Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Adventures In Digital Realms

Recently I decided to go ahead and set up a Facebook page for Bibliophile's Corner and while I was at it liked a bunch of pages thinking they'd have interesting content for me to enjoy and share. I really had no idea what I was getting into.
It all started with the Underground NY Public Library page. The "curator" posts daily photos of readers in the NYC subway and the variety of people and books is really heartening. You know how you hear that people don't read any more? Those who say that are not looking in the right places. Then I added BBC World Book Club (I look forward to their monthly interviews with authors about their most popular books and had the best time catching up on the archived sessions), NPR Books, Goodreads, a couple authors, a blogger and Reading as a general interest (seemed kind of odd not to). It took a while for everything to update and then posts and links started trickling in. Articles, news, updates. Clickedy here, clickedy there and soon I was also following Improbables Librairies, Improbables Bibliothèques (you must check these guys out, they're great), Huffington Post Books, Guardian Books and The New Yorker. The flood gates opened. An incredible in its variety and scope wealth of information showed up on the page and soon I'd forgotten about everything and was reading the very interesting articles that I wouldn't have found otherwise. Why, oh why have I not done this sooner?! Hindsight 20/20, for sure. And then someone mentioned The Paris Review, briefly, in passing, not even talking about them. One more Like later and I was hooked. Interviews with authors, art, fiction, letters and essays, my already declining eyesight may get worse even quicker but this will be so completely worth it. I started reading an old interview with Nabokov and had to stop to tell you about all these finds because the awesomeness of it all was making it hard to concentrate.
Here's a handful of the articles I bookmarked because a girl's got to eat, sleep, and work, and you know, read:
88 books that shaped America, at the Library of Congress
Santiago Codex Calixtinus, Priceless Stolen Book, Found In Handyman's Garage (the nerve of some people)
Myers Briggs in fiction
17 Famous Literary Characters Almost Named Something Else
What's The Big Idea? 5 Books To Inspire Innovation
And of course the whole section of interviews on The Paris Review website. I may never come up for air.
I've already been sharing some of the finds on the FB page and Twitter and the fun will continue, so stop by, explore, Like or Follow or just bookmark if that's your thing. Everybody's welcome!

2 comments:

  1. A Facebook page for book lovers? That's great! I can't wait to view that page of yours. I am glad you thought of that. I am absolutely going to love the content of it and thank you for sharing it with us.

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  2. Jeff, thank you for your enthusiasm. I really wanted to have an outlet for quick links and tidbits and FB seemed to provide the perfect platform. The idea isn't new though so I'm sure if you look around you'll find plenty of other pages to explore.

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