I hate James Bridle*. Not content with an excellent blog about books and technology, he has his fingers in lots of book related pies. All of them good too. He’s clearly trying to make the rest of us look lazy, and succeeding.
When he launched bkkeepr a few months ago, I wasn’t entirely sure whether I’d use it or what benefit it would bring me. I also wasn’t sure whether I wanted my trashy reading habits laid bare for the twitterverse to see. But it’s a simple add-on for Twitterers, a quick tweet with the ISBN logs your reading progress. It’s a great tool for tracking your reading, but for me the best feature is the ability to add your books to Librarything with one click. Genius. I gave up on Librarything a while ago because it would have taken me days to get my books on there. Last time I moved house I tried adding them while I was unpacking, but I gave up after one box. I never got into the habit of adding books when I bought them either. But I can add books via text or form my computer with bkkeepr. Bkkeepr may just make Librarything usable again for me.
And even if you don’t use Librarything, or Goodreads, or Bookrabbit, if you’re as nosy as I am, it’s lovely just to see what other people are reading. I’d really like to see it develop in the future, with more features around sharing and comparing reading lists etc, and I’m sure James won’t disappoint.
It’s also good to see my old employer sponsoring it, and I’m really pleased they’re investing in ways for book lovers to interact online and enhance their reading experience.
*I don’t really, he’s lovely.
