I found a cool widget that I can plug my current reading materials into, and when you click them you can get a handy link to Amazon’s product page for that book. Considering that my posts are so heavily influenced by what I’m reading on any given day, I thought it would add a nice bit of context and make me look smarter too.
You’ll notice that as I continue the tough slog through the incredibly short (and yet somehow insufferably dense) Essay on the Restoration of Property by Belloc, I decided in fairness to the free market position to pick up Tom Woods’ The Church and the Market. The latter is far more readable, despite its considerably greater length, but I have to admit that I don’t get excited about reading anything on economics and often wind up resorting to whatever I’ve got on my iPod to entertain me on the way home.
With luck, and maybe more sleep, I’ll get through ‘em both.
Is it a Wordpress-specific widget, or something more generally available?
It’s wordpress - and by that I mean Wordpress.org (the version you host on paid server space) not Wordpress.com, which is free but restricted.
I never found anything like this for blogger, but it’s possible it exists. The great thing is that the widget itself supplies the pictures once I feed it a title or ISBN.
I don’t know that I want people knowing what I’m reading. Like, ”Mouse on a Motorcycle” and ”Everybody Poops”.
Say, did you ever see that Family Guy episode where the bookstore clerk recommends “Everybody Poops” and Peter says “Well, we’re Catholic, so…” so the bookstore clerk replies “Then you’ll want this one” and hands him a copy of ”Nobody Poops But You and That’s Concentrated Evil Coming Out The Back of You”.
Ah. Good stuff.
Steve,
Is it multi-user compatible? I’m using an Amazon plugin that allows my fellow bloggers and I to list our reads, but this one seems much more fully featured - as long as we could each indicate what we’re reading, not some big list for all of us to share.
Many thanks!
John - it’s not a mind-reading widget, fortunately. It only displays what you put in there.
And yes, I’ve seen that episode of Family Guy. In fact, I’ve probably seen them all, which may count against me in the end…
Mike,
Here’s the page I got it from…hopefully this explains it:
http://robm.me.uk/projects/plugins/wordpress/now-reading
Dale,
You’re welcome!
Dang…looks like it’s single user…oh well…
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