I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was 19. It changed my life. It altered how I saw the world. I’ve re-read this book every 10 years since, and each time I find something new, something I’ve not understood before. It’s a piece of work that keeps enriching my life. That’s a book worth recommending.
I spend half of my life reading; the rest I waste. Articles, websites, books, the back of a cereal pack – you get the gist. Books give me more than anything else, when they are ‘good’. Unfortunately, I can’t judge a good book until I’m an hour in. I’ll check online to look at a few reviews for a new book. The last book I bought on a recommendation got thrown against the wall after about 50 pages.
Unfortunately, I was reading it on my iPad.
I bought a book a couple of weeks ago, a top-recommended book at Dubray Books (one of my favourite places in Dublin). I had a look on Amazon – 4.8 rating, so I took the plunge. After 2 chapters, I thought, ‘Who the fuck are these people on Amazon? What idiot is giving this 5 stars?’
Books mirror where I am in life. Some books I love are classics; others grab me because of current circumstances in the world, or in my world. Others lean on the fact that I have read other books on this topic. A book will hit hard because I’ve understood something that made me see the world differently.
The best books I’ve read are books recommended by friends I respect, or by people who are in a similar industry or have the same interests. Some are by people who are oddballs (I realise this label may apply to me). A recommendation engine can never capture this.
Amazon, Goodreads, and similar sites tell you what a mass audience thinks. They tell you nothing about what you think. If you average the opinions of every reader on the internet, you get an average recommendation. Or maybe something very weird – it is the internet after all. You might get lucky now and again, but this averaging will never replace a personal recommendation.
I built BookTribes for myself. I want to know the most loved books from the people in my tribe.
The idea is simple: rate some books, and BookTribes finds other readers who rate those same books the way you did. Not people who like the same genre. People whose tastes overlap with yours. Your tribe. Then it shows you what those people loved, but that you haven’t read yet.
There are no paid placements or publisher deals. If a book appears in your recommendations, it’s because people like you loved it. That’s it.
There’s also a “not for me” button. A discussion in the wonderful Fitzwilliam group about an un-recommend feature for books inspired it. Some popular books should have a ‘do-not-read’ sticker. Knowing the books that your tribe hates is just as valuable as the ones they loved, maybe more so, given the cost of a new iPad.
I don’t know if this is useful to anyone else. But I hope so; otherwise I’ll keep burning good money on bad books.
BookTribes thinks that taste is a personal thing. If you’ve ever felt that the internet recommends books for someone else, an idiot maybe, then give this a try. Rate some books. See if your tribe gets it right.
And if it doesn’t, tell me. I’ll be fixing it and trying to make it better for the most important readers in my life – me.
I am in beta, so you can help shape the development and growth of BookTribes. The more readers you share this with, the better the recommendations. Be early to the party.
Mark Greville 