Dig with your boots on

Multiple trips to the book fair and bringing home books from my dad's collection has on several occasions left me wondering, "Do I have this book already or did I just see it here last time?"  It is getting harder to keep track of what I already own.  My wife thinks this is good reason to get rid of the books.  I think it is good reason to find a way a better way of cataloging and keeping track of everything so all of the books become useful instead of temporarily forgotten.

I have had to reinstall all the software on my computer far too many times this year to bother with a downloaded program (especially when the most recommended software is completely unfree).  In looking around online for the best solution I found four websites that were worth looking at:  LibraryThing, Goodreads, aNobii, and Shelfari.  Most of the reviews of these sites were at least a year old which is approximately one eon in internet time.  So I took a look for myself at how each of these sites are laid out and what they could do for me.

All four of these sites have successfully differentiated themselves from each other and it is no random choice as to which one you will want to use.  The comparison most often made is between LibraryThing and Goodreads.  I don't think this is the proper comparison anymore, if it ever was.  The purpose of these two sites is very different which is probably why so many people don't ever chose and just use both.

The two comparison groups now are LibraryThing vs. Shelfari and Goodreads vs. aNobii.  The first two are websites that focus on being a good personal library catalog for all of your books, the second two focus on being a social network for people who read books.  This is a big distinction.  In the first case, the focus is on organizing all of your books.  In the second case, most of the focus is on interacting with other people.

I wrote up excruciatingly detailed descriptions of each one of the sites, but here is a small summary of what I found.

LibraryThing vs. Shelfari

These two options are where you should look if your primary goal is to organize the books you have.  Both were able to locate every book I tried to enter.  LibraryThing was more flexible in your choices for organizing and labeling the books and it was very accurate in what edition of the book you were allowed to enter.  LibraryThing's advantage here is being able to search Library of Congress data to identify the book you own.  It is also extremely customizable in what is shown on your home page when you log in, giving you a lot of choice in how to make the site most useful to you.  Shelfari is a much prettier site, but also a much simpler site.  The options for customization are very limited and there is no way to connect with your facebook or twitter accounts.  Shelfari's advantage is its close integration of Amazon.com.  It automatically loads into your account every book you have ever bought online from Amazon.  If you want a record of your books, including the specific editions owned, and would like to be able to customize your log in page, then LibraryThing is the site you want (and the one I chose).  If you bought all or most of your books on Amazon.com and care more about good looks than customization, then Shelfari is likely to be what you will prefer.

Goodreads vs. aNobii

These two options are social networks designed for interaction with other people.  Neither were able to locate all the books I tried to enter and didn’t handle multiple editions of the same book very well, but they found all of the more recently published books.  Goodreads is stuffed full of information and borders on being cluttered, but currently has the better system for interaction of the community.  The goal of this site seems to be discussions about what you have read and staying a while to digest what you see.  aNobii is a much simpler site, but still has almost all of the functionality of Goodreads.  It is not so focused on interactive discussions, but in making the book collections of other people visible to you so that you can find other books you might want to read.  Both of these tie in closely with facebook and twitter and provide plenty of options for keeping track of what your friends are reading.  The decision between these two sites will likely be down to whether you like a simple interface with no advertisements and a focus on new books you may want to read with aNobii, or do you want interactive discussions about what you are reading and other interactive features like polls and trivia quizzes with Goodreads.  Goodreads seems to have been people's default choice for a while, but aNobii has a distinct look with a lot of customization available that I think people should definitely consider.

For my book collection, LibraryThing will clearly be the most useful.  If I want facebook integration it is there, but I can be sure that I will be able to keep track of every book I have, even if it is an old edition.  It is harder for me to chose between Goodreads and aNobii because a social network of readers is not really what I care about right now.  I may try out aNobii to keep track of books currently read and reading goals for the year just because of the simplicity of the interface while keeping a lot of customization options available.

If you have a large collection of books, or just like talking about books, I hope this helps in showing you what is available on the web to meet your needs.  If you still can't make up your mind, just take a sample of your books and try out more than one site for a week or two.  The differences will be very apparent as soon as you start logging in and trying to use the systems.

Privacy Settings:
All of these cataloging sites allow some level of privacy for your book collection.  Both LibraryThing and Shelfari have options to keep your entire catalog private.  Goodreads doesn't have a completely private option, but you can limit access to people you have added as "friends."  Anobii's privacy options are limited to hiding individual books from the public.  However, you can choose default settings that automatically hide everything you add, so it is possible to have a private collection without needing to remember to check "hide this book" every time.  Only Goodreads lacks the option to hide individual books while leaving the rest public.

I used 52 books as an initial test to see how the book addition process at several book cataloging and sharing sites works and what the sites could do for me.  I used the same books to test Goodreads, Shelfari, aNobii, and the subject of this review LibraryThing.  The books I used were a little spread out in published date, with at least one book in every decade starting from 1950 until the present.

