I personally don't find OverDrive links very helpful, as each person still has to check his own libraries to find out if they've got it and if it's available, but I'm happy enough to include one as applicable.

As for linking to Kindle v. Kobo, it's every man for himself. It's harder for some than for others to check various sites and link to them and in the end, we have to vet the links for ourselves. In other words, more links are nice, but they're not a dealbreaker. However, I think they can be a good selling tool.

I'm more likely to buy from Google Play these days, anyway. Now that Kobo doesn't have deals and Google frequently does, most of my recent ePub purchases have been from Google.

But Overdrive does exist in some UK libraries and it might be meaningful to others participating. Besides, if you see how I did the Overdrive link as a search and not a specific book's link, it works better for all who do use Overdrive.

If you create an account at https://www.overdrive.com and you list the libraries you belong to, then you go to the listing for a book available in your country, you'll get a list if it is available at your library. This way, I don't have to keep checking each library.

Thanks, Jon, that's helpful. OverDrive makes these things needlessly obscure, IMHO.

Also, if you want to list Overdrive for a book, search for it with the title and author. When the correct results appear, post the URL for the search. That way you get results for all the versions available and it's just a matter of checking which one is for your country and which media you want. A lot more simple then posting a link for a specific eBook's entry. Searches don't expire as they as using the key words you searched for.

Thank you Jon, I will try, see if I can figure it out how to check Overdrive directly and not via my libraries

Your welcome. It's not hard to do. Once you are logged in, to Overdrive, click your name in the upper right corner and select Libraries. Then you can begin adding all the libraries you have access to.

I have been putting together a bit of a wrap-up for the MRBC and thought I would share:

Total books discussed: 113
Total authors: 103
Most read author: E.M. Forster with 3

Number of countries with selections: 15
Highest percentage of books from the United Kingdom with 47 (42%)
Second highest from the USA with 44 (39%)

Average publication year: 1947
Median publication year: 1953
Most selected year: 2013 with 4
Oldest book selected: Candide published in 1759
Newest books selected: Hidden Figures and Bucky F&%@ing Dent published in 2016
Most popular decades: 2010s (13) and 1990s (12)

Percent by women: 22%
Percent by person of color: 6%

That's very interesting, Dazrin. Thanks. My immediate response to the decade summary is: what was so good about the 1880s, and what was so bad about the 1960s? (It is a remarkably even spread otherwise.)

That is fun; thanks, Dazrin!

My takeaway is that the books overall were more modern than sometimes believed, but that could be in part because of a skew in the last year or two. The last couple of choices were on the dated side. ;)

The 1960s must either not have great books to choose from or maybe we just try to avoid those memories. ;) The literary group has a similar drop for the 1960's and their spike in the 1800s is the 1870s. They also have a more broad list of countries (22, 36% UK, 19% USA) and dates (oldest ~1320).

The Literary Club has recurring region and time period months. We check off time periods and map areas from our list. For example, February is a Region month, and the area selected was Mongolia, China and Korea. We also have done Contemporary category months to force us not to neglect newer books.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=294441

Is it possible to do a graph of when then books take place? Thanks.

Getting publication year is easy. Trying to figure out when a particular book is set is much more work and (for me) doesn't mean as much. In general, books written in the 1800s tend to have a similar feel whether they are set in the 2000s, 1800s, or 1400s. It goes back to the style of writing more than the specific setting.

I can graph them quickly if you can provide them though.

If you can remember the 60's then you weren't really there :D

Thanks for all the analysis work, very interesting.