You start off dodging butlers and tipsy partiers as Nick Carraway. Your goal is to simply “find Gatsby”. I admit that I have not played very much of the game and have no idea where it goes with the story or characters. I just thought its was neat that even way back when NES was the coolest, someone thought it worth while to make a game out of a book.

Hopefully they will get added to the main directory listing soon. I also follow a few other out-of-town bookshops on Twitter. Are there others that you are fond of that are worth a follow? Please share! I’m always looking for good book conversations.

“Not everyone who owns a lot of books is a book collector.  Granted.  I wear pants most days, and own many pairs, yet don’t think of myself as a pants connoisseur.  Book collectors are the same way.  A book collection has a purpose beyond accumulating, beyond, even, reading.  A book collection has a purpose.  What should the focus be?  That’s the beauty of it.”

I like people who group their books in some logical or at least interesting fashion. I REALLY like people who dive deep into a category or genre or author. Those are always great conversationalists. And indeed. That is the beauty of it.

Want to know a character’s favorite recipe? Small Demons will eventually be the place to go. There is also a “My Library” tab, that is not yet active and I’m not sure how deep the social component will go. I’ve only been in for a day.

The “Books Mentioned in Other Books” is quite a big rabbit hole to start down. It goes on and on and on, but it’s fun to see what books, genres and author share certain things. As fun as it is, Small Demon’s bookshelf is still small, so all of the results feel a little truncated. There are many many books that will be added and indexed.

It’s one of those things that could only happen (and scale) thanks to the internet. It’s on the same track as LibraryThing (one of the most awesome services the internet has birthed). Here’s a quick under-two-minute video they produced to promo the new search/relationship/discovery engine:

If you’re not familiar with The Bookseller site, it’s based overseas, is great and worth keeping up with.

I took these screen shots today and stopped halfway through Page 2 of the recommendations. Now, none of these are offensive (Netflix once recommended Teeth to us, based on VeggieTales and Strawberry Shortcake) , but I’m not sure which one of these programs my Dora-loving 2-year-old would want to watch.

To be fair, Netflix-bot has gotten better over the past year. We really enjoy the service. But they are a looooooong ways away from being “a better librarian.” I do hope you all read Godin’s post, he does end up highlighting the need for people to curate and determine selections. Even if he does over reach with his esteem for bot-driven recommendation engines. People are still better.

Here’s the site where you can check out all the wall coverings. Just click on the ‘Life’ drop down. There is also a drop down to select the language. Setting it to English is helpful. It’s doubtful that we’ll get any of these exact typographic wallpaper designs, but I certainly have some cool ideas now.

Someone should do this for all of the genres. A biblio-mystery mind map would be cool. I’ll buy the colored pencils! Who’s with me?

• easy to raise and lower the shelf for the monitor and keyboard (ergonomics are a must)
• leaves plenty of room for a cashier’s mat (highly recommended, to ease strain on heels)
• it’s cheap and easy to do
• plenty of places for books and book covers that we’re working on