FAQ

I tried, but I've looked at a dozen or so books in X's library but I can't find a book that doesn't have a review.

The poster or user will show on their user page how many of their books they have already reviewed. If they have already reviewed all their books, they probably won't want to join the group, or perhaps they will and want to re-review their books. It would be helpful in such cases for such posters to make that clear.

Otherwise, once it can be seen from the user's pages that there are still books in their collection that they haven't reviewed, then it's a case of finding them. I don't know an easier way than trial and error...yet.

I was a little confused by that. I wasn't sure if IM meant a book with no review at all or a book not previously reviewed by that person.

The idea is to get people writing reviews of their own books, whether others have written reviews of those books or not. For the person choosing, it should be a review you'd like to read.

Should the review be pasted into the post? linked to? Just the touchstone for the work? or simply a "I've done it" message?

Is there a way of pasting the review into the post? I'd imagined that one would just say they'd done it, link to the book, and then those interested could look it up, but if there's a way to link the actual review in, that would be cool.

Why not just say soemthing like my review can be found in the reviews for Treasure Island? If someone wants to read the review I'm sure there will be plenty of people who can show them how.

BTW, reading_fox, I just tested your scheme for including links from message posts. Thanks for putting it out there.

The other option would be to post the link to your reviews. For example, mine would be

http://www.librarything.com/profile_reviews.php?view=adamallen

Your most recent review (likely the one you just finished for this group) is at the top.

If someone is comfortable with HTML, they could post it as an active link such as:

Review is Here

Just my 2¢.

That's an excellent idea, adamallen. Thanks. I was lucky having reading_fox as the next poster as she kindly chose me something fairly quick and easy. I should have a review up tomorrow so I'll try to set the pattern with that.

I assume that's normal HTML with the (without the first space) for links?

That it is.

I asked someone to review a book ages ago. How long do I have to wait before someone chooses me a book?

It's a cycle and sometimes one has to wait for a book to be finished before the next person is ready to post.

Of course, the more people who play the game, the less this should happen, so if you know anyone who would be interested in joining our little troupe, then invite them to join us.

I want books to be chosen from by TBR list, okay?

Yep, that's fine so long as you say so each time you post for a new book. Anybody could come along next and they won't necessarily know that you want books picked from a particular tab, so just say so.

RE #9 - of course one can carry on (re)reading other books whilst waiting for the next choice.

Also, worthy to note that if you click the "Group Zeitgeist" tab at the top of the main page, recent reviews by group members appear on the right side of the page. Thanks for starting a great group Inigo! (...and I'll let you know if I find the six-fingered man!)

I'm new so I need a couple of questions answered:

After reviewing X's library I send them an individual comment with the book I've selected for them to read, correct?

If that is correct how do I get chosen if I don't post the selected reviewer and book on the game thread?

Just trying to get started so I can join the fun!

Thanks
Marcia

You don't need an individual comment. Just post a message to "The Game Thread" telling the previous person to review a book and then someone will come along and pick one for you! Glad you want to join the fun!

So I have read the intro and first chapter of the book picked for me, The Closing of the American Mind. I just don't like it and don't want to finish it, but I haven't read enough to give it a real review. What to do?

Although I don't have an answer I'm having the same problem with the book chosen for me. Normally I give a book 100 pages before I decide to stop reading but I'm on page 82 and this book has hit the wall so many times were going to need to repaint.

Thanks.

Danielle

First, I think that if you hate a book so much you can't finish it, that's your review. I do believe that many books take a while to get going, though, and I personally would hate to give up on one after just a chapter. I've heard "60" given as the magic number of pages you should give a book.

Secondly - this is a GAME with nothing but our enjoyment at stake. Nobody in Vegas cares if you finish the book! I'm thinking, if you're not enjoying it, then that's not cool and who wants to play a game that's no fun? I am the most anal rule follower on earth, but sometimes you just have to cut yourself a little slack. 8-)

Yep - write a brief review on why you dislike it so much, how far you managed to get etc. Or just cut it completely and post back on the game thread.

Indeed - there's nothing *forcing* you to review, you can just jump in like a new member :-)

(And sorry for picking such a horrible book Danielle! I feel bad now :-s)

LizT - Aww don't feel bad I was the one who initially picked it up at the bookstore :) I'm still trying to plug away at it small bits at a time I just can't believe such a fun idea could go so horribly wrong. I mean it's a romance between the boogeyman and the tooth fairy I expected it to be fun. Oh well you can't appreciate the sweet without the sour right??

