Tag: Goodreads (1-6 of 6)

Mar 28 2013 06:14 PM ET

Amazon acquires Goodreads

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AMAZON-GOODREADS

Your favorite social reading experience is coming to Kindle.

Amazon.com announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire Goodreads, a popular and social media-savvy book recommending site. Founded in 2007, Goodreads allows users to track books they want to read, read and write user reviews, and form book clubs. The aspect of seeing what your friends are reading — as opposed to strangers like with an Amazon review — is part of the appeal. Currently, the site has over 16 million members with over 30,000 books clubs.

“Amazon and Goodreads share a passion for reinventing reading,” said Russ Grandinetti, Amazon Vice President, Kindle Content in a press release. “Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world. In addition, both Amazon and Goodreads have helped thousands of authors reach a wider audience and make a better living at their craft. Together we intend to build many new ways to delight readers and authors alike.” READ FULL STORY »

Dec 4 2012 08:00 AM ET

Goodreads users select best books of 2012 -- FIRST LOOK

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goodreads-winners

The annual Goodreads Choice Awards are basically the People’s Choice Awards of books. Users of the literary social network voted on their favorite books of the year in 20 categories, and this year, there were some surprises — J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy as best novel? — and some slam dunks (Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl for Best Mystery, John Green for Best Young Adult, and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild for Best Memoir). Once again, Veronica Roth proved that she’s pretty much unbeatable when it comes to reader-voted prizes, winning the Best Goodreads Author award for the first time and the Best Young Adult Fantasy award for the second time with Insurgent, sequel to Divergent.

The closest race occurred in Best Historical Fiction, with M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans narrowly beating out Man Booker-winner Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. J.K. Rowling’s first adult novel most likely benefited from a large and devoted fanbase, as Casual Vacancy only became a finalist due to write-in votes — its Goodreads user rating of 3.32 stars wasn’t originally high enough to qualify it — yet it won the biggest honor.

Susan Cain’s Nonfiction win for her best-seller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking made me smile — partly because I could picture a bunch of Goodreads bookworms really relating to it, and also because introverts, a sizable but often ignored and misunderstood demographic, have had a big year in 2012 with the publication of Quiet, Sophia Dembling’s The Introvert’s Way, and a buzzed-about feature in The Atlantic.

See the entire list of winners below: READ FULL STORY »

Nov 27 2012 01:29 PM ET

Flow Chart: What hipsters should read

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Whether you’re a hipster, read like a hipster, or just enjoy making fun of hipsters, this flow chart by a Goodreads blogger is both instructive and hilarious. Hipsters, who are largely defined by their discerning tastes, have a lot of options here, although it’s completely accurate that any good hipster need go no further if he or she hasn’t read David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (which must be one of the books people most often lie about having read). One major flaw, though, would be the omission of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, but this infographic is definitely worth moseying through nevertheless: READ FULL STORY »

Nov 19 2012 02:38 PM ET

Goodreads Choice Awards 2012 finalists announced

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Beautiful-Ruins_510x317.jpg

Book nerds, you have some hard choices to make. The folks at Goodreads, the social networking hub for bibliophiles, have whittled down the field to 200 finalists — with 10 titles in 20 categories — for the Goodreads Choice Awards, voted on by Goodreads users.

In the Fiction category are some of the most beloved novels of the year, including Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker … and The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling? Rowling’s foray into adult fiction didn’t originally qualify for the long-list because it didn’t get the required 3.5-star user rating, but it earned enough write-in votes to become a finalist.

Another category to watch is Romance. E L James’ reps point to last year’s Goodreads Choice Awards as the tipping point that gave Fifty Shades of Grey a new level of recognition that eventually led to the phenomenon we all know about. Fifty Shades Freed goes up against Sylvia Day’s Bared to You and J.R. Ward’s Lover Reborn.

You can always count on Young Adult literature to generate enthusiastic online engagement. In the YA fiction category, the front-runner is certainly John Green’s wonderful novel The Fault in Our Stars. The #DFTBA movement should give him the win handily, although the dark horse might be Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, which won a lot of fans this year. (It’s terrific). In the YA fantasy category, it’ll be a battle between Veronica Roth and Cassandra Clare to see whose extremely devoted followings will turn out in droves.

Go vote!

Follow @EWStephanLee on Twitter.

Read more:
See the new paperback cover of ‘The Age of Miracles’ by Karen Thompson Walker — EXCLUSIVE
And the 2012 National Book Award winners are …
National Book Award winner Katherine Boo on ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’, ‘unsexy’ topics, and ‘American Idol’ recaps

Oct 9 2012 11:36 AM ET

Republicans and Democrats read differently, according to a Goodreads infographic -- PHOTO

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We’ll be subjected to election polling results nonstop until November, but here’s a different kind of stat: Goodreads has released an infographic analyzing the literary tastes of its users based on political party. Not all of the results are particularly shocking — Mitt Romney supporters are much more likely to read the best-selling Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, which recounts Colton Burpo’s trip to meet God while undergoing an emergency appendectomy, and Republicans, as always, tend to love Ayn Rand. Interestingly, Obama supporters are harsher critics of books (and debate performances?) and are three times more likely to have read novels by Jonathan Franzen. Check out the full results below: READ FULL STORY »

Jul 9 2012 02:25 PM ET

Goodreads list: 'Not Bestsellers Yet, but Readers Think They Should Be' -- EXCLUSIVE

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Never-Fall-Down

Goodreads users — like most passionate readers — are an opinionated bunch, so it’s rare for them to come to a consensus about any book. But there are some under-the-radar titles that users of the literary social network widely agree are deserving of greater attention and acclaim. The editors at Goodreads have selected seven books that, according to user ratings and comments, should be on the verge of breaking out. Click through to learn more about these dark horses in the fiction, nonfiction, and young adult categories.

NEXT: A page-turner destined to become a classic?

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