The Drift Of Things

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To go to PM Page, click envelope icon on the upper navigation bar. 

Each of you has three options from whom you would like to receive messages

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Personal Messages settings are available on PM Page where you can select the option that fits you, look through your messages history and create new ones. You can also manage your messages notification. 

More improvements and features for PMs are in progress. 

Tips

To gain new readers and followings write and update your blog and bookshelf regularly. Find new interesting blogs on Explore page, select your favorite literary genre and follow new book blogs. If you're an author stay in touch with your new readers, you can also set up giveaways and set up discussion rooms.

P.S. If you're an author on BookLikes and we didn't get in touch with you yet, let us know at contact@booklikes.com. We have some goodies for you :-)

Fucking gorgeous, unsentimental debut novel about a father and son who lose their bond when they are separated by war, but manage to connect again in a more mature and somber way when the father returns from the front. 

Why is this book not getting more attention? Rah rah, Ms. Duffy. Superb writing skillz, lady. I'm looking forward to your next novel. 

I know I am going against trend by giving this 3 stars and even against my own first thoughts...When I began this book ages ago I swam through the beautiful prose and descriptions. It was like dark chocolate- so rich that I nibbled it in small doses. It has taken me ages to read it because of this and also because I am a slow reader who reads every word and at 771 pages there are many words. This became part of the problem. I got description over load. And by the time I reached Horst's apartment and some random woman was described to the nth degree I put the book down in frustration. The woman never featured again (why had I wasted my time investing in her) and by then magic of the descriptions had worn way too thin.

I did enjoy the story although I became frustrated at Theo's lack of get up and go. I did need to read until the very end but by then I was worn away and all the philosophising washed past me (it was midnight). I can't help thinking that this would have been stronger for me if it have been 300 pages shorter. I know this says more about me as a reader. I have less and less patience with ornament than I did twenty or thirty years ago. Having said that even in university I never enjoyed Dickens.

So I can say that the words are beautifully put together. Her descriptions and grab you by the throat with their beauty and insight but at this length it became too much like hard work and in the end I didn't care about Theo as much as I should have having spent so much time with him but I did adore Hobie. (originally posted on Goodreads)

Oh, kiddies. I don't know where to start  in describing my experience of this enormous hunk of enormousness. I came within less than 200 pages of finishing it, but I cannot go on. 

Synopsis of my reading experience: 

First 200 pages = This is outrageously excellent! Five stars for sure. 

Next 200 pages = Getting really sick of Theo and Boris and substance abuse. Four stars, but only if it improves soon. 

Next 170+ pages = Drudgery. Author has written herself into a corner but trudges doggedly on. Three stars, dropping to two stars, and finally 1.5 stars because I cannot force myself to finish. The days go by, reading 8 or 10 pages a day at most.  I hate the characters, hate the book, and come to hate the author because she took 10 years to write a book and wants us to take another 10 years to read it. 

Pffffffft...

If you listen to the audio version, you not only get to listen to the lovely Judy read her own autobiography, but you also get to hear several of her songs at the end of the last CD. My favorite Judy Collins song will forever be "Song for Judith":

"Open the door and come on in, 

I'm so glad to see you my friend. 

You're like a rainbow comin' around the bend.

And when I see you happy, 

Well, it sets my heart free. 

I'd like to be as good a friend to you as you are to me." 

Makes me cry every frigging time...

Fucking ba-rilliant.

HASA DIGA EBOWAI

“No shortcuts!” Many people support this statement but sometimes they are really useful and let discover new paths. So why not? We let you take two kind of shortcuts on BookLikes, with your Dashboard and Reviews.

Shortcut #1 - Dashboard

Form now on Dashboard is available in optional view with shortened posts. Now it will be easier to stay up to date with your friends reviews and bookshelf updates. To switch on new view of your Dashboard, go to Settings/General, select new option for feed activity at the bottom of the page and Save.

Once you select Dashboard in new view, you’ll see that posts are shortened and of similar size. With new view you’ll see title and the beginning of the posts, the rest will be hidden and will be revealed once you request to see entire post at the bottom of the text.

