Who Made That Goodreads?

by KeiraUncategorizedPosted on 0 comments

In 2007, today’s biggest social media website for book lovers was launched. Goodreads is a website where readers can find books and share their literary thoughts with friends. The website, founded in 2006 by Otis Chandler and Elizabeth Khuri Chandler, gained popularity as a website/app that focuses on connecting readers in a digital world. While the website has now gained popularity in the reading community, the origin of Goodreads was much more humble.

Otis Chandler came from a very literary background, his great-great-great-grandfather founded the Los Angeles Times, and many generations of Chandlers have followed in his footsteps working at the newspaper (Rainey). However, Otis Chandler didn’t let his heritage stop him from adapting to a new digital era of books and creating a website that allows people to discuss books and share them with their friends virtually. Chandler, a digital-engineer, constructed the idea of a website where readers could interact with each other and recommend books to their friends. Consequently, one of the original purposes of Goodreads was for its users to provide their opinions on the books they read through reviewing them on the website. Chandler stated, “Amazon is often full of people you don’t know writing reviews, whereas on Goodreads, you’re getting people who are there writing reviews for no other reason except they want to share the review with their friends. It generates a more genuine, thoughtful sort of review” (qtd. in Lee). The idea that you could go on Goodreads and find candid reviews of books from real people appealed to many Goodreads users. 

Elizabeth Khuri Chandler was the other co-founder of Goodreads, she signed on to work with Otis Chandler, her now husband, on the startup while she was dating him. When Elizabeth Khuri Chandler first met Otis Chandler, she was a writer at the Los Angeles Times, his idea for the site interested her as a writer and avid reader. Khuri Chandler said, “He started building this, and as an English major and a working writer, I said, huh, I actually really care about this subject. So I started getting involved with him and suddenly, I was doing all the language on the site” (qtd. in Schwalbe). Khuri Chandler’s background in writing helped the site find its legs. She also developed a newsletter for Goodreads’ users that included author interviews and recommendations for books. The newsletter helped draw people back to the site again and again (qtd. in Lee). 

Goodreads has grown into a site where any reader can go to do all things book-related. The site, founded with the simple idea of sharing the books you love with your friends, has grown into a social website titan. Since the launch of the site in 2007, readers have been attracted to the connection the site offers and the wide variety of recommended books that are tailored to the user’s interests. After the site launched, it quickly gained over 3.5 million users in only three years. As of now, the site has accumulated over 90 million users. As Otis Chandler remarked, “Goodreads is fast becoming the best way on the Internet to find a book to read” (qtd. in Lee). 

Works Cited: 

Lee, Ellen. “Goodreads’ Otis Chandler reviews growth” SFGATE, 21 July, 2012, www.sfgate.com/default/article/Goodreads-Otis-Chandler-reviews-growth-3725030.php. Accessed 5 January, 2022. 

Schwalbe, Will. “Elizabeth Khuri Chandler Tells the Origin Story of Goodreads” Literary Hub, 3 December, 2018, www.lithub.com/elizabeth-khuri-chandler-tells-the-origin-story-of-goodreads/. Accessed 5 January, 2022.

Rainey, James. “On the Media: Goodreads.com founder pushes print on the Web, not on paper” Los Angeles Times, 14 August, 2010, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-aug-14-la-et-onthemedia-20100814-story.html. Accessed 5 January, 2022.

OwlCrate Personal Narrative

by KeiraUncategorizedPosted on 0 comments

Before I could even read on my own, my mother would enroll my sister and me in a summer reading program hosted by our local library. When we were little we would write down all of the books my mother would read to us over the summer. When we had reached a certain number of books, we would receive prizes for our efforts. I remember my mother would doodle illustrations of the characters that inhabited our favorite stories of the summer in the margins of our reading programs. My favorite illustration was a large nose welcoming tiny swirls of steam from a warm mug. I still have many of those reading programs now – a record of my childhood. 

