Book Glutton: Soon To Be The World's Biggest Reading Club?

Well, it had to happen, and I am so glad it did. The digitization of a reading club into a vibrant and expressive community of super readers. Mmm mmm good.

BookGlutton is a site where you can read books along with others.

Here's a short explanatory intro to the site:



Clearly, the premise behind the site is that people like to talk about what they are reading, and with the powerfully unique online reader, you can comment on and read comments about the text as you are reading.

On Book Glutton you have the opportunity to read with a group, or tune out the group and just enjoy the text yourself. The unique reader enables you to read comments and make them while in line in the text of a particular page. By selecting a particular piece of text you can make comments directly about it that stay with it in the community copy of the work.

Here's how describe why they founded BookGlutton:

We believe firmly that people want to read, annotate and discuss, right there, immersed in the text. That’s the best time to talk about a book. We also respect the solitary side to reading: people should have the chance to tune out the community. We wanted it to be attractive, too; to be an experience. It was designed for the laptops people carry to their coffee shops, and meant for the network, not the desktop. Finally, it had to be something we’d want to use. Naturally we’ve got a list of improvements. Like any creative endeavor, we’re always seeing new ways to tweak it. And we’re open to suggestions! You can suggest features or give us general feedback

The site is quite new, so there are only about 1500 books available. But I think this is a site worth watching. The concept of being able to discuss a book like this offers a tremendously intriguing twist on the other book communities out there. This isn't a "let's compare shelves" app -- its a way to get into real dialogue about the ideas, characters, story, and meaning of a book.