is there an equivalent to imdb.com or allmusic.com for books?

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Like, novels and stuff? I've been searching, but nothing. Seems odd.

― Jack L, Friday, 30 December 2005 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

is there an equivalent to imdb.com or allmusic.com for books?

"cliff's notes," dude.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:10 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not looking for cheatsheet plot descriptions and eighth-grade analysis, dude.

I'm looking for a database with the same sort of information offered by allmusic - lists of works, brief descriptions, influences, contemporaries, that sort of thing.

― Jack L., Friday, 30 December 2005 23:12 (nineteen years ago)

i have had the same question hmmm

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:13 (nineteen years ago)

amazon?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

if you're looking for a specific book, amazon's ok, but if you just want to browse a genre or find something new, it's pretty much equivalent to browsing the shelves in a bricks-and-mortar store (ie. fairly unhelpful).

Does anyone else find it odd that there's no iBdb? or allbooks.com?

― Jack L., Friday, 30 December 2005 23:17 (nineteen years ago)

I dunno, not really - there are a LOT more books than there are pieces of recorded music and movies, what with literature being 2,000+ years old. Where would one even begin with a comprehensive catalog? It just isn't possible.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:19 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i usually just read people's amazon reviews and lists and "customers who bought this also bought" to find things i want to read. it would be nice though, to have ibdb

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

Library of Congress

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:24 (nineteen years ago)

xpost - true again

true.

does anyone know of anything more local, though? say, a database of american literature? or canadian literature? it seems like that would be significantly more manageable...

― Jack L., Friday, 30 December 2005 23:24 (nineteen years ago)

M. White OTM - Library of Congress is probably as comprehensive as it gets.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:25 (nineteen years ago)

Let's set one up! I'll volunteer to do the entire Harper Lee catalog.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 30 December 2005 23:27 (nineteen years ago)

Certain libraries have that sort of thing. I know there are CD-ROMs that have indexes of certain types of authors - Canadian authors, etc. - the trick is to finding which libraries have them.

A non-commercial book database would be cool, but it would have to be organically grown, like a wiki. There is a neat site called 'Library Thing' www.librarything.com but it appears to be in its infancy and is only as good as the people who contribute to it. I'm hoping if I spread the word though, it will grow.

― patrick bateman (mickeygraft), Saturday, 31 December 2005 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

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