You probably know what a wiki is, at least vaguely, from the most famous wiki website Wikipedia.  But did you know that wikis can help you read and enjoy a book more?

There is a whole subset of wikis dedicated to individual books,
authors, and book series.  These wikis are great for those thousand
page books (or series of books) where you may forget who some the characters are if you put
the book down for a few days.  Wikis come in handy here, as they
provide an almost encyclopedic knowledge concerning the universe of the
book or authors in question.  Here are some useful ones I found on the web:

• The Dark is Rising Wiki about The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
• Dragaera Wiki about the books of Steven Karl Zoltán Brust
• DragonLance Wiki about the DragonLance series of books by various authors
• Harry Potter Wiki about the Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
• His Dark Materials Wiki about the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
• Hitchhiker’s Wiki about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Inheritance Wiki about the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
• Orson Scott Card Wiki about the writings of Orson Scott Card
• Tamora Pierce Wiki about the books of Tamora Pierce
• Redwall Wiki about the Redwall series by Brian Jacques
• Lemony Snicket Wiki about the books of Lemony Snicket
• Sword of Truth Wiki about the Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind
• Turtledove Wiki about the writings of Harry Turtledove
• Warriors Wiki about the Warriors Book Series by Erin Hunter
• A Wheel of Time Wiki about The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan
• Thomas Pynchon Wiki a collection of 6 wikis, one for each book by Thomas Pynchon

I’ve only listed the most popular ones I can find, as those are the ones with the most content.  However, there are many more.  Here’s an index to some more wikis about books.

You don’t need to know much about wikis in order to enjoy them (just
think about Wikipedia; you can use it just like any other
website).  But if you wish to participate in content creation, it’s
very simple.  Here is a video that explains that process and the basic
concept of wikis in plain english:

1. Books: Your Ticket to the Movies
2. Read any banned books lately?
3. Six Word Stories
4. Banned Children’s Books
5. Time Travel Fiction