At the end of the summer, we were awarded a new paperback. The librarians would unleash us on boxes piled high with new editions of a variety of books. My sister and I would comb through the boxes with a ferocity only matched by pirates being turned loose on a treasure cave. When I think back to that first reading program, when I could barely read, my past self had no idea what reading was going to give to her. My most memorable summer reading program was the summer of 2020. In a year of uncertainty, the reading program brought familiarity into my life and reignited my love of reading. 

At the beginning of the lockdown, my sister and I acclimatized to our new situation by developing an almost military-esque ritual of waking up, exercising, school time, and then extreme boredom until it was time to go to bed and do it all over again. Have you ever seen one of those “Eat. Sleep. [insert sport/activity of your choice]. Repeat.” shirts? That would virtually explain our existence those first couple months. The days blended into each other like an abstract painting of news reports, school papers, home movie theater nights, and hitting foam tennis balls against the house. 

Time moved in a curious way, as the minutes crept by, the days flew past. As the summer approached, questions bubbled to the surface of what I was going to do that summer. Now that I was a teen, the reading program was different. Prizes were given lottery-style with each 5 hours of reading earning you a ticket to put in the lottery of your choice. The library announced that the reading program would commence, online through an app. Excited, I eagerly registered for the program. Soon, I discovered myself beginning to read at a brisk pace, reminiscent of when I first started to read and devoured any book I could get my hands on. While the world I lived in was shaky and uncertain, the worlds I read about were glorious and predictable. 

The summer drew to a close, I found myself finishing up the final book, recording my last few minutes of reading, and putting all of my lottery tickets into winning a three-month box subscription. Then I waited, waited, and waited. I assumed that if I had won the subscription, I would be alerted within a couple days, this was not the case. In fact, it wasn’t until two weeks post-reading program that I got any news. I was sitting in my backyard working on school. I had stopped obsessively refreshing my email about a week prior and was content to accept my prize-less fate, when suddenly I got a notification. I opened my mail app to an email from a librarian congratulating me on winning a 3-month subscription to a box service of my choice. The correspondence between the librarian and me were as follows: 

I wrote, “Thank you. I would like the OwlCrate box subscription please.”

“There is a small hiccup – OwlCrate has a waitlist, would you rather be put on the waitlist or choose another box subscription,” the Librarian wrote back. Now, I could have been flexible and chosen a different box subscription, but I had already watched multiple OwlCrate unboxing videos on YouTube, so this was pretty much a done deal. 

“I would like to be put on the OwlCrate waiting list please,” I responded. And then I waited three months. Three months isn’t a long time, unless you are waiting for an email informing you that a box full of bookish goods is on its way to you. In the meantime, I applied for my freshman year of high school and continued life. The anticipation of my prize helped motivate me in the first few months of high school.

A few months later, it came. On November 23rd I received my first OwlCrate box. It was a cardboard box stamped with a photo of an owl, it resembled the famous Harry Potter owl, Hedwig. Inside was a first edition copy of “Among the Beast and Briars” by Ashley Poston, a flower press, a dandelion necklace, and many more bookish goods. As I stared down at the box, with a stunned kind of expression, I was surprised by the anticlimactic nature of the event. These past few months I had spent in a constant state of intense expectation. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t happier, when by all accounts I should have been. I was struck by the fact that I wouldn’t have the waiting and expectation that I had grown accustomed to. In a way it was the waiting that helped me stay distracted and had given me predictability when the world seemed unpredictable.

Alice in Reality: An “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” Adaptation

by KeiraWriting 2021Posted on 0 comments

Alice walked through a forest, following a white figure up ahead. An incessant ticking rang out, echoing through the trees. The figure sped up, swerving back and forth. Alice picked up her pace trying to catch the figure before it ducks out of her view again, her breath gasped in short spurts and her legs tired. The trees above her seemed to be growing, or she was getting smaller. The figure stopped in a clearing up ahead. 

“Hello there,” Alice shouted, in what she believed to be a friendly manner “do you need help?”

The figure startled turning around quickly, Alice only caught a glimpse of the long whiskers, before the figure turned quickly running away. 

A rabbit

“Hey, wait up!” Alice called.

She followed the rabbit deeper and deeper into the forest before she realized she could no longer see him. 

