Recently, I reached a 100 friends on GoodReads.com, which is an achievement considering I have just 147 friends on Facebook. Of these 100 GoodReads friends, I’ve met only a couple in real life. Most of them I’ve added randomly as I browse GoodReads looking for people who’ve rated and reviewed the books that I like. And yet, although I’m trigger happy about adding book lovers, I’m very picky about what I read. I only read a book if a blurb, author or extract fascinates me. I pick books the way I try food.

Find Book Lovers to Find Good Books

GoodReads sends me a weekly email with the aggregated updates of my 100 friends: reviews, new books added to their to-read shelves, scathing reviews, glowing reviews, generous ratings and grumpy status updates. It’s a gold mine. If an interesting title or cover catches me eye, I click to find out more, I check the Amazon reviews, I find out a bit about the author, I find extracts online and see if it really interests me. I trawl Amazon listmania to see which lists the book is on.

Over time, I’ve made a mental shortlist of GoodReads friends who have good taste and I keep a keen, greedy eye on their bookshelves. Some deserve a shout-out:

• Marcus – The Man with the Golden Bookshelf
• Trevor – One of the most prolific reviewers on GoodReads – High quality reviews.
• Narain Jashanmal – GM of a leading chain of bookstores in the UAE – ’nuff said.
• Aedan – a prolific reader, friend and former colleague.
• Iain – a prolific reader, friend and former colleague.
• Shaahima – friend and bibliophile (aren’t we all?)
• Guy Gonzalez – a poet who works in the publishing industry.
• Frederick – I’ve no idea who he is but he has good taste in books!

I also started an experimental group on Facebook called Book Lovas, which has 30 members at the moment, some of whom are casual book lovers while some are hard-core book-lusty bibliophiles. I also discover interesting books recommended on various blogs that turn up in my RSS feeds.

The quality of a network is dependent on the quality of the people in it, and I’m happy to say I’ve some great people in my network.

Join “Book Lovas” on Facebook or add me on GoodReads.