I loved reading as a kid. Yet, six months ago, if you asked me what I was reading, I wouldn’t know how to answer. Blogs? Xojane? Do those count?

I never lost my love for reading. I just didn’t know how to find books I really wanted to read. A nice hardcover novel is usually at least $30. That’s a big investment for something I’ll breeze through in 3-5 days and likely never pick up again. And, what if I don’t even like it? Talk about buyer’s remorse.

I use two websites to browse and order books.

1) Goodreads

Goodreads is a social networking site based around user’s reading habits. I spend hours browsing the vast listings of books, and adding them to my to-read list. The process is reminiscent of shopping for books on Amazon. (Fact: Amazon owns Goodreads)

Want to see what I’m reading? View my Goodreads profile here.

2) The Toronto Public Library

Did you know that the TPL began in 1810 and has 98 branches? Pretty impressive. The library is also connected with Zinio to offer free digital access to hundreds of magazines.

My Goodreads to-read list becomes my holds list at the library. You can put a hold on any book in the library’s catalogue and have it transferred to your home branch.

When you put a popular book on hold, you’re often put into a long queue (ie. 1 of 188). My favourite feature of the holds function is that you can change a hold to inactive or active.

This is great if you’re like me, and get carried away and add 30 books to your hold list. I may want to read all those books, but I definitely can’t read them all at once!

An active hold will transfer to your home branch when it becomes available, but an inactive hold will not. The best part is that you continue to move up in the queue, and can simply change the status to active when you’re ready for the book.