Addition of books is pretty simple.  You add the book to your online library by searching for any identifier (title, ISBN, Library of Congress number, etc.) and then clicking on the correct item that comes up.  Most of the time only one option comes up in the search as ISBNs and LC numbers are rather specific.  The search is made on one of 700 sources of information, though only one database is searched at a time.  The three databases shown on the add page by default are Amazon.com, Library of Congress, and the LibraryThing custom database of all books that have been entered on their site.  The search of Library of Congress data is a huge benefit to this site and is the reason why I was able to add books here that other sites had trouble finding without any manual entry of data.  All of my books were found.

Books can be categorized in two ways, with collections and with tags.  Both are easy to add to a book upon the initial add process and remain easy to change afterwards.  Multiple tags and collections can be added to a book simultaneously.  The import/export options are available for backing up the data from your library or bringing in large amounts of books at once, but I did not test them.

When the cover image is not correct, you are able to chose from other image options found on the site used by other members or upload your own picture of the cover.  Out of these 52 books entered, three needed custom covers uploaded.  To be fair, two were printed in the 1950's so the internet didn't have an image and the third had several ISBNs on the same book so there was just trouble all around.  The cover image that came up for several of the other books was not the same cover as the book I owned.  However, except for those 3 previously mentioned, the correct image was available on the site already and it was very easy to switch images.  Changing the cover image did not change any of the other book data.

Once added, all of your books can be found under the "your books" tab at the top of the page.  The way the books can be displayed is very customizable.  You can use lists with customizable fields or you can view them as a montage of book covers and customize how many show up on the page.  List view is of course much more informative showing any book data field you wish along side the title.  There is also a complete library statistics/memes page that gives information on your online library.  It will show you an obscurity statistic, comparing your book to how many others on the site own that specific edition, and you can also see other things such as a bar graph of how many of your books were published in what decade, number of books vs. number of distinct works, number of books that have won awards, and how many are part of a series.

When you log in, your home page is focused on your library and arranged in customizable text boxes displaying things like statistics, recent additions, and collection/tag lists to help you locate books quickly.  A generic "search your books" field is at the top of your page if you prefer that method of locating the book you are after rather than clicking around.  There are also customizable boxes that give quick looks at local literary events, member top lists (members currently reading, most wanted, etc.), and other LibraryThing information (author chats, book giveaways, early review books available, etc.).  Even the order in which these are presented is customizable and any of the boxes can be hidden to simplify your page.  Other information displayed include recommended books based on what you have entered and which other members own the same books you own (called "connections").  When you click on another member's name you are taken to a spartan profile page where you can then link to their library catalog and see a small recent activity box.

At first glance the site looks rather crowded with too many boxes trying to tell you too many things.  However, after a day or so of use, the purpose of what you are seeing becomes very clear and your brain easily filters out the stuff you don't need at the moment.  After spending minimal effort hiding several boxes and reordering how they appear on the page, I've made a very useful and informative home page for myself that is available immediately upon login.

Overall I have a very positive view of this site, but there were a few things that detract from the user experience.  First, the local events list was empty even though we just had a huge book festival in my city (during my lethargy in actually posting this review, three events did show up for a town about 65 miles away).  Evidently not many people in my town use this site, or at least put event info on the site, and LibraryThing doesn't seem to be pulling event info from other sources.  They did however have a list of all the local libraries and books stores.

My other problem with the site is aesthetics.  It looks dated.  The functionality of the site is great, but it does look like something designed before the turn of the millennium.  And it is kind of pink, which sticks in my craw.  However, in my few days of using the site my appreciation of its functionality has far overshadowed my distaste for the style.  Really it would all be solved if it just wasn't pink.

What may be a problem for others, but didn't bother me, is the rather subdued social networking aspects of the site.  Yes, there are forums and discussion groups that are easy to see (and easy to hide and ignore thank goodness), but the applications for integrating the site with facebook and twitter are under a generic "more" tab and there is no prominent networking news feed unless you edit and reorder the "connections" box on your home page.  But these things do exist along with customizable widgets to put on a web page or blog, chrome browser extensions, and iPhone/Android apps.  You can also look up your list of books on your smartphone browser with the LibraryThing mobile page.

LibraryThing has no ads at all on the site, even if you stay with the free service.  The option to upgrade to the pay service is also very modest with a small font (upgrade) link in parenthesis.  These guys seem to have exerted a respectable amount of restraint in this area without any "give me money" modules poking you in the eye at all.  The service is free up to 200 books, after which you can either pay yearly or chose a lifetime membership to expand your library further.  The default payment method is PayPal and the typical amount given for a yearly membership is $10 and $25 for the lifetime membership.  I did say typical amount because (and please don't tell you heard the secret from me) the amount you can pay for either is actually quite negotiable.  I leave it to you to visit the site and find out how negotiable for yourself, but it can be more expensive to eat a happy meal at McDonald's than to have a yearly membership.  LibraryThing appears to be self sufficient on its own due to these paid upgrade options as it does not have the obvious backing of other commercial entities.

