BookBox - Display Your Favorite Books

BookBox is an easy way to display covers of your favorite books in your blog or webpage. This might be a useful tool for teachers to advertise required reading. Students might use it to show the bookcover when writing book reports for their classroom blog or wiki.

BookBox is very simple to use. All it requires is the title, author, or ISBN number of the desired book. I entered four of my favorite titles for my classroom reading, created a password, and clicked on save and embed. The site generated an embed code for me to copy and paste onto my blog.

My BookBox is located below. If you click on one of the books, it will take you to its Amazon page. This might be convenient in that it gives the student or parent more information on the book as well as pricing information. It is also good for Amazon. The creator of the site indicated that plans were in place to offer additional book stores in the future.

Kindle for iPhone

You may have heard of Amazon's Kindle, which is a wireless reading device that retails for $359. It is gaining in popularity because it is so lightweight and can store 1500 books. The Kindle didn't appeal to me at first because of the initial expense and because the books that I read most often come from the library. The only books I tend to buy are those that I use as resources in my classroom.

I recently discovered that the iPhone has a FREE Kindle application. In addition, there are numerous books available from Amazon for the Kindle that are free. Amazon also offers the option to read a sample of any book before you buy it. I downloaded the app and researched the Kindle book offerings on Amazon. All of the classics that are on high school reading lists such as Jane Eyre and The Scarlett Letter are available free of charge. Most of the other books are $9.99 or less. Plus, there are several promotional books by famous authors that Amazon makes available for free. I have downloaded several of these free books as well as sample chapters of books I am interested in reading.

I have to admit reading on the iphone is very pleasant. I love the flexibility of being able to read while standing in line or waiting for my daughter. The lighting in the background is bright enough to read in the dark, yet very comfortable on the eyes. It is so easy to hold the phone while reading and flip pages with a finger. The only thing that is keeping me from reading exclusively on the iPhone is the price of the books. I find it difficult to justify purchasing a book when I can check it out free from the library. However, I do plan to buy some books for my iPhone this summer when I travel. No longer will I be limited by the number of books my luggage will hold.