Danielle

Can I just add that the review Danielle did for the book she is talking about above is very funny. It's review #186 on the Wiki pages.

I've found new ways of finding out what books have been reviewed and which haven't in other people's librarys.

One way is to set your view of the library to include reviews. Another is to just note the symbols in the shared column. If the little speech bubble is green, the person has reviewed the book. If it's yellow, there are reviews (and the number is the second of the two digits underneath, e. g. "954/15" means there are 15 reviews) but that the person whose library it is hasn't reviewed it. If there's no little speech bubble, no one has reviewed the book.

This is no doubt known to many of you, but it took me a year to realise it, so this is for those among us as slow as I.

This sounds like a very interesting group and I think I would like to join. The problem is my library includes books I don't actually own. All owned books are tagged "own". Most that I have read are star rated, date read is tagged, but many still must be read and/or reviewed. I would prefer to only review owned books since I may not be ready to purchase others right now. There are several hundred owned books and since I am behind on catalogging, several hundred more to come.

If this is possible I would love to join,

Most people (myself included) ask for others to choose from books with certain tags, or books that have not been rated, or something like that. You can ask people to choose a book tagged "own," or one tagged "own" that hasn't been rated, or whatever you want!

Thanks, sounds great!

I have a similar question to muzzie in 22. How do I posta review for books I don't own.

I read many books form the library that I would love to review. The two ways described in the FAQ on how to post a review of a book says that it has to be in my own LT library. But I only want to add books to my LT library that I actually own. (So I would not have to tag every owned book with the "own" tag. This way my LT library would reflect what I really have in my house.) I guess I could add the book, post the review, and then remove the book from my LT library. Does anybody have a better idea?

Why not add them and tag them as 'Borrowed' rather than worrying about tagging the rest of your library 'Own'. I do that now - I started with just my physical library and then adapted because I wanted to make an effort to track all my reading, not just the ones I still have.

Alternatively, why not set up another account for your library books? If it's below the 200 mark then you can do it for free I believe?

If you remove the book from your library the review is deleted at the same time. There has been a lot of discussion on this point but thats how TIM wants it to be. It may help to think of LT as a list of books you have "a relationship with" rather than a trict library catalog of whats on your shelves.

Tagging is currently the only answer. There is hope the "collections" feature whenever it gets released may support this ability. You can bulk add tags through the power edit facility (p/e icon) at 100 a time.

"tag them as 'Borrowed'"

Thank you for the tip, I will do that. I plan to stick around here for the long term. So I would probably hit the 200 mark pretty soon. So no other account for me, even if it would cost only $25. The logistics of maintaining two accounts would cost me more in time.

The other problem with two accounts is if you join the Early Reviewer group--that works off of what's In your library, so adding books in two different accounts instead of one would work against your chances.

So, here's a question....I'd been under the impression that reviews showed up on a books page in reverse chronological order. Because of that, I thought posting a link to the book was an easy enough way for people to look up a review I'd just written. But tonight, I went to refer to mine and doublecheck for typos (I was rushed to finish when I wrote it, I'm afraid), and it was toward the bottom, along with another review that was written much more recently than some of the other reviews.

Any answers or thoughts? How does the system figure out what reviews go on top if not by what's the newest review? Or is this a weird fluke? Oh, the book is Salem Falls if anyone wants to look for themselves at the review dates....

The pattern that I've been able to figure out is that reviews which have been given "thumbs up" votes float to the top - the more votes it gets, the higher it floats. Zero votes (including brand new posts) are shown last. If more than one review has the same number of reviews, they are shown in reverse chronological order. Your review of Salem Falls is now the first one displayed, as a result of having received thumbs up votes.

ah--that makes sense. I'd thought it was purely chronological before, but didn't give it much thought until I noticed otherwise. Thanks sjmccreary!

This response is kind of outdated but I thought I'd post just in case anyone wanted to know. There is a way to sort reviews by date rather than thumbs. At the top of the reviews you click on the little blue "date" word and it should re-organize.

edited to add:

Click on it once to sort new to old and twice to sort old to new.

new question from a new member.. I see many people are linking to the tag they want their books chosen from - how do you link to a tag?

In your catalogue click on the tag you want to link to - this will display all the books with that tag. The brouser bar will display the address

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/reading_fox&tag=GRB
which you can paste into a standard href link, or just copy and paste as above.