He disappeared

“Hello?” Alice said tentatively, taking another step forward, “Rabbit? Are you here, aaah” 

The ground had disappeared she was 

falling, 

falling, 

falling 

Aah, Alice jerked awake, sitting straight up in bed she looked at the clock on her nightstand, 5:37 A.M. 

It was a dream, it had only been a dream.

Alice heard the sounds of the city beyond the walls of her studio apartment, sirens were blaring and people were bustling on their morning commute. Alice got out of bed, and walked over to her desk. It was covered in stacks of books, Alice had loved reading her whole life, she enjoyed immersing herself in fictional worlds where the rules of reality didn’t apply. She bent over her desk, her yellow hair falling across her face as she shifted the piles of books. Finally, she found the one she wanted, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Her uncle

It had been a long time since she had thought about her uncle or this book. She flipped through the book to an illustration of the White Rabbit, the same rabbit in her dream. 

She shut the book with an exasperated sigh, she thought she was past this. She hadn’t dreamed of Wonderland for years. The whole world thought that the story had been a figment of her uncle’s vast imagination. That he had made up all of the wondrous characters, but he hadn’t. To her uncle, Wonderland was just a story, an idea, but to her…

To her it was real

11 years ago, Alice went to Wonderland. 11 years ago she met the White Rabbit, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, and The Queen of Hearts. 11 years ago she woke up in her bed to her family’s anxious faces hovering above her, whom she told she had gone to a wonderful place called Wonderland. For 11 years nobody had believed her. Countless therapy appointments, family interventions, and interviews later, she didn’t know if she believed her story. Her uncle, the writer, had come to Alice and seemed willing to listen to her side of the story, but really he just needed ideas for his next big project. Now the whole world knew Alice’s story, except nobody really knew her story. 

Alice hated whenever her mind went down the rabbit hole of self doubt and reminisced about events that had happened years ago. And besides,

None of it was real

Alice shook herself, and tried to put her mind on other matters. She needed to get ready for work. Alice left her apartment building and headed over to her place of work, The Strand. The weather was pleasant and a floral scent filled the air, reminding her that it was springtime.

Her favorite time of year

Alice arrived at The Strand in time to open the store, for the next few hours she busied herself helping customers. By the time her lunch break rolled around, she had forgotten about her earlier stroll down memory lane. Alice decided to take her lunch to Central Park and spend some time reading in her favorite spot. After she had found a spot around the large lake in the middle of Central Park, she sat down to read her book. 

Where is it? 

Oops, Alice had accidentally put her edition of  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in her bag. 

Well, might as well read it

Alice opened the book as she leaned back on the grass, the sun shone on her and she began reading. Alice wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she looked up from her book, and a white figure darted in her peripheral vision. She closed her book and stood up, looking for where the figure had vanished. She thought it may have gone into the woods, so she headed into the trees. 

There it was again, a white streak.

Alice raced after the figure, she felt the pounding of her heartbeat as she raced through the trees. She burst into a clearing and there stood the figure, with its back to her.

“Hello” Alice said, “Are you the white rabbit? Please I have to know it’s not just my imagination.” 

The figure turned around, 

It was Alice, as a child

“I don’t understand” Alice said, 

“When was anything about our lives understandable?” Young Alice asked “And when did you start letting other people tell your story?”

“I…I don’t…know?” Alice said uncertainty, “I guess it was easier to let other people come up with their own version of what happened to me, a version they could comprehend”

“Hmm…but Wonderland was never supposed to be comprehensible” said Young Alice “It’s supposed to be mad”

Mad,

Mad,

Mad

The word echoed around her, and she jolted awake. Her book was lying on top of her, Alice got up, then she picked up her book and lunch. Alice walked for a while, and pondered a dream. She had come to a decision.

It was time to write Alice’s version of Wonderland, the true, mad version of Wonderland.  

When I read…An anaphoric poem

by KeiraWriting 2021Posted on 0 comments

When I read I explore worlds that are 

built on imagination, ink, and paper

When I read I meet interesting people 

they take me on adventures, we solve mysteries and complete quests

When I read reality fades away

my mind is taken to a world where my only problem is how fast I run out of pages.