4 ms·

Goodreads is a pretty bad site overall. Its good for tracking which books you've read I guess, but I don't think its better than a google doc sheet. The average

Goodreads is a pretty bad site overall. Its good for tracking which books you've read I guess, but I don't think its better than a google doc sheet. The average reader there doesn't really have good taste in books. You are honestly better off just using a google doc to track your books, and use /lit/ for discussions and recommendations, since /lit/ has much higher quality reviews, and discussions than good reads. Maybe a federated good reads will be better as it filters out a lot more people and might get rid of a low brow stuff.

smcleod 3y ago
And it’s owned by Amazon, who have no incentive to make it any better than it is.
- merdaverse 3y ago
  I mean, they kind of do, they own Kindle, so you would think it would be in their interest make it non shit to promote the books on their stores
9erdelta 3y ago
what is /lit/?
- bitdivision 3y ago
  I'm guessing the 4chan board?
- dri_ft 3y ago
  https://4chan.org/lit/catalog https://4chan.org/lit/catalog
- raybb 3y ago
  I assume OP is talking about the 4chan message board. Here's Reddit thread talking about said board https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/6ghfe5/have_you_guys_ever_been_to_lit_4chan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/6ghfe5/have_you_guys...
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    The reddit discussion for /lit/ is hilarious. It's sad how even reading books has become some political thing. God forbid I like an HP Lovecraft story because it's creepy. Some of the comments have this "I like how honest and unrestricted /lit/ is, but why can't we have that without all the Nazism and patriarchy" vibe that's just so incredible, I sort of stare at them in amazement.
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      Thats why I don’t use Reddit and would never take any opinion on something from there seriously.
    - ecshafer 3y ago
      It really just shows how Reddit often “doesn’t get it”. If you don’t want that stuff then just don’t look at it. But Reddit also due to the voting system just kind of tends towards this lowest common denominator malaise of mediocrity. /r/books, /r/literature or even something like /r/fantasy just tends towards talking about a few popular easily digestible books or meta topics.
    - lukas099 3y ago
      I use /lit/. It definitely does have Nazism and patriarchy plastered over it. If you dig around, there are great posts there. But it is a valid complaint. I'm wondering, do you take more issue with the Redditors saying they don't like the far-right stuff on /lit/ than you do with the actual far-right stuff on /lit/? Or are you commenting on the political nature of the entire (/lit/ + Reddit) system?
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        > I'm wondering, do you take more issue with the Redditors I joined a subreddit a few years ago, printSF, I think (not sure) thinking that it might be more to my liking. The regular science fiction subreddit seemed to be more about Marvel movies (it's not just reddit that does this, scifi.stackexchange might as well be harrypotter.stackexchange). I tried to like it. I saw books and authors that were unfamiliar (that should be good... it's difficult to find new stuff I enjoy). But then I started digging into the comments, and it was complete drek. There was one day when I must have read through two dozen, and "Bechdel" was in every single one of them. I don't think I knew what it was at the time, but one of them was a comment haranguing someone else about it, and so I enedd up learning that day. Another time, someone mentioned Asimov's Foundation in a recommendation thread. The replies were bizarre. It's clear that whatever they were after is nothing like what I want to read. We're not wanting the same genres. And I don't know why. It'd be one thing if these same sorts of people who were concerned with all that bullshit were happy and well-adjusted. Then it would mean that I was just some old fuddy-duddy and that the world had moved on without me. But they're not happy or well-adjusted, and they seem as if all they want out of this (and everything else) is to ruin and trash what they can. I suspect that too many literature classes in public schools and community colleges are to blame. They can't listen to or read a story and just enjoy it for what it is. Everything must be deconstructed and hidden meanings revealed, the sort of hidden meanings only they're clever enough to see. And that opens up the cracks for their weird-assed politics to be inserted into it. Then every interaction between every two characters is homoerotic, every dystopia is a critique of capitalism, and the only horror permitted is how conservative modern governments are. So yeh, I guess you could say this is a bigger problem for me than some halfwit in mama's basement trying to be an edgelord on 4chan and failing. And I hesitate to say that too loudly most of the time, because even though none of my words here are offensive, having described my personality there are those who would seek to make sure I'm not allowed to post ever again.
geoffdunbar 3y ago
I'm probably being dumb here, but what do you mean by /lit/? I can't figure out how to turn that into an Internet thing (website? social? what is it!), and searching for /lit/ is predictable not helpful. Always looking for a good source of book discussions and recommendations!
- moneywoes 3y ago
  4chan I believe
- ecshafer 3y ago
  /lit/ is the 4chan board. If you aren’t actually familiar with 4chan past rumors, it has decently good and varied tastes.
- huggingmouth 3y ago
  4channel, a place where surprisingly good discussions are often held. I use it as s complement to hn, especially for topics that upset hn downvoters. For people who want to have an honest discussion with a fun dose of rudeness and name-calling, it's great.
  - tech_ken 3y ago
    IDK, I enjoy the occasional spicy conversation but the intermittent, casual slurs are a big turnoff for me
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Goodreads isn’t just for fiction or popular-interest non-fiction like /lit/. You can also use it to track any book with an ISBN. I’m in academia and am constantly reading specialized literature, and I keep track of it on Goodreads because why not. I’ve had a lot of great interactions with other users who are similarly learned and perhaps working in parallel fields to my own. If you aren’t limited to the mainstream part of the website where mob behavior rules, you will be interacting with very different – and frankly much more worthwhile – people.
bamfly 3y ago
> The average reader there doesn't really have good taste in books. Massive problem everywhere. Sometimes I'll read some well-reviewed book-club sort of book, and it's usually somewhere between middling, and really bad. I once encountered one of those from a major publisher and aside from not being very good to begin with, it didn't even seem to have had a test-read done before it went to print—there were multiple parts, and one egregious chapter, where it looked like the author had done a major re-organizing edit then never gone back to iron out the wrinkles, such that the text would contradict itself line-to-line, like two or three versions of a scene describing different action, sequence of events, and circumstances re: things like which characters were present, had been hastily mashed up then never fully reconciled. This was plainly not a some intentionally-ambiguous literary device, but an oversight that left the reader unable to know what was supposed to have occurred. You'd never know what a mediocre story and technical mess it was from reading online reviews, though, unless you dug deep into the one- and two-star stuff (and found a reviewer of that sort who hadn't DNF'd it after the first couple chapters), plus other people I know who read it didn't even notice—one did, and we both got to stop feeling like we were taking crazy pills when we compared notes. WTF. All I can figure is a lot of people just skim everything, so are used to filling in lots of narrative gaps in their head or accepting the gist or outcomes of bits that don't make much sense to them and moving on, which would also explain why the quality of the story, characters, and writing aren't something they really notice, if it's all coming through to them rather impressionistically anyway and they're painting the rest of the picture any way they like. I dunno. TL;DR I find book recommendations nearly useless unless I've got a good sense of how a reviewer's quality-o-meter is calibrated. Star ratings from a broad, general audience are entirely useless.
- ecshafer 3y ago
  This touches on things I notice in modern literature, it’s not really about books. There’s a lot of these “book club” books that suck. I am 99% certain it’s just pay to play. The books are kind of melodramatic and not good, with basic prose and themes that are overdone, but will be well regarded as you say. I think it’s because there’s a lot of this culture around “being someone that reads books” so you have people that post memes or wear book t shirts or whatever. But they read the books npr and Oprah recommend.

