Assorted Reading-related Digital Diversions

A few reading-related technology baubles to divert you on this late summer weekend:

1.    ReadMore (iPhone):
We know there is a approaching pathological need in some readers to track what, when, and where they read. ReadMore aims to enable such matters by helping you track how many reading sessions it takes you to finish a book, how fast you read, when you read, and other statistics. We only wish that the program could aggregate and publish your stats so that you could share them, like little baseball cards with your key numbers. For two bucks, there’s a lot of OCD potential here.

2.    Readeralert.com (web)
Long have we bemoaned the lack of a centralized resource for tracking upcoming releases and books in progress. ReaderAlert helps with the first; you can create custom searches by author, genre, and subject so that you can be notified when new books are either released or scheduled for release. It’s not quite as precise as we’d like, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

3.    Live Book Depository Buying Map (web)
Now this is mesmerizing. The Book Depository now has a live map showing what is being bought and where. Publishing voyeurism at its purest. We don’t know why watching someone in the UK buy Lauren Conrad’s L.A. Candy (?!) or someone in Singapore by The Lost Symbol (o, what American cultural imperialism hath wrought) is so addictive, but it is. We’re thinking that we’re going to buy a 40 inch plasma for the sole purpose of having this running twenty four hours a day. What? Is it really that much weirder than a giant box of water with tropical fish floating around?
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We love this sort of stuff, so if you’ve discovered something akin to these, please let us know. Seriously, don’t hold out. We got the fever and the only cure is more techno-literary detritus.