My Favorite Non-Bookish Websites

May 10, 2016 Top Ten Tuesday 12

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Ten Websites I Love That Aren’t About Books.

Bookwyrm on the internet

Obviously, I spend a lot of time on bookish websites: Goodreads, NetGalley and Edelweiss, Amazon, my library, other book blogs, author blogs… But there are some other places I like to hang out that aren’t bookish, or at least aren’t only  bookish.

 

My main hang-outs

Facebook. I started on Facebook as a way to find and connect with friends from high school and college as well as with family who live at a distance (which is all of them, at this point.) While I’ve added a few book-blogger friends, Facebook is still my main way to keep up with all those real-life friends separated by time and distance.

Tumblr. Our daughter Robin got me on to Tumblr a few years ago. Originally it was a sort of extension of my blog; it even carries the same name. And yes, booklr (the bookish community on Tumblr) is a great place to hang out. But through Robin and some of the other people I followed, I discovered whole other parts of Tumblr, some vaguely book-related, many not. I set up a sideblog to reblog a lot of the not-directly-book-related stuff I love, from my fandoms, to cute furry mammals, to photos of castles and Great Britain and tea, to social justice posts. I haven’t located all my fandoms yet, but I reblog a lot of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney stuff so far.

Pinterest. Oh, what a great place to find pictures of just about anything you’re interested in! Again, I started my Pinterest account as a sort of social-media extension of my blog, but it ballooned into a lot more. Besides all my book-related boards (and I have a lot of those), I have boards called Fantasy Art, Geekery, On Writing, Knitter’s Stash, Tea, Music, Theater and Dance, Anglophilia (photos of Britain), Castles and Cathedrals, Costumes, Places to Visit, Places I’ve Been… it’s like a gigantic clippings file or bulletin board for all my interests (or at least a lot of them.)

Ravelry. An indespensible site for knitters and crocheters, Ravelry is a combination of project notebook, yarn and pattern database, pattern store, and social website. With my Ravelry account, I can keep track of the yarn I buy and use, the needles, books, and patterns I own, and the projects I’ve started and completed (and every stage of progress along the way), complete with photos.  I can “friend” other Ravelers, ask questions, and join discussions in various forums and groups. Perhaps best of all, I can search for buy patterns using a huge number of limiting factors, from type of project to yarn weight to whether I already own the pattern (and can often buy it if I don’t.) I don’t know what knitters did before Ravelry! If you want to find me there, my username is Lady-Lark.

Movie streaming sites. Since we gave up cable, I do most of my “television” watching via Netflix and Amazon Prime. Not that I watch a whole lot, most weeks, but over the last few years, Mr. Bookwyrm and I have worked our way through some older shows we enjoyed—West Wing, Star Trek:The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and various British mystery series—as well as some new ones we’re exploring. Right now, we’re in the middle of the Poirot mysteries (rewatching, mostly) as well as Doctor Who (Series 4, and it’s our first time through Who.)

 

Places I like to visit

IMDB. I’m one of those people who, when they watch a movie or TV show, are constantly trying to figure out where they’ve seen a particular actor before. More than 50% of the time, I can do it, too, given a little time. But for the other 40% or so, the ones that drive me nuts trying to figure out who they played in what show—for them, there’s IMDB. I simply look up the movie I’m watching, check the cast list, and click on the actor’s name. That takes me to their filmography, and I scan it for familiar titles. It saves me from exclaiming to my bewildered family three days later, “Oh, I know who that woman who played the murderer was! She played the school principle in that other show!”

Game sites. I admit it, I’m a sudoku and mah-jongg junkie. While I try to limit my game playing because it eats into reading, blogging, and creative time (not to mention work time), I do stop by to play a game or two from time to time. Okay, almost every day. My favorite sites are websudoku.com and this mah-jongg site. The latter isn’t fancy, and the tiles are tiny, but the game is always challenging—unlike the graphically gorgeous but suspiciously easy mah-jongg app I downloaded from Microsoft’s app store.

DeviantArt. The art on DeviantArt ranges from poor to professional, but some of it is pretty darn good. It’s a great place for fan art and fantasy art. Here are a couple of the people whose art I really enjoy/love/admire: Sieskja, Daniel Govar’s  Temeraire fan art (OK, that’s bookish), moussee, Julie Dillon (a professional artist who does SF/F cover art, so I guess that’s bookish too), Sandara, Gold-Seven (Jenny Dolfen, who does lovely colored drawings, often of Tolkien characters and recently also Star Wars: The Force Awakens), and WildWoodArts‘ whimsical children’s illustrations. I actually haven’t been on in a while, but every time I go there, I find a new artist or two to watch.

 

Non-bookish blogs I love

The Yarn Harlot. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, AKA the Yarn Harlot, writes a wonderful blog about knitting. And life. Sometimes it’s inspirational, sometimes it’s moving, but often, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to read this post out loud to someone without cracking up. (And by the way, her partner-now-husband Joe is a cross between a teddy bear and a saint.)

I thought I had a few more, but they’re either totally knitting and of no interest to non-knitters, or they’ve stopped blogging in the last year or so. To be honest, mostly I read author blogs and book blogs.

 

So what about you—where do you spend time on the Internet when you’re not doing bookish things?

 

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12 Responses to “My Favorite Non-Bookish Websites”

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Oh, Cakewrecks, I had totally forgotten about them! That’s a great place for a laugh. I think I’ll check in—it’s been about 2 years since I was there.

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      Thanks, Lianne! I go through bursts of tumblring, and other weeks when I’m barely on it. But I usually enjoy it.

  4. Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library

    It’s funny but I forget streaming sites are actually websites so I didn’t even think to add Netflix or Hulu even though I use them all the time! I need to explore Tumblr more. I was on it a little while ago but seemed stuck in teenage angst which wasn’t for me but I need to give it a try. And Pinterest is really all that is good on the internet! I love the game sites! I’m a hidden object game sucker. I love Big Fish Games because you can download a game for an hour long free trial and periodically they’ll have a sale where I can buy a game for just a dollar or two.
    Katherine @ I Wish I Lived in a Library recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday – My Favorite Non-Bookish WebsitesMy Profile

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      There is a lot of teenage angst in some parts of Tumblr, and overall people who use the site are mostly millenials and younger, but there’s also a lot of fun and interesting stuff. I didn’t know about Big Fish Games; maybe I’ll try them. I can spend hours on Pinterest. Some of my boards have gotten really, really full.