My List of Ten Novels to Read

1. The Adventures of Augie March (1953), by Saul Bellow

2. The Big Sleep (1939), by Raymond Chandler

3. The Blind Assassin (2000), By Margaret Atwood

4. The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (1940), by Carson McCullers

5. Infinite Jest (1996), by David Foster Wallace

6. Invisible Man (1952), by

Ralph Ellison
7. Light in August (1932), by William Faulkner

8. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), by C.S. Lewis

9. Rabbit, Run (1960), by John Updike

10. To the Lighhouse (1927), by Virginia Woolf

My Search

About a year ago I decided to try and wade through TIME Magazine's top 100 novels. I have made a small dent, but I still have quite a ways to go. This search helped to decide the next ten on my list. Because I am attempting to read the entire list, there really was no rhyme or reason to which books I chose, however, using these tools I was able to determine which ones I want to read first. A lot of the novels are written by authors I am familiar with and enjoy, so most of the challenge was finding where I wanted to start.

Search Terms Used:

Top 100 novels

TIME's Top 100 novels

Top 100 books

Top books list

TIME's top novels

Goodreads

I had been a Goodreads user before this class, and I am really a fan of the site. However, this was my first time searching on Goodreads for reviews and user comments. My first attempt began with To the Lighthouse by Virgina Woolf and wasn't too successful. The search returned 20,599 reviews, but I wasn't impressed by the reviews I skimmed through. It would be a nice feature if they reviews could be categorized by those who have read the book and those who haven't.

I did like, however, that groups and discussions were immediately linked at the bottom. I found the "popular shelves" function very useful. This book was listed under several different shelf types, which made it seem to have a wide-ranging audience. I also enjoyed that under the description of the novel, users could click on a link to LibraryThing and Amazon in order to find it on other sites. That is the kind of thing that beckons to the semantic web.

LibraryThing

I centered my LibraryThing search on The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. I was a little disappointed that none of my selected books were tagged. I would have liked to see what kind of tags were given by other users. I am a big fan of tag clouds and LibraryThing had a successful tag cloud located right on the book's page. The recommendations were right on target with books that I thought would appeal to other readers. Another great feature of LibraryThing is the "top 50 similar libraries". This gives a user the ability to see other users with similar tastes and view their comments on particular books.

My favorite aspect about LibraryThing is the "Will you like it?" scale. The more a user tags, comments, and rates their books, the more the web site will actually be able to predict whether or not they would like a book. This is what LibraryThing predicted for me for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter:

LibraryThing thinks you will love The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (prediction confidence: very high)

With this prediction, I am even more excited about reading the book!

WorldCat

I started my search on Worldcat with The Adventures of Augie March. Quite to my surprise, this site had no reviews or comments for the prized novel. However, I am a fan of the tag cloud options, as well as, the subjects topics available for the novel. This helped me get

a general idea of what the book was about. One really neat thing about Worldcat is the mobile availability of it. They even have an iPhone app. This would make searching, browsing, and selecting an option for users at any time.

Google Books

One upside of Google Books is the ability to search without making an account. Sometimes it can be tedious to create and hold accounts in all of these sites. Google Books starts out with a book overview. I liked that the overview didn't give anything away but definitely gave a feeling for the book. My search for Rabbit, Run returned 152 reviews while on LibraryThing it only returned 25 reviews. One interesting feature of Google Books was the scanned pages that were available for viewing. This gave an inside look the book

Google Books also offered references to the book from novels and from web pages, which I didn't see on any other site.

Conclusion

I absolutely love books and reading, so this was a really fun assignment for me. One of the best things about all of these sites is the usability and intermingling of the web sites. Almost all of them share links with the others and this really creates for a web 2.0 experience.

Another favorite thing about researching these books was the vast opinions of each novel. No matter how loved or hated a book is someone else out there will think the complete opposite. It is interesting to see these differences written out and shared. It all goes back to our conceptual states of knowledge and how much context really plays into our lives, even in something as important as literature.

I feel very excited and comfortable with my list of 10 books. I can't wait to read them all and continue my goal of reading all 100 novels. These sites enhanced my experience in researching and learning about each individual novel. Each site has its own benefits and offers something to the user. I will definitely continue to use Goodreads and probably become more active on LibraryThing and Worldcat. All of these sites combined really create a world where literature can be shared from any place and by anyone.