5 ms·

Show HN: I compiled book recommendations from 1300+ leaders

38 points by vhpoet 6y ago

sam1r 6y ago
Is there a way to see which books have been referenced most?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vhpoet 6y ago
  Yup, https://readthistwice.com/lists/most-recommended-books https://readthistwice.com/lists/most-recommended-books
Feolkin 6y ago
This looks great, but this feels way too skewed to people who are popular or in roles of power. Is it really valuable to know what Trump is reading? Emma Watson? Ashton Kutcher? Oprah? Ellen? Musk? Tom Hanks? Like, at least Obama was in academia for a long time (also, tagging him just as "politician" is ... misleading), so he's probably well-read and has decent suggestions. Bill Gates has been incredibly active in third world development, the tech industry, etc., so he likely also has decent suggestions. But ... Alicia Keys? There's way too much noise here. Edit: BTW, I'm surprised by how well this performs. What did you use to build this?
- vhpoet 6y ago
  I was actually deliberate about adding these people. The mission here is to make people read more and some people might not be impressed by what Alicia Keys, Emma Watson or Taylor Swift have to recommend, but there's an ocean of teens who don't normally read and no matter what Obama or Bill Gates recommend they'll not get into reading unless they see a book recommendations from one of their pop gods. Thank you, it's built on react and node.
pawnednow 6y ago
Great work. It looks absolutely polished and really well done. Can you describe the tech stack and how did you go about collecting images ? Also, did you fetch the titles via Amazon ? If you would like to be featured on https://hackerspad.net https://hackerspad.net, please let me know.
- vhpoet 6y ago
  Hey, thank you! It's built on react and node. I fetched the titles from Amazon, but there's some manual work involved cleaning them up. I'd love to be featured on https://hackerspad.net https://hackerspad.net. Thank you!
scared2 6y ago
Trump never read most of the books you listed. Please fix that. Specially those written in '19 '20
- vhpoet 6y ago
  We don't usually include recommendations that look more like a promotion than a recommendation, but he does explicitly recommend most of these books and it wouldn't be fair for us to decide which ones he actually did read.
  - user00012-ab 6y ago
    To be honest, I loaded the page, saw "what books Trump reads" and gave up on the site right there.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
notdang 6y ago
Did people stop reading literature? Or they just don't advertise it?
aphit 6y ago
You should check out another Show HN right now which might enhance the look and feel of your site even more: https://3d-book-css.netlify.app/ https://3d-book-css.netlify.app/
- vhpoet 6y ago
  haha yea I saw that, looks really good. thank you!
atarian 6y ago
Nice work, the design is very clean and fitting for a site about books. One comment: I was looking for a link on the header that would give me topics or categories, but couldn't find one. Eventually I realized "Books" was your categories page; maybe rename it so people can have an easier time finding it?
- vhpoet 6y ago
  Thank you! And yes, that's a good point, I'll see how I can fix that.

38 points by vhpoet 6y ago

sam1r 6y ago

Is there a way to see which books have been referenced most?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
vhpoet 6y ago
Yup, https://readthistwice.com/lists/most-recommended-books https://readthistwice.com/lists/most-recommended-books

Feolkin 6y ago

This looks great, but this feels way too skewed to people who are popular or in roles of power. Is it really valuable to know what Trump is reading? Emma Watson? Ashton Kutcher? Oprah? Ellen? Musk? Tom Hanks? Like, at least Obama was in academia for a long time (also, tagging him just as "politician" is ... misleading), so he's probably well-read and has decent suggestions. Bill Gates has been incredibly active in third world development, the tech industry, etc., so he likely also has decent suggestions. But ... Alicia Keys? There's way too much noise here. Edit: BTW, I'm surprised by how well this performs. What did you use to build this?

vhpoet 6y ago
I was actually deliberate about adding these people. The mission here is to make people read more and some people might not be impressed by what Alicia Keys, Emma Watson or Taylor Swift have to recommend, but there's an ocean of teens who don't normally read and no matter what Obama or Bill Gates recommend they'll not get into reading unless they see a book recommendations from one of their pop gods. Thank you, it's built on react and node.

pawnednow 6y ago

Great work. It looks absolutely polished and really well done. Can you describe the tech stack and how did you go about collecting images ? Also, did you fetch the titles via Amazon ? If you would like to be featured on https://hackerspad.net https://hackerspad.net, please let me know.

vhpoet 6y ago
Hey, thank you! It's built on react and node. I fetched the titles from Amazon, but there's some manual work involved cleaning them up. I'd love to be featured on https://hackerspad.net https://hackerspad.net. Thank you!

scared2 6y ago

Trump never read most of the books you listed. Please fix that. Specially those written in '19 '20

vhpoet 6y ago
We don't usually include recommendations that look more like a promotion than a recommendation, but he does explicitly recommend most of these books and it wouldn't be fair for us to decide which ones he actually did read.
- user00012-ab 6y ago
  To be honest, I loaded the page, saw "what books Trump reads" and gave up on the site right there.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

notdang 6y ago

Did people stop reading literature? Or they just don't advertise it?

aphit 6y ago

You should check out another Show HN right now which might enhance the look and feel of your site even more: https://3d-book-css.netlify.app/ https://3d-book-css.netlify.app/

vhpoet 6y ago
haha yea I saw that, looks really good. thank you!

atarian 6y ago

Nice work, the design is very clean and fitting for a site about books. One comment: I was looking for a link on the header that would give me topics or categories, but couldn't find one. Eventually I realized "Books" was your categories page; maybe rename it so people can have an easier time finding it?

vhpoet 6y ago
Thank you! And yes, that's a good point, I'll see how I can fix that.