Book crossing update

www.bookcrossing.com has gone through an update.
The new service looks much prettier, but apart form that it seems to not really offer any of the things i would have liked to see.

Things i'd have liked
Facebook/social media intergration the idea of releasing a book and tweeting it at that time through the site seems obvious!

the new site does auto lookup your book on amazon and I assume monatises the links with Amazon Affiliates account which i'm fine with.

Google maps, the place look up is clunky and why it doe snot create a global map with google support to show releases almost in real time ! it just seems obvious in this current climate.

RSS feeds are promoised, I'd like to see a personalised rss of my releases, i'd like to feed that into this blog and various site sos you can see my releases and follow them.

Anyway, soem good new usability let down by not enough growth and creativity..

On an Aside Go try the kitchen garden cafe in Birmingham I made some new releases...

Scribd

Something that I thought to share with all the readers out there, young or old is Srcibd.
Scribd is a repository, any one can and do upload anything, the website asks you only to upload items you control or own copyright for. But as with most services on the web this is readily abused.
This is a benefit to us all as story consumers or just as researchers and readers.
The additional services and applications this provides,, such as pdf download stylised printing service, download, embedding as below or sharing through social networks and bookmarking.

Storytelling

Book Shelves

This was going to be a article on book shelves, the intricacies of them, from design to content. The way a book shelf can be a simple piece of furniture in your room, any room or it can be the focus of the room, whether it is one shelf or several set of shelves it can still be the focus of the room, or stairs.
But I'm going to save that article for later, I always attach a image and link to posts and looking for some examples of book shelved I knew existed I found one I did not.

Colin Thompson appears to be an Australian artist with talent for eclectic artwork. He is proud of and holds dear is copyright so I show this image here with a link to his site(should you be him and want it removed let me know).
I found this image summed up what I was hoping to say visually and in an inspiring manner.

Each shelf in the set has its own character and characters, the title of each book adds to the character, some titles play on famous titles, while others are thoughtful and unique. each books shelf has a story too it or asking to be made from it. Every time I look again I see a new character, creature or feature.

If you would like to entertain, post a picture of your book shelf. I think peoples book shelves say a lot about them.