Digging Deeper, Growing Stronger: Recommend a Book

Summer means summer reading at the library! Our theme for Adult Summer Reading 2021 is "Digging Deeper, Growing Stronger," and you can learn more about the challenges and prizes at our website. Keep in mind that Adult Summer Reading is only for people age 18 and up. Information about summer reading for children or teens can be found on a different page. Already signed up for Adult Summer Reading and looking for suggestions for the Recommend a Book square? This post is here to help! 

Recommending a book can be as easy as saying, "Hey, I read this great book the other day!" at dinner. Call your BFF to tell them about it! Put the book's title in your busiest groupchat followed by seventeen exclamation marks! We would love to hear about your book, too, so feel free to send us an email or recommend it through the Yearlong Reading Challenge. But if you're thinking about reaching a bigger audience, there are a few easy ways to support a book you love online, and I'm here to show you how. 

First of all, did you know that you can rate and comment on a book right in the BPL's catalog? You don't have to have checked the book out from us. (Of course we'd love it if you did!) If you scroll past the publication information on any item in our catalog, you'll find the Community Activity section. Go ahead and leave a comment telling everyone who looks at the record what you loved about your book! Not feeling eloquent? You can also give the book a rating (out of five stars). Here's an example of where to click using one of my favorites, Paladin of Souls. You can scroll further down in the record and try to find my comment, too. 

Maybe you want to branch out to an even larger audience than your fellow library catalog users. There are many social media sites dedicated to books and reading, but by far the biggest one is Goodreads. If you want to review a book online or find out what other people thought about it, Goodreads is the place to start! You can even like or comment on other people's reviews and start a conversation. I'm a huge fan of Goodreads and their yearly Reading Challenge. It helps me a lot to keep track of what I'm reading and if I write my thoughts down as soon as I finish a book, I'm much more likely to remember them later. (You can watch a tutorial on using Goodreads if you need help getting started.) If you really loved a book and want to help the author sell more copies, you can also leave a comment on the book on Amazon. You don't have buy the book from Amazon in order to write a customer review! Your opinions might help someone decide whether they want to buy the book. 

Of course, you don't have to go to a website that's all about books in order to talk about them! Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube all have thriving communities of book lovers. Instagram (a site where all posts are images, with or without captions) is probably the easiest to get started on. Just take a photo of the book you're reviewing and make sure to tag it with the hashtag #bookstagram! Youtube and Twitter have #booktube and #booktwitter, too. 

Much more important than where and how you talk about books, of course, is having something to say! Think about your favorite book. What would you tell someone about it to make them understand what makes it great? Now get out there and help that book find the audience it deserves!