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Show HN: Booknshelf – Discover great books on different topics

89 points by thakobyan 10y ago

bootload 10y ago
Passes a basic test for me. Search for a computer language and get back a good book: https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=haskell https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=haskell Worked for Eric Carle: https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=eric+carle https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=eric+carle not enough Asimov: https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=azimov https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=azimov
- infide1castr0 10y ago
  Nice searches, I searched for Clarke first and there is even less than Asimov :(
matt4077 10y ago
Well, I clicked around for a while. And now? There don't seem to be any recommendations? The basic "click the books you read & liked" workflow is also annoyingly flawed. There are like 20 collections that each require a page load, and some of them only contain a single book. Having tried similar things in the past, they seemed to be much better at quickly zeroing in on what I probably had in my bookshelf. After 10 to 15 books in my library, they had about a 50% hit rate with suggestions. I. e. if someone likes Douglas Adams, chances are really high they've also read Feynman's more humorous books. There also seems to be a problem with deduplication. One of the collections literally contains 15+ editions of "How to Win Friends..." and nothing else.
marai2 10y ago
Looks cool. I tried to do something along the same lines. I had gotten tired of the low signal to noise ratio of Amazon book reviews (after reading one too many "Arrived in good condition" type of reviews). Mine is a more minimal HN type look and feel: http://vivalabooks.com http://vivalabooks.com But Im not sure how to get it off the ground.
wowsig 10y ago
Played around with Booknshelf for a while. If it was your weekend project, I think you've done quite an awesome job! Glad that you've been thinking on the same lines as we did. We started with a similar concept as a facebook bot and now have made it into a web app. http://shelfjoy.com http://shelfjoy.com Infact, I'd love it if you played around with it for sometime and make your reading lists there.
- stagbeetle 10y ago
  Very neat concept, even if it's a shameless plug.
mmanfrin 10y ago
What does this do that Goodreads does not?
- pliftkl 10y ago
  Well, it generates referral revenue for the developer of the website...
  - baldfat 10y ago
    as oppose to the Amazon owned goodreads.com pays itself.
pauljaworski 10y ago
What's the significance of the n? It looks like a typo.
- philbarr 10y ago
  The domain with the "n" was available.
exergy 10y ago
It seems "Discover popular books" would be more accurate? Within my specialisation, it didn't uncover the hidden gems, as much as the usual suspects of academic textbooks that are dreary as hell.
discreditable 10y ago
Is it just me or does HN seem to have a few too many book recommendation posts, complete with Amazon referral links?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
infide1castr0 10y ago
Something interesting that may want to be worked on one day is that searching for an author's full name seems to bring up different results than just searching for their last name.
sledgehammers 10y ago
Why on earth did you implement all the links as regular divs and not <a> tags? I can't open any them to new tabs. Anyway, I'm always interested on finding new books to read, so thanks.

89 points by thakobyan 10y ago

Passes a basic test for me. Search for a computer language and get back a good book: https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=haskell https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=haskell Worked for Eric Carle: https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=eric+carle https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=eric+carle not enough Asimov: https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=azimov https://booknshelf.com/books/search?q=azimov

infide1castr0 10y ago
Nice searches, I searched for Clarke first and there is even less than Asimov :(

matt4077 10y ago

Well, I clicked around for a while. And now? There don't seem to be any recommendations? The basic "click the books you read & liked" workflow is also annoyingly flawed. There are like 20 collections that each require a page load, and some of them only contain a single book. Having tried similar things in the past, they seemed to be much better at quickly zeroing in on what I probably had in my bookshelf. After 10 to 15 books in my library, they had about a 50% hit rate with suggestions. I. e. if someone likes Douglas Adams, chances are really high they've also read Feynman's more humorous books. There also seems to be a problem with deduplication. One of the collections literally contains 15+ editions of "How to Win Friends..." and nothing else.

marai2 10y ago

Looks cool. I tried to do something along the same lines. I had gotten tired of the low signal to noise ratio of Amazon book reviews (after reading one too many "Arrived in good condition" type of reviews). Mine is a more minimal HN type look and feel: http://vivalabooks.com http://vivalabooks.com But Im not sure how to get it off the ground.

wowsig 10y ago

Played around with Booknshelf for a while. If it was your weekend project, I think you've done quite an awesome job! Glad that you've been thinking on the same lines as we did. We started with a similar concept as a facebook bot and now have made it into a web app. http://shelfjoy.com http://shelfjoy.com Infact, I'd love it if you played around with it for sometime and make your reading lists there.

stagbeetle 10y ago
Very neat concept, even if it's a shameless plug.

mmanfrin 10y ago

What does this do that Goodreads does not?

pliftkl 10y ago
Well, it generates referral revenue for the developer of the website...
- baldfat 10y ago
  as oppose to the Amazon owned goodreads.com pays itself.

pauljaworski 10y ago

What's the significance of the n? It looks like a typo.

philbarr 10y ago
The domain with the "n" was available.

exergy 10y ago

It seems "Discover popular books" would be more accurate? Within my specialisation, it didn't uncover the hidden gems, as much as the usual suspects of academic textbooks that are dreary as hell.

discreditable 10y ago

Is it just me or does HN seem to have a few too many book recommendation posts, complete with Amazon referral links?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

infide1castr0 10y ago

Something interesting that may want to be worked on one day is that searching for an author's full name seems to bring up different results than just searching for their last name.

sledgehammers 10y ago

Why on earth did you implement all the links as regular divs and not <a> tags? I can't open any them to new tabs. Anyway, I'm always interested on finding new books to read, so thanks.