Because of the ease of adding the correct edition of a book with the correct cover, ability to customize every single little thing displayed (except for that disappointing pink theme), and ease of finding and editing book data after the books are loaded, I will continue using LibraryThing as my main site for keeping a catalog of all my owned books.  This site is really good at its intended purpose, which is to be a comprehensive and easy to use online catalog for your personal library.

Privacy Settings:

LibraryThing has two methods to help you keep your catalog private if you desire.  The default option is to leave your entire catalog public.  However, you can check a setting that will make your entire catalog private.  Your profile will remain public, but there will be no way for people to view your books.  The second option is to leave your catalog public, but hide individual books.  On the edit screen for each book there is the option to hide that specific book.

I used 52 books as an initial test to see how the book addition process at several book cataloging and sharing sites works and what the sites could do for me.  I used the same books to test LibraryThing, Goodreads, Shelfari, and the subject of this review aNobii.  The books I used were a little spread out in published date, with at least one book in every decade starting from 1950 until the present.

The name aNobii comes from Anobium Punctatum, the Latin name for the common furniture beetle.  According to aNobii's "about" page the beetle is also known as … a bookworm (the larvae I assume).  The first thing I noticed about this site was the very clear and up front privacy policy and terms of service rather than the normal legalese that makes most policies unreadable.  This simplicity in presentation actually sets the tone for the entire user experience at aNobii.

Addition of books is accomplished by one of three methods:  searching the popular books list (probably more helpful in populating your wish list), searching isbn/title/author/keywords, or by scanning the barcode with an aNobii app on your smartphone.  I used ISBNs to add my test books (those that had ISBNs, title search for those that didn't) and the process was extremely fast, the fastest of all the sites I have tried.  However, the speed comes at a cost.  Adding custom tags or other organizational categories to the book cannot be done at the add stage.  You must go into the book record after adding it to the library and organize there.  When added, books are automatically put onto a "Not Started" shelf which I assume is short for "I have not started reading this."  However, within the customizable settings you can set a different default category (from a list of 6 categories) as the starter slot.  There is also an option to type in up to 8 ISBNs at once and add the books in bulk instead of doing each one separately.  Normal import/export options exist for book data, but were not tested.

I was able to add different editions of the same book (unique ISBNs) to the collection without any problems.  I was not able to add three of my books as the site could not find a Hallmark gift book or the two books published in 1950's.  There is an option of manually adding the book data, but I couldn't be bothered just for a test run like this.

Once a book is added, you can go into the edit screen to add predefined book categories as well as custom tags.  There is also an option to keep a book private and not visible to the aNobii community.  You can upload a new cover image if the correct image is not displayed.  Several of the books I added had the wrong cover image.  Sometimes the cover image was slow to appear, but all of the books did have some image to show.  There are also detailed options to keep track of books lent to others that includes the name of  the person, date lent, and an automatic email reminder sent to the person asking them to return the book before a specific date.  From within the edit screen  The display of books in your library (or "on your shelf" in aNobii terms) has four options ranging from utilitarian to colorful.  From within your library you can click on any title to see how many others on the site own that book, read reviews of the book, see book data details (number of pages, ISBNs, etc.), and find some online stores where you can buy the item.  Obviously this is totally geared towards helping you find information on books you do not actually own, not management of your own collection.

The home page you see at login is very simple and clean with a small number of boxes mainly focused on activities of other aNobii users (not just your friends, but this default can be changed to friends only).  The only hint of your library on this front page is a small dashboard box displaying the number of books you have and another box below it that displays up to four of the books on your currently reading shelf.  To see other data on your library you click on a tab at the top of the page called My Shelf.  There is a link to a page called Stats from this shelf view, but the only stats that appear are the number of times other aNobii users have browsed your shelf and how many books you finished reading since signing up.  There is also a wishlist for books you don't have but would like to own.  There is a Charts tab at the top of the home page that takes you to the most popular books within certain categories, again helping you find good books you don't yet own.  The last tab at the top of the home page to mention is the Contacts tab.  Within your contacts aNobii distinguishes between friends, people you know, and neighbors, people you don't know but discovered on the site and like their books.  I assume if I added some I could see some difference in how you are allowed to interact, but the fact that the distinction exists I think is an interesting sign and reflects the reality of layers in our social circles that other social networking sites do not really handle well.

aNobii describes itself as "an online reading community built by readers for readers allowing you to shelve, find and share books." The site’s “open” feature allows you to see which users have visited your bookshelves and allows other users to see if you have visited their bookshelves.  By changing your account setting to anonymous you may deactivate this feature if you prefer to peek instead of look.

