Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with books and websites

Reading for a Reinvention

cuando — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:49:30 -0800

I've decided to make some big changes in how I live. Things like exercising more, eating better, dressing nicer and so on. Things are going pretty great now, but I am looking for some useful reading (magazines, books, websites, blogs) to help me stay motivated and generate ideas. Further info... I'm a guy so I'd prefer suggestions (especially anything relating to style, fashion, & health) that are unisex or male-geared. Some examples of what I currently read are:

NYTimes Well blog
Gimmie20.com
ExRX & StartingStrength
Uncrate
A.Continuous Lean
Lifehacker
Triathletes Training Bible
Runner's World

I was also thinking of getting a magazine subscription to like Men's Health. Any thoughts are appreciated

Using My Right Brain

netbros — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:49:35 -0800

How can I improve my art awareness (i.e paintings, sculpture, crafts, etc.)? I missed out on art and art history during my uninspired college years many moons ago. I'd like to do something now to improve that situation. What should I look for online; what books can I read to get a feel for the masters, as well as contemporary artists? Then, once I understand a bit about what I'm looking for, where should I go (museums, galleries) to enjoy the work? I live in the U.S., so I'd probably want to start there, but I plan to travel internationally when I retire. I would like to make art a part of my discoveries. As always, thanks very much in advance for your suggestions and ideas.

Websites for individual book promo

thedanimal — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:25:32 -0800

Help me find websites that are devoted to promoting an individual book. Greetings!

My google kung-fu skills are failing me on this task. I'm looking for examples of websites that promote an individual book.

For example, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for Barbara Kingsolver's recent book.

Just looking for some examples of how people are promoting books.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Point me to some books and/or websites that give advice or recount experiences of dealing with awkward situations that most sources usually avoid.

gregb1007 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:54:42 -0800

Point me to some books and/or websites that give advice or recount experiences of dealing with awkward situations that most sources usually avoid. One of the things I love about reading ask.mefi is that I come across questions dealing with situations that are really awkward and make people pause and question themselves as how they would go about dealing with them.

Now that made me realize how incredibly lacking most self-help or advice books are about really awkward/unpleasant situations. Some things seem too distasteful to make it into books.

So my question is, are there good books or perhaps websites that address people's experiences with awkward/unpleasant situations that usually are left out of conversation because people hate talking about them?

Online marketing - tools for keeping track of the tools?

rmm — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:04:37 -0800

Online marketing - tools for keeping track of the tools? So a lot of web savvy folks are on MetaFilter - I'm hoping some of you kind souls might be able to help. This is a little similar to some of the previous questions, but hopefully not too redundant.

I'm familiar with both the previous marketing questions on AskMe, as well as being familiar with a lot of the web 2.0 related sites and tools. What I'm looking for is help and best practices on actually executing a marketing plan for publicizing a site and the idea behind that site. I'm working with some folks (in my spare time) who have an existing site on a semi-obscure topic and they even have a recent book on the topic they've written to boot. I'd like to help them out, but am trying to figure out how, and how best to measure the efforts.

I'm seeing it as a combination of:

a) reaching out to interested people who don't know about the book and accompanying site (via a Flickr group? affinity groups related to the topic in message boards etc.?)

b) measuring how they're doing reaching out (this, I'm not as sure of - survey existing users of the site? measure click throughs with banner ads, etc.? what else?)

The problem is I don't want to come off at all like we're spammy folks. If new users buy the book, fine - but if not, life goes on. The people behind the site are doing this out of a pure love for the topic and a desire to create a community around it rather than a 'OMG, let's get rich and famous on the Internets' scheme. They're interested in building a community, and I've heard the 2.0 technologies are good for that ;)

Also how do you measure the metrics of these things - what methods work and which don't? Are there blogs devoted to discussing which methods work ('send to a friend' type links) versus which don't (click through ads?), and the metrics for these different methods?

What sites do you use to propogate your memes, hobbies, ideas? How do you do it in a fun, friendly, upbeat way, rather than 'buy the book' type of thing? What templates or tools do you use to keep track of where you've publicized things to? If people know of forums for interactive marketing that discuss these topics and are useful to you, please post them here as well.

