3 ms·
This is great tool to see what everyone is reading but I would refrain from choosing books solely on the ranking shown here because its always better to choose
by rohan1024 7y ago
This is great tool to see what everyone is reading but I would refrain from choosing books solely on the ranking shown here because its always better to choose your own books, movies, music, battles,etc,. rather than aggregators or recommendation systems dictating what is good. I am not saying that this tool is doing the same but as a user we all need to be aware of the bias that naturally comes with these kind of services [0].
In rather harsh words of Arthur Schopenhauer
“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17939766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17939766
- m463 7y agoI find the commercial top-n lists not useful. top fantasy: #1 urban vampires #2 harry potter top scifi: #1 star wars book #2 star trek book recommended for you: author(s) you bought before
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> recommended for you: author(s) you bought before They're not going to do better than that. The author is almost the only thing that matters in determining whether or not you'll like a book. Now, if it's an author you bought before and then you hated the book, there's room for improvement in the recommendation.
- m463 7y ago> They're not going to do better than that. I can give you a few examples where there's room for improvement. If you liked jules verne, maybe you'll like h.g. wells If you liked isaac asimov, maybe arthur c clarke. If you liked william gibson, maybe bruce sterling. If you liked twilight, arrgh!