The emphasis at aNobii is on being able to quickly see what others are reading and find out if you want to read it as well.  There is a box on the home page that suggests other users that have similar tastes based on what you have entered into your library so that hopefully you can find other books you might like to read.  When you click on another member's name you are taken to a page that focuses on the books in their collection with a graphic that estimates how compatible you are in your reading tastes.  Discussion groups also seem to be a big focus on the site with the distinction from other sites being the visible list of other books owned by group members that you may want to check out.  Making visible the shelves of other users seems to be the point of every page.  Of course, that information is made more helpful by the reviews and ratings given to the books, but the entry forms to make those reviews and ratings is not front and center.  Your contribution is not the focus here, but the contributions of others.  The site is simply laid out, and easy to navigate and easy to read with large fonts.  This gives the first impression that there is not much going on there in the way of customization, but once you visit the Settings menu a wide range of options are available from colors used to how you interact and how others interact with you.  Simplicity is presented, but complexity is allowed.

The site integrates facebook and twitter fairly well with auto-post options.  The site will even search your facebook friends to see if there is a match among current aNobii users.  There are also smartphone apps and customizable blog widgets.

There are no advertisements on the aNobii site and all services are free.  Revenue seems to be from a Buy tab on every book detail page where you can compare prices and gives links to a small number online sites (not Amazon) where you can buy that specific book.  HarperCollins, Penguin, and The Random House Group are listed on the "about" page as also supporting the company.  Again this leaves a very clean interface for browsing.

This site is very focused in its goal and very easy to use with no clutter.  The site founders have successfully differentiated themselves from other book sites in positive ways.  There are a few features that other sites have that I don't see here, such as local event listings and author chats, but this is probably because they are not in direct support of aNobii's singular goal of getting you in touch with the shelves of other readers with similar interests.  Some of these will likely be added later as the site membership grows, which I am sure it will.  This site is all about you finding new books that you want to read.

Privacy Settings:
Anobii's only method for keeping your books private is to set each individual book as hidden.  However, you can change the default settings so that every new addition is added as a private book. 

I used 52 books as an initial test to see how the book addition process at several book cataloging and sharing sites works and what the sites could do for me.  I used the same books to test LibraryThing, Shelfari, aNobii, and the subject of this review Goodreads.  The books I used were a little spread out in published date, with at least one book in every decade starting from 1950 until the present.

Adding of books is easy and accomplished by searching one of three identifiers:  book title, author, or ISBN.  There are three databases to search: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and the Goodreads database of books entered into the site (plus 5 other amazon.com sites from other countries).   Adding books takes a little longer than other sites because Goodreads takes you took a new page when you search for the isbn where there is a lot of information such as other editions, a summary of the book, and the cover picture.  On this page there is a button to actually add the book to your library.  When adding you can use custom "shelves" or tags, but are also forced to put the book onto one of three shelves named read, to-read, or currently-reading.  The custom shelf names have to be added in a second step that is on a different page and if the book is put on your to-read shelf custom tags are several clicks away.  Once done, though, the shelf names are easy to edit and easy to move books between them.

I was unable to add four of the books.  The search could not find a Hallmark gift book, it did not have the correct editions of the two 1950's books (though other more recent editions were available), and even though they had unique ISBNs I couldn't add more than one edition of an NIV bible.  Manual entry for the first three was an option, but I didn't want to take the time.  There  was also normal import/export options for book data that were not tested.  It does not seem to be possible to change the cover image without also changing the edition of your book (isbn, published date, etc.) and it does not seem to be possible to add custom covers if the image is not on the site at all.  Another problem is that there doesn't seem to be a way to add more than one edition of the same book to your library even though other editions are visible in a box in the sidebar.

The homepage is focused on your friends network and updates from their feed with small boxes in the sidebar that describes the basics of your library.  This friend feed is almost as complex as the feed on facebook.  There are not just book updates, but you are able to post quotes and become fans of other members.  Down the right side of the page is where you will find some information from your profile such as how many books you have and what you are currently reading.  If you scroll down there is also a list of the custom tags that you added which makes searching your personal library easier.  The links at the top of the home page can take you to your books, a list of your Goodreads friends, a list of discussion groups, or a page to "explore" which allows you to search books on the site and find the "best" books in whatever category you are interested in.  Each of those links can be made more specific with a drop down menu.  For example, instead of just exploring books on the site, I can narrow that down to just exploring ebooks, or explore authors on the site, or explore books available in the bookswap feature.  The mobile home page for smartphone browsers is much simplified but still contains several search options to find books both in your own collection and, through a search box, from rest of the site.

