviews in Amazon (Peter Jacso)
- Christian Science Monitor: Books
- London Review of Books
- National Public Radio: Books
- New York Review of Books
- New York Times
Books page, including reviews back to 1981
- Paper Cuts - The Times' book blog
- Overbooked - Large site with many annotated booklists
- Publishers Weekly - Reviews from the leading book industry publication
- Reader's Catalog (Barnes and Noble)
- Ruminator Magazine - Good to have it back (Formerly Hungry Mind Review and Ruminator Review)
- Times Literary Supplement (TLS)
- See also Reader's Advisory Service
- Cliffs Notes - Many are available to read free online
- SparkNotes - Study guides to works of literature
- Stump the Bookseller - Trying to find a long-lost book? Ask here. Asking a question is $2. Browsing previous questions and answers is free. A service of Loganberry Books in Ohio.
- E-Streams - A service of Yankee Book Peddler, a library vendor
- B-Feeds: Web Feeds for Books and Monographs - RSS feeds for book updates (Gerry McKiernan)
- Beatrix - A blog that reviews the reviews
- The Complete Review - Reviews hundreds of books review sites
- New Pages Guide to Review Sources
Some book review sources now have RSS feeds. Click on the
icons to get the feeds. (What's RSS?)
Study Guides:
Find the Name of that Book:
Science and Technology Book Reviews:
Web Directories and Reviews of Reviews:
Social Sites for Booklovers
These sites allow readers to track their reading and/or book collections. You can see your friends' pages, and they can see yours. Or you can find new friends with similar interests. That's what makes them social.
See also Reader's Advisory sites, Automated Book Recommendations, Book Blogs, Librarians' Blogs, Book Exchanges
- All Consuming - Track books you've read and other items you've consumed
- Good Reads - Track what you've read, see what your friends are reading, get recommendations
- LibraryThing - Catalog your book collection or your reading, check out catalogs of those with similar libraries to yours
- Shelfari - List your books, see what others are reading
- WeRead - Enter the books you like and get recommendations for others you might like. Share lists and reviews with friends.
- 100 Places to Connect with Other Bibliophiles Online (OEDb)
Web Directories:
Bibliographies
See also Library catalogs
- The Booklist Center - Lists of Great Books, award winners, and recommended books in many categories
- English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) - Catalog of books published in Britain and its dependencies between 1473 and 1800. Includes holdings information for libraries in the British Isles, North America, and elsewhere. This is a fabulous resource for anyone doing historical or literary research! (More about the ESTC)
- Index Translationum - Find translations from one language to another (UNESCO)
- Infography - Search for a subject and get recommended books and Web sites
- The Invisible Library - A catalog of imaginary books mentioned in real books (such as, the works of Sherlock Holmes)
- Recent Books Cataloged at the Library of Congress - Books cataloged in the last few years with tables of contents, summaries, etc. Divided into Business and Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Science and Technology
- Library of Congress Bibliographies, Research Guides, and Finding Aids - Lists of books, online resources, and LC-only collection. If you can't get to the LC, check your library for the same or similar publications.
Library of Congress:
- Searchable Bibliographies, Major Library Catalogs, and Librarian Tools - General and subject-specific bibliographies (Gary Price)
- Subject Bibliographies of government documents from the U.S. Government Printing Office
- See also Journal Indexes
The Great Books:
You don't have to be a conservative to read the Great Books. Many of the books on these lists are actually pretty subversive, but William Bennett and the late Allan Bloom won't tell you that. (Harold Bloom might.)
- Great Books Lists - My
compilations of lists of Eastern and Western Classics
Award Winners:
- Recommended Reading - Page listing all of ALA's book awards
- Notable Books for Adults - Annual list
- Award Books - Caldecott, Newbery, and other children's book awards
- Notable Children's Books - Annual list
American Library Association:
- Literary Lists - Prize winners, mostly
- AwardWeb - Links to
lists of literary award winners
Other Lists:
- Amazon.com
Syndicated Content - Lists of new and bestselling books in various
categories, in RSS feeds
- Banned Books Online - Books are still banned right here in the United States, but you can read them here.
- Fictional Footnotes and Indexes - Actually the footnotes and indexes are real, but they are found in works of fiction. A list by William Denton.
- Guys Read - Recommends books for boys with lists of books and a searchable database (i.e., enter a subject you're interested in or a book you've enjoyed, and it recommends more). Recommend your own favorites for other guys. By Jon Scieszka, author of The Stinky Cheese Man — a book guys (and girls) like to read.
- One Book - Readers recommend one book they would like the world to read
- See also Reader's Advisory Service
- Islamic Encyclopedia - A 1999 report from NPR
- The First Arab Bibliography: Fihrist al-'Ulum - An essay by Hans H. Wellisch (University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science Occasional Papers no. 175, 1986)
- The Fihrist: A 10th Century AD Survey of Islamic Culture is a translation available from Kazi Publications
The Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim
This work is not as well known in the West as it should be. In the 10th century, Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn al-Nadim of Baghdad compiled a bibliography of all known books in the Arab world — the Fihrist, or catalog. It was (as far as I know) the first national bibliography. Moreover, since he included biographies of the authors, the Fihrist was a kind of encyclopedia of the culture.
Automated Book Recommendation Services
- All Readers - Select qualities you want in a book. Based on reviews contributed by users.
- BookLamp - Recommendation system to be based on stylistic qualities of books
- WhichBook - Select points on a number of spectra (such as easy/demanding, sex/no sex), then you get a list of books that meet your criteria. If you're in the UK, you can borrow books.
These Web sites ask what you're looking for, then give you some recommendations.
Citing Electronic Resources
- Citation Style Guides for Internet and Electronic Sources (University of Alberta Library)
- Columbia Guide to Online Style - Presents both humanities style and scientific style for citing electronic resources
- Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources by Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger - Includes a guide to the major citation styles — APA, MLA, Chicago, and CBE
- Research and Documentation Online - Finding and documenting sources in the humanities (MLA), social sciences (APA), history (Chicago), and sciences (CBE) by Diana Hacker
- Citing References in Your Paper (U. Wisconsin Writing Center)
- Internet Citation Guides: Citing Electronic Sources in Research Papers and Bibliographies
- Karla's Guide to Citation Style Guides
- Style Sheets for Citing Resources (Print and Electronic) - MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian examples
For everyone who's ever wondered how to put that in a bibliography.
Web Directories:
= Page with enhanced content.