What Books to Read:
Reviews, Bibliographies
This page:
Book Reviews |
Social Sites for Booklovers |
Books for Kids |
Bibliographies |
Automated Book Recommendations |
Bibliography: Citing and Organizing Sources
Book Reviews
See also
- 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
- Los Angeles Review of Books
- National Public Radio: Books
- New York Review of Books
- New York Times Books page, including reviews back to 1981
- Open Letters Monthly
- Overbooked - Large site with many annotated booklists
- Publishers Weekly - Reviews from the leading book industry publication
- Times Literary Supplement (TLS)
- Cliffs Notes - Many are available to read free online
- SparkNotes - Study guides to works of literature
- AbeBooks BookSleuth - Ask fellow readers to help you remember the name of that book
- Lost Titles, Forgotten Rhymes: How to Find a Novel, Short Story, or Poem Without Knowing its Title or Author (Library of Congress)
- 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
See also
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.
- 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 Directory of Book Sites:
Books for Kids
- American Library Association:
- Books & Media Awards - Caldecott, Newbery, and other children's book awards
- Notable Children's Books - Annual list
- BookHive - Books for kids (Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenbury County)
- Common Sense Media - Reviews children's movies, games, TV shows, books, apps, web sites, and music
- 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.
- KidsReads.com - Guide to kids' books, with a good list of series books
Bibliographies
- WorldCat - Giant database of holdings in libraries around the world
- The Booklist Center - Lists of Great Books, award winners, and recommended books in many categories
- Five Books - Experts select the five books you should read in many subjects
- 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:
- Lingua Franca's Breakthrough Books - The books that made revolutions in their disciplines (annotated bibliographies)
- Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) - Database of books published in Europe from the invention of moveable type printing to the end of the 15th century (1455-1500).
- Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) - Database of all books published in Europe between the invention of moveable type printing and the end of the sixteenth century (1455-1600)
- English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) - Catalog of books published in Britain and its dependencies from 1473, when printing was introduced in England, to 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)
- National Bibliographic Register (IFLA)
- Great Books Lists - My compilations of lists of Eastern and Western Classics
Award Winners:
International and National Bibliographies:
These bibliographies attempt to assemble complete lists of books published in a given nation or time period. The three major short-title catalogs are also union catalogs; that is, they tell you what libraries own the books listed. (See table below for a summary of the coverage of the short-title catalogs.)
Dates | Europe | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
British Isles | British possessions | |||
1455/1473-1500 | ISTC | USTC | ESTC | |
1501-1600 | ||||
1601-1700 | ||||
1701-1800 |
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.)
- Recommended Reading - Page listing all of ALA's book awards (Fact Sheet 23)
- Notable Books for Adults - Annual list
- Book & Media Awards Books - Caldecott, Newbery, and other children's awards
- Notable Children's Books - Annual list
American Library Association:
- Book Awards
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- Pulitzer Prize
- 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.
- One Book - Readers recommend one book they would like the world to read
- Agriculture Bibliographies and Indexes
- Chaucer Bibliography
- Gay and Lesbian Studies Bibliography
- Latin American Bibliography
- Math Bibliography
- Medieval Bibliography and Library Resources
- Polar Regions Libraries and Bibliographies
- Reader's Advisory
- Water Core Collection
- My Reading Lists
Other Lists:
Bibliographies in Specific Subjects:
- 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
- What Should I Read Next? - Enter a title or author and it gives recommendations (and links to Amazon)
- 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.
Bibliography: Citing and Organizing Sources
- Referencite - Guide to the major citation style manuals with advice about research, plagiarism, etc. (University of Auckland, N.Z.)
- Research and Documentation - A guide to the major citation styles (Bedford / St. Martins)
- Sources and Citations at Dartmouth - Not so much how to do citations, but when and why
- Citation Fox - Guides to APA and MLA styles (University at Albany)
- Citation Guides (University of Alberta Library)
- Documentation - Guides to many citation styles (Writing Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison)
- Research and Citation Sources - Advice on the research process and guides to the APA, MLA, and Chicago style guides for citations (Purdue Online Writing Lab)
- Son of Citation Machine - Assistance with MLA, APA, Turabian, and Chicago styles
- Standard Documentation Formats - Some standard practices, MLA, APA, and scientific styles (University of Toronto)
- Citation Style Guide: Know Which Style to Use (American University, Washington, D.C.)
- Citing References in Your Paper (U. Wisconsin Writing Center)
- Karla's Guide to Citation Style Guides
- Citing Your Sources (UC Berkeley Library)
- Mendeley - Download the software, then organize, annotate, backup your PDF files
- NoodleTools - Bibliography software (subscription)
- Zotero - Claims to sense content in your browser, so you can add it to your collection with a single click.
For everyone who's ever wondered how to put that in a bibliography.
Web Directories of Citation Guides:
Bibliographic Tools:
See also
These services help you save and organize your references.
= Page with enhanced content.