Goodreads describes itself as a social network for readers.  It is not meant to be a site that just tracks your books, but meant to provide a place to come and stay a while.  When you click on a book you see the obligatory back cover blurb, a little book data, but you also see a short bio of the author, if other editions exist, other books by the same author, quotes from the book, and the long list of community reviews and ratings.  You can also compare prices for the book from several online stores including Amazon.  The are several options for engagement at Goodreads.  As at every site like this you can rate and write reviews, but Goodreads has a discussion style comment system that seems to allow for easier interaction between friends/members.  There are also book trivia quizes to take and popular quote lists to read.  As a nice addition there is also the option of contributing your own creative writing to the site for others to read.  You can also upload videos to your profile for others to watch.  Goodreads has integration with facebook and twitter, but there is just as much interaction going on at the Goodreads site itself as there is on facebook.  All of this ties in with the goal of being a social network for readers, not just a network of people who own books.  There is a lot to do here.

The fact that there is so much to do at Goodreads has been both a pro and a con depending on my mood.  The Goodreads website is fighting a major battle against clutter.  Every page is full of tiny fonts and lots of links.  Whether it is friends who have the book, places to buy books, local literary events, groups to discuss your book, or author chats, it is all coming at you here.  Even when you click on another member's name you get a page full of detailed profile info with bios, blog feeds, their book collection, and several other sections full of information.  It really is a site to digest instead of visit.  And there are the advertisements on every page, sometimes two or three to a page (making the site completely free to use, though).  There is a lot of distraction, but I assume the noise could eventually be tuned out.

Simplicity is not the goal here, but instead creating a community of contributing readers.  Goodreads has obviously been successful at this.  I can't use Goodreads as the one stop online catalog for my own personal library due to the limitations on age of the books that can be found in search and on how many different editions can be added to a shelf.   It is definitely worth considering, though, if you have a relatively recent personal library, for sharing your current reads, becoming familiar with new authors, and finding the most local book related events in your area.  It would be a very good choice if what you want is a community of readers to interact with.

Privacy Settings:
Goodreads allows you to set different levels of access to your entire profile (which includes your book shelves) from public, to only Goodreads members, or "just friends." Goodreads doesn't let you set the catalog to completely private, but if you add no friends, then I imagine that "just friends" might as well be the same thing as private.  Goodreads does not appear to allow you to hide individual books. 

I used 52 books as an initial test to see how the book addition process at several book cataloging and sharing sites works and what the sites could do for me.  I used the same books to test LibraryThing, Goodreads, aNobii, and the subject of this review Shelfari.  The books I used were a little spread out in published date, with at least one book in every decade starting from 1950 until the present.

Shelfari has one important feature that distinguishes it from other similar sites.  That is the close integration with Amazon.com.  If you have an Amazon account, you have a Shelfari account.  The same login information is used for both.  When you log in for the first time you are able to automatically load all of your Amazon purchases into your collection (called Your Shelf on Shelfari).  This is so seamless that I had 15 books on my shelf within 10 seconds of signing up.  In my case, it pulled in books purchased as long ago as 2002.  As far as I know this is all of the books I have ever purchased from Amazon.com. 

Unfortunately most of my rather large book collection came from book fairs, brick & mortar stores, or as gifts.  This leaves quite a few to be manually added.  The process is very similar to other sites, rather easy but in this case slightly slow at the same time.  You search for an ISBN, title, or author and click on the correct edition to add to your shelf, then you have to make additional steps add your custom tags (the slightly slow part).  If you are adding a lot of books at once, slightly slow adds up to rather slow.  You cannot create custom shelves, so the custom tags are your main way of organizing your books.  The one shelf does allow you to distinguish between currently reading, plan to read, or have read and all are optional labels.  You can also label the books as favorites and distinguish between owned and wishlist.  The rest of the features are similar to a much simplified, but prettier, LibraryThing.

Shelfari allows you to pick a specific edition for your book, but it is not as concerned with what edition you have as it is concerned with the general description of the book.  Getting the correct cover to display on your shelf is easy, however, the default cover will show up when you click on the book to see the details.  It is possible to upload a custom cover if what you need is not already on the site.  I could not add more than one NIV bible to the shelf, though it was possible to list two editions as owned under a separate Editions tab on the book detail page.  One of my editions however, was not found and could not be added without manual typing in of all the book data.

When you log in, your home page is split between a random selection of books on your shelf, the groups you have joined,  the Shelfari friends you have added, and ongoing discussions about books you have added.  There are also quick links to recent Shelfari blog posts and all of the content you have added such as notes, reviews, and your account settings.  The home page is very basic with very little presented, but organized and easy to digest.

