There's a new online book website and it has an interesting twist. Book Glutton not only lets you read books online but it also allows you to chat with others who are reading the same book (or even the same chapter) at the same time. You can also mark and comment on particular passages, either publicly or privately, and reply to other readers' public comments.
The "Unbound Reader" window is quite slick (click image for screenshot). In the middle is a page of the book, nicely presented, with navigation at the bottom. On the left is the chat tab, and on the right is the comment tab. The website also has a groups feature, and you can limit chatting and comments to other group members.
Although I'm not a fan of reading whole books online, the social features are intriguing. I can see this being an option for online book clubs. (Those participating in the Russian Reading Challenge might be interesting in Book Glutton's edition of Best Russian Short Stories.) The one thing that's missing is a search function. So far that is all I use online books for, and I can see it being useful in Book Glutton for digging up quotes to use while chatting.
I should add that Book Glutton is in beta, so the choice of books and number of users is limited, and it only works in Firefox (for now). One of the features to come is the ability to upload original or public domain works yourself. It will be interesting to see if this catches on and whether links start to form with other book-related enterprises such as LibraryThing or Project Gutenberg. I can see schools and libraries being interested in this as well. I think I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
