I am a web aficionado and a serious book reader, and Goodreads is one of my favorite websites to learn about books. The reviews from this site often provide me with the final purchase making decision. The reviews are coming from fellow book lovers, so it carries more weight with me. This is also one of the few times where customer reviews actually mean something - and Goodreads claims to have 29 million reviews. I suspect this is one reason why Amazon purchased them.

Goodreads is fantastic if you love books. I buy lots of books and I send books as gifts, and although many have droned on over the years that print is dead, it certainly isn’t in my house. However, lots of these books are available on the Kindle or other tablet devices. Not only that, Goodreads provides a nice drop down list where you can purchase the book. That, my friends, is how you practice good web. So print may not be dead; it's just morphed into a tablet and that's not so bad.

"Yet there was no doubt that Theodore Roosevelt was peculiarly qualified to be President of all the people. Few, if any Americans could match the breadth of his intellect and the strength of his character. A random survey of his achievements might show him mastering German, French, and the contrasted dialects of Harvard and Dakota Territory; assembling fossil skeletons with paleontological skill; fighting for an amateur boxing championship; transcribing birdsong into a private system of phonetics; chasing boat thieves with a star on his breast and Tolstoy in his pocket; founding a finance club, a stockmen's association, and a hunting-conservation society; reading some twenty thousand books and writing fifteen of his own; climbing the Matterhorn; promulgating a flying machine; and becoming a world authority on North American game mammals. If the sum of all these facets of experience added up to more than a geometric whole - implying excess construction somewhere, planes piling upon planes - then only he, presumably, could view the polygon entire."
~Edmund Morris (Theodore Rex)

I recently read Theodore Rex and loved it! It’s the second of a three part series. At the time, I had no particular interest in Teddy Roosevelt outside of the fact that I’ve always wondered how he managed to get his face carved on Mount Rushmore. You can read tons of books on Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, but hardly a word is ever written on Teddy Roosevelt. What’s so great about him? When you read Edmund Morris’s book you’ll soon find out. It’s masterfully written and I have a newfound respect for the Teddy Roosevelt. And, it’s all because of Goodreads.
Goodreads provides a list of its member’s favorite books from Children’s books to Science fiction to Novels, and then compiles them for you to choose. Since I aspire to actually write a book some day, Goodreads helps new up-and-coming authors reach a wider audience. I know there are a few other book review sites out there, but Goodreads is the best I've seen.
I first learned about Goodreads a long time ago when I stumbled in to Barnes & Noble and a clerk told me about the website and that it was free. How nice of her! From that point on I have been a member.
I am usually cautious when I make a recommendation, but Goodreads is fantastic.
Sign up and happy reading!