Amazon Buys Goodread

[Lip Service]

San Francisco-based Goodreads is one of the most prominent online book communities. Its users write reviews, recommend books to each other, and can buy books from various Internet retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Amazon announced today it agreed to buy Goodreads, a popular book discovery and recommendation website with more than 16 million members globally, a move that significantly bolsters the online retailer's e-book services.

Not exactly clear what they will do with it, but of course they want to boost book (and e-book) sales 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21972852

[Mandy Muffin]

I belong to Library Thing and have used it for some time to record my readings.  I have provided a number of reviews to Amazon and nobody pressured me to say anything positive or negative.  All were published.  But I would not trust the reviews you get on some of their E-books, as they could be from friends of the author.  The best test of a book, that I have found reliable over the years, is the popularity of the book.  I use multiple best seller lists to see if anybody else is reading it.  If they are, it's a pretty good chance that the book is worth the time.  If nobody else is reading it, it probably stinks.