Shelfari describes itself as a community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers.  This is likely because of the Book Extras page you see when you click to see details about a specific book.  This is full of descriptions, summaries, and other book facts like a list of characters, popular quotes, first edition book data, and awards the book has won.  A very nice section here is the Notes for Parents that can show a suggested reading level and other notes that could help a parent decide if the book is suitable for their children.  Almost all of the Book Extras information has to be added by the site users and is not auto filled when you add a book.  Many of the books I added had only minimal information that was probably pulled from Amazon.com.  However, the more widely owned books have a lot of info added and this could be a good resource for those investigating new books.  LibraryThing has the same feature and calls it "common knowledge" but the interface is not as nice.

There is no facebook or twitter support at all except for "share this book" icons for each service plus LinkedIn on the book detail page.  However, this is the only site to include LinkedIn at all.  There are widgets that you can create and put on your own blog or website.

There are no advertisements on Shelfari and everything appears to be free.  Revenue is likely pulled over from the main Amazon.com site, plus there are small links on each book detail page that show you the current price on Amazon.com so you can easily hop over and buy it.

This review is a bit shorter than the others I've written because there is less to see here.  Shelfari is a very good book cataloging site, especially if you purchase your books from Amazon.com.  In one way or another I could add every book I owned to the shelf.  However, the seamless importing of Amazon.com purchases is not enough to make it functional for my purposes.  I want a site that pays more attention to the specific edition of the book I own and allows a little more differentiation in how they are organized beyond tags.  However, this site does look very nice and comes in a nice second to LibraryThing for the type of book site I was searching for.

Privacy Settings:
Shelfari's privacy settings are a little buried, but there is the choice of "Don't show a shelf on my profile page."  This doesn't keep people from just clicking on a different link to see all of your books, though.  It appears that the only way to truly have a private catalog on Shelfari is to utilize a check box on the edit screen for each individual book that allows you to set that book as private.

Steve Sillet couldn't get the Dyerville Giant out of his mind: that pancake of roots tipped up into the air, that crater forty feet across.  He was also concious of the fact that there were very few standing dead redwoods anywhere in the groves.  No rotting skeletons of redwoods standing upright.  The floor of the redwood forest was a maze of fallen trunks.  Now, in Telperion, the meaning of it became very clear: redwoods fall while they're still alive.

I would say beware of spoilers below, but if you've ever heard or read a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Osama bin Laden you already know the climax and ending of the movie Avatar.

For most of the movie I was hoping to be able to brush off the underlying message as just another "nature is nice, people are bad" story put to into an attractive 3D setting. A big bad mining company (strip mining no less) has somehow hired on the Marines to be the muscle for their operation. In true cliché fashion the magic money ore is right below the village of the nice peaceful nature loving natives. The natives don't want to move, the marines just want to shoot people, and so they fight.  Did I mention that the earth by this time has no more green and is a dead planet?  Yeah.

Unfortunately the script of this movie made it all too clear that this predictable story, while present, was not the real point to be communicated to the audience. The unescapable message of this movie is that the US armed forces are the trigger happy tool of corrupt corporations, anxious to invade and destroy peaceful people who just want to be left alone. Schools that are built and infrastructure that is provided are just con jobs to get foreigners to lay down so we don't have to waste bullets. Reality is that we really do deserve all of the aggression that terrorists throw against us as we somehow started it all in the first place by exploiting the innocent populace. Pre-emptive strikes are a facade to cover our attempt to kill the weak natives so they don't have a chance to get back at us for tricking them with our schools while taking their land and stealing the valuable resources buried underneath. But don't be afraid to fight back, natives. In the end, if you are willing to attack the corrupt white people and face certain death, technological superiority and overwhelming firepower will fail because your god will protect you.

Sound familiar? The first place I remember hearing it was from bin Laden. More recently we've heard it from the floor if the United Nations from Ahmadinejad. That is the story of Avatar. Neither "terrorists" nor "pre-emptive strike" is something read between the lines. They are the spoken lines of the movie. All of the corporation and Marine commanders were white people who go out of their way to show no respect for any form of life.  They have nothing but a desire to kill and destroy a beautiful culture so they can make lots of money. Throw in a helping of euthanize-the-handicapped and you have the last 5 minutes of the movie to wrap up your evening. After all, what meaning does life have if you can't climb trees?  This last message tossed in at the end seems to me more destructive than all the rest.

It is sad to me that such a foolish message has been put into such an attractive presentation. The presentation of such a grand setting in 3D was done very well. Until the true point of the movie could be ignored no longer, it was quite fun to watch and I hope other (better) movies follow suit. Avatar will no doubt be a great success at the box office due to the new technology used in shooting the movie, but I hope the underlying message is seen for the garbage that it truly is.

Why Birds Sing by David Rothenberg was one of the most engaging science books I've read. It can easily be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys the sound of birds whether they have head for science or not. There is a wide variety of material here, all of which gives you a better appreciation for the noise different species of birds make. Some of it seems musical to human ears and some does not, but regardless there is a lot to learn about the pattern and "lyric" (my term) that each bird uses. Rothenberg, with a combination of history, interviews, and personal experience, does a nice job of showing how science so far has only scratched the surface of what is going on in those little bird heads. I challenge you to read just the preface of this book and then see if you can put it back down without at least wishing you had the pocket money to bring it home.

