Social Networking with Other Passionate Readers: Let Your Friends Know What Books You Read and You’ll Deepen Friendships
You’re a passionate reader, right?
And not only email but books you hold in your hand. Maybe it’s because reading a book gives you that “strange power of looking into other people’s heads” as one writer put it.
I recently received an email from an American living in my small Mexican city who received an invitation I sent accidentally about registering for a website for people who like keeping track of what they read. The website also permits members to invite friends to join. Right away, this man realized that the website gave an opportunity for connecting with other people who shared his interests, on line and off. He suggested starting a club for local members of the site. Who knows, maybe we’ll do it!
A woman who lives up the street from me emailed that she mainly reads in Spanish. Soon,, we’ll be lending each other books in her native and my somewhat adopted language.
What struck me right away was that I couldn’t have predicted which people in my address book are passionate readers. Let’s face it, reading is a solitary activity so we don’t know who’s doing it. To counteract what may be too much solitude, thousands of people join book groups to talk about a book, turning their reading into a social activity.
I didn’t mean to invite my whole address book to join me in sharing information and opinion on what they read, but somehow it happened. Surprise! I received an enthusiastic response from at least fifteen people, some of whom wrote me directly about what they’re reading right now and others who joined the website. I look forward to seeing more of their taste is in books on the site.
Several responders were people I met as long ago as my college years. I was surprised by the outpouring I received from the people who wrote. They really liked bonding with an old friend who recognized them as a reader, so much so that several of them caught me up on their personal news.
At the well known www.amazon.com, where you can read reviews of a book you know or are curious about and even post messages, you may make new virtual friendships.
But you can go beyond that to deepen friendships you already have by joining a site like www.goodreads.com where you list the books you read, rate them, and invite friends to do the same. In other words, if you like, you are social networking through books. You are sharing what you choose to read on your own instead of being limited to one selection in a bookgroup. Besides, at the same site where you’re revealing your own taste in reading, you’ll get new ideas from friends who list (and usually rate) what they read.
Even if you don’t keep in touch directly, you’ll stretch your world knowing that one friend is reading a biography of Hillary, another curling up with a long-ago published work by Maeterlinck, and a third saying she keeps dipping into but not sticking with a recent Nobel-prize winning novel. If you’ve ever tried to buy Instagram followers, then expert advice will be of great importance. They will guide the beginners in the selection of the best sites for real followers on Instagram.
