Posts Tagged ‘librarything’
Recommendations, anti-recommendations, and LibraryThing
November 6th, 2008 | 
Author: 
Most online bookstores have "if you liked this, you might like that" lists. Based on your own purchases and personal reviews, their powerful engines process your literary tastes and provide you with a list of similar tasting books that may or may not meet your needs, may or may not be available, and may or may not happen to be whatever the bookstore is pushing at this time.
Enter LibraryThing.
More like a library than a bookstore (and more like a literary FaceBook than a library), LibraryThing lets you catalog your own book collection and then it makes suggestions based on the libraries of other people with stuff like yours, not just on whatever you've bought recently. You can join reading groups, talk about books, send suggestions, post reviews, whatever. For a booklover (with a lot of free time) it's heaven.
Cynical booklovers, however, will want to check out their Unsuggester, which will look at all the books you like and provide you with a list of books you really, really won't. I already suspected I would hate everything Dan Brown ever wrote, but it was an amazing timesaver to have it scientifically verified. I also noted that I would despise James Frey, Bret Easton Ellis, Mitch Albom, and most religious non-fiction. It's not perfect; I like both Spider Robinson and Hunter S. Thompson, even though they come up as opposites, and I was amused to enter one of my favorite books, "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove, only to get back a must-avoid list that included several of my other favorite books.
Posted in 
Tags: 
How to find the books you should run away from, screaming
At last, a book recommendation service that makes sense to me.
Most online bookstores have "if you liked this, you might like that" lists. Based on your own purchases and personal reviews, their powerful engines process your tastes and provide you with a list of similar tasting books that may or may not meet your needs, may or may not be available, and may or may not happen to be whatever the bookstore is pushing at this time. Enter LibraryThing.
More like a library than a bookstore (and more like a literary FaceBook than a library), LibraryThing lets you catalog your books and then makes suggestions based on the libraries of other people with stuff like yours, not just on whatever you've bought recently. You can join reading groups, talk about books, send suggestions, post reviews, whatever. For a booklover (with a lot of free time) it's heaven.
Cynical booklovers, however, will want to check out their Unsuggester, which will take books you like and return lists of books you really, really won't. I suspected I would hate everything Dan Brown wrote, but it's an amazing timesaver to have it scientifically verified. I've also noted that I would despise James Frey, Bret Easton Ellis, Mitch Albom, and most religious non-fiction. It's not perfect; I like both Spider Robinson and Hunter S. Thompson, even though they come up as opposites, and I was amused to enter one of my favorite books, "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove, and getting a must-avoid list back that included several of my other favorite books.
If nothing else it's a great reverse of a standard service and may even result in some "you won't like these, nyah nyah" reverse psychology.