The author is both philosopher and musician. He is a professor of philosophy and music at NJIT and plays the jazz clarinet. The writing of this book began with his attempt to interact and play music with birds at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. The preface says that this encounter changed his "sense of how music emerges out of nature." His pursuit of the question of why birds sing incorporates a review of scientific observations, but he is not beyond challenging scientists to look beyond the base purposes of territory, food and mate. He relates one story where he was interviewed along side a bird song researcher who was put off by Rothenberg's assertion that bird song was more than a simple routine. To many scientists nature is just a complicated machine and bird song is just a kind of business transaction with females. Rothenberg says, "Nature is not a business." There is without doubt great benefit in the scientific method, but Rothenberg seems to lament that most scientists do not seem brave enough to reach for beauty as a reality instead of just a human mental construct. So do I, which may explain why I enjoyed all of this book.

Chapter one relates some of the author's experiences in the National Aviary that led to his pursuit of why birds sing. It is real enough in its descriptions that I have wanted to visit the place myself since I read it. Each bird is an individual and Rothenberg finds it easier play along with some more than others. The second chapter begins with the beginning of bird song research. At its beginning, bird song research was more poetry than science. The first records of people paying attention to the sound of birds is in poems and art, but even ancient philosophers like Aristotle took time to write about how birds learn to sing. As we move through the next chapters we move through stages of research and the knowledge revealed by those studies. We see how bird song transcriptions began with mnemonics (the spotted towhee's "chup-chup-zee" or the white throated sparrow's "old sam peabody, peabody, peabody"), then by the Enlightenment moved to detailed musical transcriptions only to later move back to mnemonics, then on to modern sonograms. Along the way we get insights into the lives of bird researchers and their desire to understand and relate to the birds they studied.

There are interesting historical tidbits and stories thrown in as well. For example, the European Starling was brought to the USA by a man in the 1800s who wanted to introduce all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare to the New World. He released less than 200 of the birds into Central Park. It was such an invasive species that now one-third of the world's population of starlings is in America. Don't feel bad about shooting a few. I remember the great lengths that people went to rid the Texas A&M campus of the black smelly pests. I have seen them on many occasions fighting on my porch over bird food. However, they are actually very interesting birds in their song. It is not so musical, but very complex. They are also mimics, that can learn new songs and sounds throughout their whole lives. I'm sure you've seen them. They're the only black birds with yellow beaks in North America.

There is one extremely interesting little bird called the European Marsh Warbler that migrates from Northern Europe to Eastern Africa and back. His entire journey can be reconstructed by the song he sings. This bird imitates almost every other bird he encounters along his entire flight path, weaving all of the sounds into his own song.

If I'm not careful I'm going to get carried away here with interesting stories and lessons learned from this book.

Last year Rothenberg wrote another book along the same lines called Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound, apparently looking at whale song and his attempt to play music with those great animals as well. I look forward to finding it on sale somewhere. But who knows... after enjoying Why Birds Sing so much, I may actually pay full price.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke was originally published 2 years before I was born, but there is very little in the book that dates the story or the writing. Perhaps that is the case of all written science fiction placed far enough into the future. Written fiction has a much better chance to stand the test of time than the stylized visuals in movies or on TV. When reading a book, nothing forces you to imagine the characters wearing disco pants as part of their space uniform. Clarke is famous for predicting communications satellites in geostationary orbits for global communications, but very few of his other predictions have come that close. His writing stands the test of time more because he stuck to the basic laws of physics instead of inventing fictional ways around them. It lends a sense of reality to a lot of his stories that other authors don't have (or maybe it is just something they don't use). It is this sense of reality that keeps alive the mystery and challenge in this story of an alien spaceship entering our solar system.

This book is the story of a mysterious object, first mistaken for an asteroid or comet, that enters into our planetary system. Many months after discovery, when the object which has been given the name Rama gets close enough for inspection with telescopes, it becomes obvious that the completely smooth and perfect cylinder is not an object of nature, but an alien spacecraft. A spaceship from Earth is sent to intercept the cylinder, the space-captain astronaut guy finds a way inside, and the real mystery begins. They see what looks like cities at a distance, but there is no movement or noise... or light. They see what looks like water, but its all frozen solid and full of poisonous chemicals. The far end of of Rama is completely cut off from the explorers by this frozen sea, but telescopes tell them from a distance it is full of interesting but unidentifiable features. What is going on inside this thing? What is the function and purpose of what we see? What unknown dangers are about to arrive? Why is this alien craft here? Time is running out as the alien vessel gets too close to the sun for the explorers to stay.

