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Hi HN! I just built this. It's a tool for "random sampling" audiobooks. :) I read a lot of books, but I always find it hard to discover the next book worth rea
by leobg 4y ago
Hi HN! I just built this. It's a tool for "random sampling" audiobooks. :)
I read a lot of books, but I always find it hard to discover the next book worth reading. Reviews are second-hand knowledge, and often contradicting. And when I try to search based on my own ideas about what topics, authors or narrators I *think* I would like, it easily becomes a mental prison from which the world of books seems so much smaller than it really is...
There was a post here on HN last week that mentioned random sampling. I can't seem to find it anymore. But the author argued, when the search space of something is too big for one humans brain to grok the full landscape, just randomly picking an item and rolling with it can really help. That idea stuck with me. And so I built this tool, to apply it to audiobooks!
I think it's quite fun to use:
1. When you open the site, it starts playing a random audiobook sample.
2. You can skip, or you can give a score between 1 and 5.
3. All the titles that you scored are being kept in your personal favorites list, sorted by your score.
The titles that you liked best automatically rise to the top of that list. Which makes it really easy to decide what to read next.
The samples, for now, are straight from Audible. There is an option to deselect certain categories. Otherwise, it's totally random.
I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to ask any questions.
P.S. On desktop, you can use keyboard shortcuts (1-5 to rate and spacebar to skip). Also, if you create an account, that'll save your progress and allow you to access and extend your book list across devices.