While the World Wide Web is known for its graphical and multimedia capabilities, it is also home to hundreds of Web sites that cater to something enjoyed by many of us: the pleasure of reading words on the printed page and not necessarily a computer monitor-- something for the book lover in us all.
There are bookstores around the world, from the neighborhood bookstore right down the block to the small bookstore/café, down in Grenwich village I always talk about revisitiing. Most offer reading material about agriculture, law, music, college textbooks and, of course computers. The library's Dewey Decimal system was never this easy. With the click of your mouse you can easily find your favorite book by author, subject or title.
By browsing bookstores on the Internet, you can get a much wider range of titles that you may never have found or even knew existed. While the Internet will never match the touch, feel and smell of a new book, it does provide a quick and easy way to find the books we're looking for, in order that we may satisify those primitive instincts mentioned above..
Many of the bookstores on the Net allow you to order books online by first, setting up an account and a payment plan.
Here's a list of some virtual bookstores that should keep you busy for hours.
Amazon.com Books (http://www.amazon.com) With more than one million titles, you are bound to find the book you're looking for. You can search by keyword, author, title and subject, plus you get a discount to boot. You can also get e-mail that will tell you whenever a book arrives that matches your interest.
Books Stacks Unlimited (http://www.books.com/) This site offers more than 400,000 titles in dozens of different categories, which range from antiques and architecture to travel and western. You can also visit the Book Cafe, where you can join conversations in the Book Forum, listen to a selection of interviews with authors and browse through a collection of literary journals.
BookWire--The First Place to Look for Book Information (http://www.bookwire.com/) This site provides an overview of the book publishing industry, with links to hundreds of sites about authors, book reviews, book award and more. The main index directs you to more than 900 publishers, 500 booksellers, 500 libraries and thousands of other resources. You can also find out about the latest book fairs, convention and events.
Book Web (http://www.ambook.org/) This is a mega-resource site created by the American Booksellers Association. Here you'll find book news, a list of author tours, a directory of bookstores and bookstore home pages, book discussion groups and book contests.
BookPool (http://www.bookpool.com/) If your interested in computer books, you'll find thousands of choices here, covering all aspects of computing. The categories range from the highly technical, such as computer algorithms to general computing. You can search for your favorite books by subject, publisher, keyword and author. For example, I typed Internet in the search field and found dozens of Internet-related books.
BookSite (http://www.booksite.com/yahoo.html) Here you'll find a wide selection of books, along with a host of other services that will make your book hunting more enjoyable. You can search by title, author or subject and even ISBN number. If you can't find what your looking for, there's always the Personal Librarian that you can call on for assistance. You can also be automatically notified via e-mail of all new releases. |
