According to this article from Publisher’s Weekly, NPR has debuted a new website and mobile app called The Book Concierge. This “unusual” tool allows readers to go through over 200 recommended book titles from 2013. Readers can sort through the list by both title and category.
The Book Concierge contains titles recommended by NPR Books contributors such as Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan, librarian Nancy Pearl, Morning Edition host David Greene and many others. The Book Concierge organizes titles by the basic categories like “Biographies” or “Comics and Graphic Novels,” but it also uses more unique categories such as “Rather Long or “It’s All Geek to Me.”
This web tool also takes the usual “Best Of” list style and turns it into something much more visually interesting by concentrating on the books’ covers. Hover your mouse over a book cover to see a snippet of the recommendation then click on the book to receive the full review. I can tell that I’m going to be having a lot of fun looking through the books in this format. It is almost like a visual bookshelf. Could The Book Concierge lead the way for online book viewing? Also, this way, we can still admire the books’ covers since they are not the tiniest of thumbnails. If you have ever used the website or app Pinterest, then you might notice a similar feel with The Book Concierge.
