One of the features that’s proved really popular since launch has been mini-shelves. If you’re looking for a new children’s book, rock album or action movie you can just click through and see in an instant the most popular ones. The results so far have been impressive with people liking the fact you get a definitive ordered list rather than having to choose between 8 items all with 5 stars (the most commonly added item is on the left of the shelf).

What is less well known is you can actually dig deeper with the categories. For example if you click the Children’s Books link in the left menu (see screenshot) rather than click the book shown in the main part of the screen, you will be given a set of sub-categories including Animals, Education, Sports and Religion amongst others. This gives the option for real specific mini-shelves. Needless to say these work like the other mini-shelves where the most popular items from the given category are pulled out from all users’ shelves and sorted into their own shelf.

So it doesn’t matter whether you’re passionate about Children’s book in general or just Russian History, there’s bound to be a category that exactly matches your interests. In the long term we hope this will grow into a repository of information for everything from the definitive book on negotiating to the most popular teenage vampire movie.

You can find out more about mini-shelves and start exploring by visiting the mini-shelves page

The first ever 5ft Shelf newsletter went out in the last few days and if you’re not subscribed now’s a great time to signup. We’re sending the newsletter out as a monthly edition with a mix of site news, features on how to get the most from the 5ft Shelf site and general book, music and movie news.

This months edition had features on the launch of the site, the new social network and how to integrate your facebook or twitter account to 5ft Shelf. We’ve also got a few quick links to interesting blog posts, some suggested book, albums and movies as well as a round up of movements on the ultimate shelf.

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