Book Swim

Bookswim is being touted as Netflix for books. The service is not online yet, but the premise is identical: you pay a monthly subscription fee, pay no shipping, and Book Swim will mail you the next book on your list.

Funny, except for the mailing part I get the exact same service from the Hennepin County Library by managing my account online and reserving books. I put reserved books "On Hold" so that I can read through the ones I have at home (currently 9 books) before my next book becomes available. Then I remove the suspended hold and lo, my next book quickly becomes available.

I stop by the library on my way home so I don't even go out of my way to stop by the library (except on saturdays, but that's just for pleasure).

Oh yeah, I don't pay for the service my local library system gives me.

The only advantage that I see Bookswim having is that it claims to have New Releases. The local library may have a new release on a purchasing request and thus delaying the arrival of a book which isn't the most popular item, and then the popular items tend to have long hold lists. Want to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when it comes out? Well, don't wait to put your hold down because there are already 1502 holds on that book. It might be published this summer and at the moment there are only 26 copies on order (I expect that number to climb).

So, if Bookswim can get me Harry Potter 7 the first week it comes out then maybe there is some merit to the service.

Maybe.

But maybe not. If Harry Potter 7 has 1502 people in Hennepin County, not counting Minneapolis which has its own library system, wishing to reserve the book at least 7 months before it might possibly be released, then why do I think that Bookswim, a nationwide service, would be able to handle the volume needed to get everyone the book they want in a reasonable amount of time that surpasses the free library service.

And then there is the question of how they will make money. I assume most people do not read as fast as I do (10 or so books a month on average), but like Netflix, Bookswim would have to make money on low borrowers because the mailing cost of a book, even shipped media mail (which thus slows down the shipping process) is more expensive than metering a DVD through 1st Class Mail. So, higher shipping costs. The service needs to be cheap enough to get people to want to use it. That would be less than $20 a month, probably closer to $10. But at $10 a month they need people who will rent 1-2 books a month at the most. I would kill the service but I wouldn't be able to have enough books out a time. I imagine. Sure, I wouldn't have to leave the house to get my book, but if you manage your time and reserve books online, you can stop by on the way to or from work to drop off a book and pick a new one up.

If the popular titles will have a waiting list at Bookswim, and also at the library, then I don't see that even that aspect of the service would be of benefit.

I'll stick with the library, thank you very much.

And if I need to purchase a used book, rather than rent a used book I can always use
Half.com
Bookins
Paperback Swap
Frugal Reader

So really. Tell me, Bookswim. How does your service benefit me?

Joe's Best Reads of 2006

Mad Ship – Robin Hobb

A Feast for Crows – George R. R. Martin

Hyperion – Dan Simmons

No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy

Kindred – Octavia Butler

Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather

Memories of Ice – Steven Erikson

City of Pearl – Karen Traviss

Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler

Crossing the Line – Karen Traviss

Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler

Marley and Me – John Grogan

Acts of Faith – Philip Caputo

So Big – Edna Ferber

Old Man’s War – John Scalzi

The Forever War – Joe Haldeman

Fledgling – Octavia Butler

House of Chains – Steven Erikson


Two things: First, I really should at least blurb all of these novels. These are the 18 best books out of the 134 that I read this year. Blurbage? Second, I feel like I'm doing John Scalzi a disservice by not including The Ghost Brigades on this list. It was on the second tier of the Best Reads (which still includes some damn good books) and it veered onto this list and off of it a couple of times, but I just got more satisfaction from Old Man's War. The Ghost Brigades may be the better written novel (which Scalzi admits), but Old Man's War gave me more visceral enjoyment.

Joe's Worst Reads of 2006

Claw of the Conciliator – Gene Wolfe. After the promising start of Shadow of the Torturer, Gene Wolfe lost me. And not Lost like there is an island with castaways. Lost like what the hell just happened to the good story? And what's with Severain getting with any female that makes eye contact with him?

Railroaded – Whitfield Grant. Not a bad effort and it felt like a rookie effort. It's a lawyer book, and I'm not crazy about lawyer books John Grisham not withstanding. But my problem was that his hero was too perfect. If there was an ocean scene I bet he would have walked on water. And I know part of the point was to have a positive role model from a black protagonist, but it was just silly.

Darksaber – Kevin Anderson. Sir, give me my Star Wars back.

Out of the Silent Planet – C.S. Lewis. How the hell did the man who wrote Narnia and The Great Divorce write this tripe?

Sword of the Lictor – Gene Wolfe. And yet I read book three. It's not like things got better. They got worse.

A Short History of Myth – Karen Armstrong. A little too scholarly, a little too dry, a little too long even though it was just a little book.

A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole. The most obnoxious narrator I've read. Too much absurd dialogue and description from everyone. It's not just Reilly.

The Fortress of the Pearl – Michael Moorcock. I'm sorry Master Moorcock, but this was the most pointless Elric / Multiverse novel I've read and you invalidate the whole story by having Elric forget most of what he just did. A short book that read long.

The Tombs of Atuan – Ursula LeGuin. It made me want to give up on Earthsea. Need I say any more?

Unconsumed: The Able McLaughlins

It isn't often I do not finish a book. Every book worth starting is a book worth finishing, that's what I used to think. But now I don't want to waste my time with a book that is making me suffer from the start.

I'm working on the Pulitzer Prize winning novels and some of the early winners can be just turgid. Alice Adams was pretty decent, but The Able McLaughlins? Painful. I made it twenty pages in and gave up. Margeret Wilson, the author, was explaining things to me about the characters and not telling me a story. The distinction is fine and narrow, but the use of language and the characters, one of whom came home from a war, the Civil War, I think, but it was difficult to tell what era the book was set in because she seems to be telling two different stories on the same page without anything to differentiate them.

I'm sure things would come clear as the novel progressed, but Wilson lost me early on and I was done.

This is only the second Pulitzer winner which I have quit on (the other being The Age of Innocence). Shoot, I even f inished Angle of Repose...and that's a book that wanted to set me in an angle of repose.

On to Gilead!