In this way your Dashboard will be better organized and will present numerous post entries that you can easily read, like and reblog without the necessity of infinite scrolling. It’s like never-ending table of content :-)

Remember that you can still add page break to your texts while writing. Then the posts will be published with Read more option not only on Dashboard but also on your Blog page. 

Let’s remind ourselves what other options Dashboard has. The right column has many useful features:

The upper part of Dashboard works as navigation bar which helps you to move between your admin views of your webpages: Blog, Shelf and Timeline. All changes made on your admin pages are mirrored on your public webpage with your personal address yourusername.booklikes.com.  To view your public page just click on your photo on Dashboard.

Dashboard is also the place where you search books. Use search box on the top to find books from book sources we partnership with (select book sources in Settings/Search) or search through your own Shelf (select magnifying glass icon in search box).

Shortcut #2 - Reviews

The second shortcut  is about your reviews and ability to edit them. So far you could edit your texts in your admin blog view. Now it can be done faster from Table view of your Shelf. We added Edit Review option to your reviewed books so if you want to add something to your published text, click on it and you’ll be moved to writing mode and text box of your review.

You can also use blog admin view to edit reviews. If you want to edit text added some time ago, you can use search box (paste post title) instead of scrolling down. Once the post is found hover over it and click Edit in upper right corner. Then make corrections and Save with your changes.

No unnecessary shortcuts :-) Enjoy!

Rating = 3.5 stars

"How learned and fine we believed ourselves to be! How shitty of the world to deal with us this way."

It's a story as old as academia. Adolescent co-ed falls for, and falls into bed with, her university professor. It doesn't matter if he's paunchy in plaid or sexy in silk shirts. She can't resist the allure of age and power and worldliness. But the guy's always married, with a kid or two and a career to protect. Relationship ends. Girl is left bereft by father figure. 

Did Maud Stack, the black-haired girl, have to die because of her affair with Professor Brookman? Or was it her substance abuse and emotional instability that doomed her? Did she have to die at all? Do any of us get what we have coming to us, according to our measure of responsibility for good and bad events? My guess would have to be that Bob Stone says no. Some play and others pay. 

This novel is more philosophical than the plot description might lead you to believe. Robert Stone stirs up a lot of serious questions without ever giving away his own stance on any of them. Is consenting adult sex between student and professor acceptable? How much responsibility does the professor bear for the consequences of such a relationship? Who has the higher moral ground on questions of abortion? At what point should confidentiality be breached to save someone from self-destructive behavior? What part, if any, should religion play in determining appropriate decisions and punishments?

All of these questions are raised, and left unanswered, in this story. And perhaps that was Bob Stone's intent, to present a bleak reality in which there are no right or wrong answers and people regularly suffer, disproportionately, for their own mistakes as well as for the sins of others.

If you are a corporate wage slave and you like satire, this novel may feel like home to you. As a reader, I don't always tune into satire right away. I start reading and wonder, why is this so loopy? So exaggerated? Then I get the forehead-smacking moment when I figure out that the weirdness is intentional. "Ooooooh, I get it. It's satire."
Keep that in mind when you look at my three-star rating. Given that I'm not a big fan of satire and not part of the corporate rat race, I think my rating bodes well for the book. I finished it in three days. 

Raymond Champs is a lackey for corporate America, just like you. He wants to know if we are in an evolutionary downward spiral which has left all of us depressed and getting worse. "Why are you so sad?" is just one of the questions in the survey he designs for his co-workers to find out what might be making people so generally low in spirits. 

There's not a lot in terms of plot here, but I think that's intentional. There were a couple of things I appreciated most about what Jason Porter has done here. First is the send-up of how pathetically little we are willing to settle for as long as we have security and predictability. "I have a job. I have a nice apartment. I have a hot car. I have a wife." Therefore, I should be happy, shouldn't I? 

The second thing I liked most about the book was the variety of possible answers to common existential questions we first-worlders like to obsess about. Do you believe in God? Are you who you want to be? Is today better than yesterday? Do you think people will remember you after you die? 

