BookRabbit

The lovechild of Amazon and Facebook, BookRabbit is a new ‘social shopping' website which allows users to buy books, start discussions, post reviews and upload photos of their bookshelves. Set up by Kieron Smith, formerly of Waterstones, this website is promising to ‘put the people back into the online shopping experience.'


BookRabbit has a real emphasis on interactivity. Users who upload a photo of their bookshelves are matched to others who like similar books. This feature really sets BookRabbit apart from its competitors. It comes close to replicating the experience of browsing in a highstreet bookshop and appeals to the nosiness in us all. And unlike more straightforward social networking sites, the shared love of books means there is more desire on the part of the user to make contact with other people.

BookRabbit claims it is making a weekly effort to keep its products cheaper than Amazon. After an extremely unscientific price comparison of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Knut Hamsun's Hunger and Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies, I can report that Book Rabbit won the battle three nil. Given that the site also has a free standard delivery service – even if you are only buying one book – perhaps Amazon should start looking over its shoulder.

There's plenty on the site and as it's new there will be more to come. There's a Featured Author section with a short biography, a bibliography and a video of the author discussing their latest publication. You can browse your local independent bookseller and there's a helpful map of all the stores in your area. There's also bargain book section and recommendations based on books that have been read and rated by the BookRabbit community (You can find the latter on any product page.) The BookRabbit calendar will keep you to date with things like book events and author birthdays. And if you get five friends or more to register to the site you get a free book!

This is an intriguing and original site which could become very popular with sociable bibliophiles.