I couldn't insert the object I wanted here.... you'll have to visit my almost moribund blog to see it working .... well worth a peek -- is the future of bookselling?

Well done Random House !

Stumbling on Happiness (an extract of eBook inserted on my blog.... c/w contents/ index and full text of forward -- complete with link button to purchase from Random House...)  

Nice first Tangle.

Are you a self help/self happiness practitioner? 

That's a pretty good book reader. I couldn't embed it either....

My big self help book was 7 Habits. It came along at the right time and it has really had a good impact on me.  

7 Habits is the big winner on my shelf as well.... I pulled it out again just recently for a refresher course having fallen off the wagon somewhat... balance can be a precarious thing.

This book, however, isn't a self help guide -- that is it's not  a guide to finding/maintaining happiness but rather a scientific investigation into "how and how well the human brain can imagine its own future, and about how and how well it can predict which of those futures it will most enjoy."  My studies in the field of managerial cybernetics is leading me into interesting readings in cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and even behavioral economics  and this is just one bit of the journey!

So far I think the Publisher has the categorization wrong... more as I get into the meat  of it !

I use not self help books..... I figure it out as I go along

Otherwise I don't remember anything

I read and liked the intro and just ordered the book (paper version ) through Amazon, for 7 euros (cheaper than the ebook); but they added 6 euros for transport. Tough life.

(unrelated: don't know if it's intentional, but your name on Freebase is Bridoleur, not Bricoleur. So, just curious, what's a Bridoleur?)

Re Bridoleur: Not intentional....a typo when I first got authorized when Freebase was still completely private....As far as I know the term has no meaning whatsoever, but there was no way to change it once done... their correction was to allow me  a second identity (with Bricoleur spelt correctly) but there was no way to change the incorrect entries/communications or delete the master record for Brid.  So, you will find a Bricoleur record  as well, but with my own startup (and spending time here) I haven't had much time to enter much on Freebase... I think its fantastic though.

Yes, I think it's great. Not sure how long it will take before becoming useful. I was just looking into various types and topics, and sometimes it does get a bit messy...

I have about 4,000 books in my library and thought it might be nice to make sure that all are properly listed in Freebase....

However,  data entry is terribly slow for books as a result of the data structure (separation of book type from edition type) and my request for better search capability by Library of Congress Number has not been addressed (if it is I think I will have other suggestions for improvements that will make and perhaps other category  much more useful and allow use in mashups like their demo apps for movies).

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to me personally is that your individual types can not be used to bring all records forward.  Although I recognize that this of course is not freebase's mandate, if it was possible to do a filter, for example,  to find only those books  with LOC = T that were marked as being in my own bookshelf it would be a perfect personal reference that would make it a no brainer for me to spend the time putting in the 8,000 records needed to catalogue for the benefit of everyone using freebase to find book information.

I haven't looked much at book structure yet. But have you heard of LibraryThing? And do you know Talis? Maybe it would be faster to add your books through their interface, rather than directly into Freebase?

I actually started on such a process when I was involved in the very early beta testing of Ning.  They later decided to gut their search and tagging efforts when they moved from their initial focus towards a blog/social network hybrid model that makes all the bookshelf apps pretty useless.  Or at least slightly less inviting than old fashioned 'recipe' cards fashioned into a personal card catalogue.  

I really only make use of the Ning apps I was testing when I make reference to books here ("Where's Bric: What I'm Readin Now" or Where's Bric: What I'm Reading (old friends)").