I think Porter has a good handle on what makes us sick and sad as a society, and he makes it bearable by presenting it in a humorous style where we can recognize ourselves without getting even more depressed.

I could not warm up to this book, despite Kenneth Bonert's obvious writing ability. I don't necessarily need to like the characters in order to enjoy a novel, but I do need to find them interesting enough that I care about what happens to them as the story progresses. That didn't happen for me with The Lion Seeker. I couldn't care about Isaac Helger and his repeatedly bad choices that make him appear to be bent on ruining every chance he gets. I couldn't care about Gitelle, Isaac's irritating nag of a mother who appears to be one of "the stupids" herself. And I couldn't care about Abel, Isaac's milquetoast of a father, who seems to have almost no personality.
I did, however, find it interesting to learn of the Lithuanian Jews who emigrated to South Africa in the early 20th century, and of the attitudes toward them in their adopted country.

Two things I would have liked to have known before requesting this book:

1) It is written in the present tense.
2) There are no quotation marks used for dialogue.

I have seen a lot of glowing reviews for this book, so this is probably just one of those times when the plot and narrative style were not a good match for me.

I could not warm up to this book, despite Kenneth Bonert's obvious writing ability. I don't necessarily need to like the characters in order to enjoy a novel, but I do need to find them interesting enough that I care about what happens to them as the story progresses. That didn't happen for me with The Lion Seeker. I couldn't care about Isaac Helger and his repeatedly bad choices that make him appear to be bent on ruining every chance he gets. I couldn't care about Gitelle, Isaac's irritating nag of a mother who appears to be one of "the stupids" herself. And I couldn't care about Abel, Isaac's milquetoast of a father, who seems to have almost no personality.
I did, however, find it interesting to learn of the Lithuanian Jews who emigrated to South Africa in the early 20th century, and of the attitudes toward them in their adopted country.

Two things I would have liked to have known before requesting this book:

1) It is written in the present tense.
2) There are no quotation marks used for dialogue.

I have seen a lot of glowing reviews for this book, so this is probably just one of those times when the plot and narrative style were not a good match for me.

If this novel does not win at least one major literary award, then the entire notion of writing prizes is meaningless.

Bleh. Bleak and boring. This author does love her some cheerless storytelling. 
In fairness let me add that I started this book immediately after finishing the stunningly well-written Brewster by Mark Slouka. Maybe this one just can't hold up to the direct comparison.

Cute and inventive, but a mite confusing if you're not much of a techno-nerd. 

Links to various Booklikes tutorials around the site. Thanks to all the hardworking BL members and team who contributed. This is a work in progress. More links will be added as I find them.

Official Booklikes stuff:

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/198757/booklikes-community-guidelines

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/9074/dashboard-a-place-where-all-bookish-things-happen

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/64881/add-books-manually-add-missing-book-covers 

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/344083/make-your-wish-on-booklikes

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/100003/booklikes-goodreads-synchronization

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/107813/new-booklikes-giveaways

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/78484/batch-edit-on-your-shelf

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/63815/feature-for-authors-and-twitter-timeline-widget

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/551754/post (exclusive status for your books)

The Booklikes blog (new features added every week):

http://blog.booklikes.com/

The Goodreads Booklikes group:

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/115105-everything-booklikes

Tutorials created by Booklike members:

Easy tips for customising your Booklikes blog:

http://litchick.booklikes.com/post/185420/post

How to customise your BL blog:

http://j4n3m3.booklikes.com/post/222397/post

Customising Booklikes Tutorials - parts 1 - 4:

http://silverthistle.booklikes.com/post/460791/customizing-booklikes-tutorial-part-1-back-to-basics-how-to-get-started-

http://silverthistle.booklikes.com/post/461046/customizing-booklikes-tutorial-part-2-back-to-basics-adding-a-new-header

http://silverthistle.booklikes.com/post/462371/customizing-booklikes-tutorial-part-3-back-to-basics-main-background-change

http://silverthistle.booklikes.com/post/469207/customizing-booklikes-tutorial-part-4-back-to-basics-moving-follower-buttons-

http://silverthistle.booklikes.com/post/544745/customizing-booklikes-tutorial-part-5-back-to-basics-changing-the-look-of-your-follower-buttons-

