For anyone pining for a book club, without the time or the contacts to join one, or someone just looking for recommendations for a good read, LibraryThing has a lot to offer. The site provides information about millions of titles, including reviews and links to similar books. It offers connection to other people with similar reading taste and a system for keeping track of the books you own.
Today, I checked out reviews on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as well as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The reviews are uneven in quality, often sketchy in content and merely providing a opinion about whether or not the book was enjoyable without developed reasons for why it was. Still, with enough people contributing to the discussion, you start to get an idea about a book.
I am a lucky woman. I belong to a relaxed book club where discussion is wide ranging. It flits from the book chosen for the meeting to any good book we have recently read (digressing along the way to families and current events). At work, I have Terrill Budd, my maven for quirky good reads and films. And generally, the CPL work culture is a place where good books are shared.
While it's not a substitute for readers' advisory, it is a place to start.
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