Thanks muchly! (and yes, there'll be a linke to MeFi projects when the time is right, but first, marketing plan)

Is there one great source for finding the original publication date of a book?

greendress — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 00:48:26 -0800

Is there one great source for finding the original publication date of a book? I often find myself wanting to find the year a book was originally published. Not what year a particular edition was published, but what year the work in general was first ever published. Amazon.com, LibraryThing, Wikipedia -- all are, in my experience, hit or miss at best. I usually just end up Googling, but I'd love to find one quick source -- something like IMDb for books, which is likely to have details on every book I would ever look up. Is there something out there like this?

Looking for a good book recommendation website that isn't amazon.com

Sprout the Vulgarian — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 13:13:25 -0800

Has anyone come across a good website that accurately generates book recommendations, based on what you've read and enjoyed? Amazon.com isn't really working out for me, and nextfavorite.com seems kind of buggy at best, and kind of in cahoots with amazon.
Is there anything a bit more independent and/or user friendly out there? I prefer fiction, if that matters.

Help this lonely bookworm find a virtual community.

orange swan — Fri, 19 May 2006 11:41:36 -0800

Please recommend a good book blog where I can hang out. Because heaven knows I don't fritter away enough time on the Internet. I'd like this hypothetical blog to be both fun and intelligent with a nice community feel, and have an intelligent and sensible moderator. Since I read widely, I'd like the blog to be generalist rather than only for a specific genre. In short, it should be like Metafilter, only for books.

I used to hang out at the book section in the Fametracker.com forum before it was shut down and I enjoyed it in a way, though the level of discourse was not high enough and Wing Chun's assholish "we'll do it my way or you'll shut up" moderation style always did annoy the living shit out of me. But it's become the loser ex I think about because I can't find a replacement. Fix me up with an eligible new site, MeFites!

Good CSS Books?

odinsdream — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 09:30:31 -0800

What are some good intermediate to advanced CSS resources in dead-tree form? Have you used any CSS books that you could recommend to someone that's already familiar with separation of presentation and data, what CSS is, what it isn't, and so on?

I'm looking for books that contain detailed examples that answer questions along the lines of "So how do you position your footer relative to this paragraph, but only under these conditions?"

It seems like all the books I've picked up are either much too simplistic ("How do you change the color of words? What about these words? And these?") or they fall off into the realm of glossaries and indexes. I don't need either of these, what do I look for?

Finally, if you have some really good web resources, I'd love to see those too... keeping in mind the level of stuff I'm looking for.

Thanks!

Book promo web sites

gwint — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:58:18 -0800

Two questions about sites for individual books: What are some great examples of book sites (i.e. sites that promote and have info on a specific book that has been published recently)? And: What do you look for in such a site (i.e. excerpts? message board?)

Recommend some excellent (book or web) letterpress printing resources

matteo — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 07:31:14 -0800

I'm fascinated by the intricacies of good old letterpress printing. there are lots of online and book resources re typefaces, but not as many regarding the letterpress printing. I'd love to learn more, but google isn't really helping. Any good books or websites? I've already checked out this book, I'm looking for similar resources. thanks.

Scholarly-but-accessible reference about Chinese history and culture.

enrevanche — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 20:09:07 -0800

SinoFilter: I'm looking for a scholarly-but-accessible book (or books) about Chinese history and culture. (Web site recommendations also welcome.) I have done some Googling and poking around amazon.com, but frankly my ignorance is so deep that I have no good way of evaluating the quality of what I'm finding.

Bayeux Tapestry Resources

turbanhead — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 06:55:14 -0800

I am looking for either books or online resources for Bayeux Tapestry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry - style illustrations (or any other book/site that depicts depict medieval life.) So far, the illustrations on the web are of relatively small size or poor quality.

Websites with lists/reviews of educational books, videos, software for children ages 5-18?

adamkempa — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:07:01 -0800

Librarianfilter: My girlfriend is "wondering if anyone could recommend good websites containing lists/reviews for educational books/videos/software for children (ages 5 up through high school)? I recently acquired the responsibility of selecting materials (I'm a librarian) for our University's Educational Resource Center and don't have an education background so I'm new to this. I know about the Parent's Choice Foundation. I was wondering if there is something similar for librarians/educators? I get tons of catalogs but want lists/reviews, preferably online. Thanks!"

Where are audio books sold?

stbalbach — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:05:18 -0800

Sources for audio books.. What are the major audio book sites to search to see if a book is available in an audio version?