smcleod 3y ago

And it’s owned by Amazon, who have no incentive to make it any better than it is.

merdaverse 3y ago
I mean, they kind of do, they own Kindle, so you would think it would be in their interest make it non shit to promote the books on their stores

9erdelta 3y ago

what is /lit/?

bitdivision 3y ago
I'm guessing the 4chan board?
dri_ft 3y ago
https://4chan.org/lit/catalog https://4chan.org/lit/catalog
raybb 3y ago
I assume OP is talking about the 4chan message board. Here's Reddit thread talking about said board https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/6ghfe5/have_you_guys_ever_been_to_lit_4chan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/6ghfe5/have_you_guys...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  The reddit discussion for /lit/ is hilarious. It's sad how even reading books has become some political thing. God forbid I like an HP Lovecraft story because it's creepy. Some of the comments have this "I like how honest and unrestricted /lit/ is, but why can't we have that without all the Nazism and patriarchy" vibe that's just so incredible, I sort of stare at them in amazement.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    Thats why I don’t use Reddit and would never take any opinion on something from there seriously.
  - ecshafer 3y ago
    It really just shows how Reddit often “doesn’t get it”. If you don’t want that stuff then just don’t look at it. But Reddit also due to the voting system just kind of tends towards this lowest common denominator malaise of mediocrity. /r/books, /r/literature or even something like /r/fantasy just tends towards talking about a few popular easily digestible books or meta topics.
  - lukas099 3y ago
    I use /lit/. It definitely does have Nazism and patriarchy plastered over it. If you dig around, there are great posts there. But it is a valid complaint. I'm wondering, do you take more issue with the Redditors saying they don't like the far-right stuff on /lit/ than you do with the actual far-right stuff on /lit/? Or are you commenting on the political nature of the entire (/lit/ + Reddit) system?
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      > I'm wondering, do you take more issue with the Redditors I joined a subreddit a few years ago, printSF, I think (not sure) thinking that it might be more to my liking. The regular science fiction subreddit seemed to be more about Marvel movies (it's not just reddit that does this, scifi.stackexchange might as well be harrypotter.stackexchange). I tried to like it. I saw books and authors that were unfamiliar (that should be good... it's difficult to find new stuff I enjoy). But then I started digging into the comments, and it was complete drek. There was one day when I must have read through two dozen, and "Bechdel" was in every single one of them. I don't think I knew what it was at the time, but one of them was a comment haranguing someone else about it, and so I enedd up learning that day. Another time, someone mentioned Asimov's Foundation in a recommendation thread. The replies were bizarre. It's clear that whatever they were after is nothing like what I want to read. We're not wanting the same genres. And I don't know why. It'd be one thing if these same sorts of people who were concerned with all that bullshit were happy and well-adjusted. Then it would mean that I was just some old fuddy-duddy and that the world had moved on without me. But they're not happy or well-adjusted, and they seem as if all they want out of this (and everything else) is to ruin and trash what they can. I suspect that too many literature classes in public schools and community colleges are to blame. They can't listen to or read a story and just enjoy it for what it is. Everything must be deconstructed and hidden meanings revealed, the sort of hidden meanings only they're clever enough to see. And that opens up the cracks for their weird-assed politics to be inserted into it. Then every interaction between every two characters is homoerotic, every dystopia is a critique of capitalism, and the only horror permitted is how conservative modern governments are. So yeh, I guess you could say this is a bigger problem for me than some halfwit in mama's basement trying to be an edgelord on 4chan and failing. And I hesitate to say that too loudly most of the time, because even though none of my words here are offensive, having described my personality there are those who would seek to make sure I'm not allowed to post ever again.

