[Saturday Reads] GatheringBooks Goes Litsy-Crazy

Myra here.

Every Saturday we hope to share with you our thoughts on reading and books. We thought that it would be good practice to reflect on our reading lives and our thoughts about reading in general. While on occasion, we would feature a few books in keeping with this, there would be a few posts where we will just write about our thoughts on read-alouds, libraries, reading journals, upcoming literary conferences, books that we are excited about, and just book love miscellany in general.

GatheringBooks is Litsy-Crazy

It was around nine months ago when GatheringBooks joined Litsy. I think it was through a book friend’s Facebook post that I learned about it, and I was immediately intrigued by the concept. Imagine Goodreads and Instagram had a baby, they named it Litsy – and you have all things books in pictures! It really is just bookgasm, if there is such a word, going through people’s book posts. As far as I know, it is available as a free app in iPhones and android phones.

Building Community through Memes

One of the lovely things about being part of the kidlitosphere and the blogosphere, is that we get to join memes (see It’s Monday What Are You Reading, Nonfiction Wednesday, Poetry Friday, DiverseKidLit) hosted by (or co-hosted with) so many fabulous bloggers or we initiate our own (such as this Saturday Reads, our Sunday Book Hunting Expeditions, Photo Journal Tuesdays). This ensures that we have fresh, vibrant content every single day, while at the same time, allowing us to be part of a larger community.

Now in Litsy, I did note that there are quite a few memes going around, but I thought it would be good to have a “lay of the land” first, familiarize myself with the new virtual territory, and get to know like-minded individuals. It was only yesterday that I decided to take the plunge and finally get into the Litsy groove by joining not one, but two memes.

BookRiot’s #RiotGrams

Truth be told, I thought it would have been nicer if BookRiot had something Litsy-specific, rather than just do a crossover of whatever it is they’re doing in Instagram. But hey, it’s there, so might as well. So for Days 10 and 11 of February, here’s what I posted:

RealLifeReading’s Daily Prompts

Apparently, one of the movers and shakers in Litsy happens to be a Singaporean based in San Francisco (my absolute favourite city in the US). It was really great reading her posts, and seeing just how active she is in the Litsy community. She also has a website and I did note that she also joins the It’s Monday What Are You Reading meme (but more the adult rather than the kidlit version). So these are her prompts for February:

These are some of the things I shared for the past two days:

Apparently, there are lots more that we could consider joining, such as the #LitsyPartyOfOne, #LitsyGoesPostal (not sure though whether they ship to places outside of the US), an #AtoZLitsyChallenge – and probably a few more that I still don’t know about. Regardless, I think it’s wonderful to be part of a warm and inviting reading community who loves to discuss books. What more can a social media freak ask for?

Are you on Litsy? Do let me know so I can follow you too. What challenges/memes have you joined, thus far?