Tuning in to Book Search

Monday, October 08, 2007 at 11:19 AM

Posted by Katharine Lu, Book Search Support Team

Back when I was in college, I decided to learn how to play the guitar. At the time, it seemed like the perfect hobby to take up – I was an English major taking poetry workshops and other classes related to various forms of existential angst. After several weeks I’d fallen in love with my guitar, and I even formalized the relationship by adding “strumming the guitar” as one of my hobbies on my online profiles.

But the honeymoon ended with the onset of finals. Soon enough, my lonely acoustic guitar began collecting dust in the corner, and I forgot all the chords I had ever learned. I’m afraid that my guitar probably would have been abandoned to the tragic depths of my closet if I hadn’t recently stumbled upon the random subject of “Guitars” on Google Book Search. The new feature of categorizing books by genre allowed me to rediscover a hobby that I had woefully neglected.

To make up for lost time, I read up on how to tune a guitar and learned guitar secrets of one of my favorite rockers – Dave Matthews. I was even inspired to check out some local music shops, and I ended up finding my next dream purchase, a beautiful Taylor guitar. Try exploring the category listings you’ll find on the left-hand column of the Google Book Search home page – maybe it will jog your memory, too!