geoffdunbar 3y ago

I'm probably being dumb here, but what do you mean by /lit/? I can't figure out how to turn that into an Internet thing (website? social? what is it!), and searching for /lit/ is predictable not helpful. Always looking for a good source of book discussions and recommendations!

moneywoes 3y ago
4chan I believe
ecshafer 3y ago
/lit/ is the 4chan board. If you aren’t actually familiar with 4chan past rumors, it has decently good and varied tastes.
huggingmouth 3y ago
4channel, a place where surprisingly good discussions are often held. I use it as s complement to hn, especially for topics that upset hn downvoters. For people who want to have an honest discussion with a fun dose of rudeness and name-calling, it's great.
- tech_ken 3y ago
  IDK, I enjoy the occasional spicy conversation but the intermittent, casual slurs are a big turnoff for me

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

Goodreads isn’t just for fiction or popular-interest non-fiction like /lit/. You can also use it to track any book with an ISBN. I’m in academia and am constantly reading specialized literature, and I keep track of it on Goodreads because why not. I’ve had a lot of great interactions with other users who are similarly learned and perhaps working in parallel fields to my own. If you aren’t limited to the mainstream part of the website where mob behavior rules, you will be interacting with very different – and frankly much more worthwhile – people.

bamfly 3y ago

> The average reader there doesn't really have good taste in books. Massive problem everywhere. Sometimes I'll read some well-reviewed book-club sort of book, and it's usually somewhere between middling, and really bad. I once encountered one of those from a major publisher and aside from not being very good to begin with, it didn't even seem to have had a test-read done before it went to print—there were multiple parts, and one egregious chapter, where it looked like the author had done a major re-organizing edit then never gone back to iron out the wrinkles, such that the text would contradict itself line-to-line, like two or three versions of a scene describing different action, sequence of events, and circumstances re: things like which characters were present, had been hastily mashed up then never fully reconciled. This was plainly not a some intentionally-ambiguous literary device, but an oversight that left the reader unable to know what was supposed to have occurred. You'd never know what a mediocre story and technical mess it was from reading online reviews, though, unless you dug deep into the one- and two-star stuff (and found a reviewer of that sort who hadn't DNF'd it after the first couple chapters), plus other people I know who read it didn't even notice—one did, and we both got to stop feeling like we were taking crazy pills when we compared notes. WTF. All I can figure is a lot of people just skim everything, so are used to filling in lots of narrative gaps in their head or accepting the gist or outcomes of bits that don't make much sense to them and moving on, which would also explain why the quality of the story, characters, and writing aren't something they really notice, if it's all coming through to them rather impressionistically anyway and they're painting the rest of the picture any way they like. I dunno. TL;DR I find book recommendations nearly useless unless I've got a good sense of how a reviewer's quality-o-meter is calibrated. Star ratings from a broad, general audience are entirely useless.

ecshafer 3y ago
This touches on things I notice in modern literature, it’s not really about books. There’s a lot of these “book club” books that suck. I am 99% certain it’s just pay to play. The books are kind of melodramatic and not good, with basic prose and themes that are overdone, but will be well regarded as you say. I think it’s because there’s a lot of this culture around “being someone that reads books” so you have people that post memes or wear book t shirts or whatever. But they read the books npr and Oprah recommend.