If this was a Star Trek story, the mystery would be over in two pages. Sensors would map out every inch of Rama, look inside all the walls and into every dark corner, and initiate several little beeps to announce the arrival of every new encounter. The only advantage that Clarke gives his characters that we wouldn't have today is the spaceship that gets them to Rama in the first place. It is this limitation that gets the reader involved in the story. It is a story of exploration that we can share because there is no danger of technobabble to spoil our own efforts to understand the strange things that are being described. In this case, your guess really is just as good as theirs.

Clarke doesn't paint a detailed picture of an alien civilization or try and humanize some unknown species in this book. The story is about the effort it would take to understand something that was built in a manner truly alien to our way of thinking. Everything seems obvious in hindsight once discovered, but the initial approach just leaves you stumped and in need of help from the next clue Rama itself can give.

The few distractions in the book are Clarke's strange ideas about polygamy as the norm, again he puts forward the notion of forced population control, and he merges cult with religion into something presented seriously but only recognizable as superstition. Luckily these play only a small part in the storyline and are really only mentioned in passing in two or three places. For me, the oddest thing in the whole book took place on the very first page. Arthur C. Clarke, in 1973, writes about a disaster that happens on the morning of September 11th. An asteroid flies out of the sky, destroys a city, and gives rise to the creation a proactive military body to keep things like that from happening again. How's that for weird?

The paperback version that I read also had excerpts from six of Clarke's other books. They seemed to be well chosen and did their job of encouraging me to pick a couple of them up if I see them. Not worth talking about here, though.

Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Title: Rendezvous with Rama
Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery
Year: 1990, originally 1973

A couple of years ago, I heard a rerun interview on NPR with some guy who was talking about getting rid of the IRS. I only heard the last few minutes of the interview, but I liked what I heard and he finished with a website where people could go get more information. That website was FairTax.org. So started my support of the best federal tax reform plan I have ever heard.

Normally I don't care much for discussing politics, but I really don't see any reason why everyone can't agree that the FairTax plan is much better than the current federal tax plan that we have now. FairTax: The Truth - Answering the Critics is the second book on the topic. The first I have not read, but describes the entire tax reform plan in detail. In summary, the FairTax would replace all (and I stress all) current federal taxes with a single inclusive (already included in the shelf price) consumption tax (or sales tax). No IRS, no April tax day, no income tax, no payroll tax, no tax on investments (or college tuition which is considered an investment), no federal taxes at all on anyone except for the sales tax. In addition, every household in America of legal residents with a social security number get a prebate every single month. The prebate is money from the government so that all spending up to the poverty level is tax free (net cost). The bulk of this book is geared toward answering criticisms of that plan. The beginning is a general description of the principles of tax reform that the FairTax addresses and why tax reform is needed. The authors then give some attention to the merits of the FairTax plan, and finally they move into discussion of how the FairTax, when properly understood, adequately meets all of the criticisms it has faced so far.

Some of the criticisms addressed in the book are the 23% or 30% tax rate confusion, volatility of the tax base, the relationship between price change and purchasing power, the effect of tax evasion, and the burden on the middle class. Each argument is given with references to where any reader can find the data that was used.

The book is not heavy reading. There are plenty of statistics, graphs, and dollar figures to back up all of the arguments, but the pace is slow enough that a reader doesn't feel crushed under meaningless numbers. Each argument is made in several different ways so the message is clear and the numerous footnotes contain references to all of the primary sources quoted other than original FairTax documents found on the website. The authors even attempted to throw in some humor throughout the chapters to keep the reading light (your mileage will vary on their success here). I think they did a good job of providing the detail and references needed to satisfy a technical mind (at least an engineers mind... economist I am not) while also allowing someone not interested in the exact numbers an easily approachable discussion of the topic. The discussion is intentionally kept non-partisan and only in rare cases do the authors name and shame their critics. Their purpose is to persuade those who criticise the plan, not make them look bad.

I would actually recommend this as the FairTax book to read first, even though it was written second. If you like what you read here, then you'll be in a better mood for reading through all the details in the first book (which I would be reading now if it was possible find in any used bookstore anywhere - I guess those who do read it hold on to it). If you are completely new to the FairTax idea, start at the beginning of the book and work your way through. If you think you already know the basics, just go straight to chapter 3 and skip all the sunshine in the beginning. Be sure to stay around for the appendix as well. It discusses the report from the 2005 President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform. That report is the source for both a great deal of support for the principles behind the FairTax and some apparent criticisms of consumption taxes in general (again written in a very approachable manner).

I think that after reading FairTax: The Truth - Answering the Critics you will be a FairTax supporter. At the very least, the early chapters will help you understand why some type of radical tax reform is going to be required in this country in the near future.

Author: Neal Boortz, John Linder, Rob Woodall
Title: FairTax: The Truth - Answering the Critics
Genre: Business and Economics, Tax Reform
Year: 2008