Revish - a new site for readers

If you are a reader and like to talk about the books you read with others, you might be interested in a brand new kid on the block called Revish. I've been one of a handful of folks helping Dan Champion, the founder of Revish, test the site for the past week. Since Dan is a web standards Guru, this site is sure to be accessible and usable.

Revish is kind of like your local book club combined with the book section of the newspaper. As a member you get to write reviews, list the books you are reading or have read. You can also comment on reviews written by others. What makes this place different, among other things, is the quality of the reviews. If you write a review you are asked to follow a set of fair, but definite guidelines as to the length and depth of the review. No "I liked this book, it was good" for Revish.

If you're interested, head on over to www.revish.com and sign up for the beta. They are going to invite more people to help test the site, so if you're interested, don't delay.

My son and reading

I was careful to do all the right things to ensure both of my children would grow up to be readers. I was rewarded for my efforts by realizing my goal. My daughter loves to read. The only thing that readily gets her nose out of a book is the Internet and being with her friends. My son also loves to read, but is much more distracted by other things.

Today Andrew scoured the house for a book to read while waiting between matches at his 11 hour long wrestling meet. I thought he hadn't found one, until I saw a beat up second hand copy of Avi's Nothing but the Truth in his wrestling bag. We'd had that book for years; I bought it when I was an avid Avi fan, but as far as I knew, none of us had read it.

I was pleased with his choice and even more pleased to see him reading the book instead of listing to his iPod. Other parents and fellow wrestlers noticed him reading as well (he was the only wrestler reading as far as I could tell).

When asked if he was reading for pleasure or school, he always said "For school." When asked if it was a good book, he nodded. I asked him later if he was really reading it for school and he said no, but it wouldn't be cool to be reading for pleasure.

Go figure.