'Reactive' links (round links on a 'shelf' page)

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/461024/-reactive-links-round-links-on-your-shelf-page-different-look-for-different-state-of-link-

Adding the Booklikes Reading Challenge to your blog:

http://silverthistle.booklikes.com/post/537457/booklikes-reading-challenge-ready-get-set-read-

How to change colour of text on your banner :

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/423482/how-to-change-colour-of-text-on-your-banner

Added pages - I can't read it! My background is dark and font is black! And I want to have a comment section!

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/367393/added-pages-i-can-t-read-it-my-background-is-dark-and-font-is-black-and-i-wan-t-to-have-a-comment-section-

How to make your comments icons a link:

http://j4n3m3.booklikes.com/post/542312/how-to-make-your-comments-icon-a-link

Customising shelf sort order:

http://smckinney.booklikes.com/post/537880/post

Changing appearance of followers/following counters and repositioning them:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/221446/omg-i-really-want-to-move-change-my-followers-following-counters-because-they-re-on-my-banner-and-that-s-not-pretty-

Adding a scrolling quotes marquee to your blog:

http://themisathena.booklikes.com/post/504828/adding-a-scrolling-quotes-marquee-to-your-blog

How to block followers on Booklikes:

http://brandi.booklikes.com/post/540817/-reblog-how-to-block-followers-on-booklikes

Setting up google analytics on your BL blog:

http://karlynp.booklikes.com/post/547843/blog-tutorial-setting-up-google-analytics

Changing font colour (text, links, comment section):

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/227311/ffffff-get-it-no-nvm-pun-intended-how-to-change-font-colour-text-links-comment-section-the-whole-shebang-

Customising Booklikes tutorial - Adding bells and Whistles - blockquotes

blockquoteshttp://silverthistle.booklikes.com/post/495396/customizing-booklikes-tutorial-adding-bells-and-whistles-blockquotes

How to easily embed a font:

http://lyndi.booklikes.com/post/541633/post

A simple tip - everything is too big - zoom out: 

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/538084/a-simple-tip-everything-is-too-big-zoom-out-

Background for a search bar (what to do when it's invisible on a dark background):

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/227951/background-for-a-search-bar-what-to-do-when-your-background-is-dark-and-search-bar-in-your-menu-have-dissapeared-

Let's clean our designated comments pages regularly - no more notification floods:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/542208/a-tip-let-s-clean-our-designated-comments-pages-regurarly-no-more-notification-floods-

Reading Challenge - how to post it on your site and a few simple customization options:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/250271/-reading-challenge-widget-how-to-make-it-appeare-on-your-site-and-some-crude-customization-options-i-m-not-a-miracle-worker-don-t-judge-me-

Your book counter - make it fun and pretty:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/481197/your-book-counter-make-it-fun-and-pretty-

How to avoid losing the original source of a post:

http://aoife.booklikes.com/post/245008/post-how-to

Notifications:

http://anhec.booklikes.com/post/424188/not-a-tutorial-just-a-tip-about-notifications-

http://ctrlq.org/files/screenshots/b880892edc0bd3dd232cafb55f627d1a.png

 Every star you rate  

 Every shelf you create  

 Every writer you berate  

 Every status update  

 STGRB will be watching you

 Every single byte  

 Every review you write

 Every new site

 Every perceived slight

 STGRB will be watching you

 Oh can't you see  

 Your praise belongs to me

 How my poor heart aches

 With every list you make

 Every screenshot you take  

 Every book you forsake  

 Every discussion in which you partake  

 Every reputation you break  

 STGRB will be watching you

 Since you gave me one star I only complain

 I dream at night, I can only see disdain

 I cry "bully" but it's you I can't restrain

 I feel so hurt and long for the financial gain

 I keep calling stars, stars please...