"Another is that my hunch is that the audience that is here generally already has more books than they can handle lined up to read" - Bingo!
"With books, there is no real substitute for a recommendation that comes from a human." - For this reason, I always enjoy looking through annotated bibliographies or Acknowledgements pages or 'For Further Reading' lists.
Even a casual reference -- "I’ll be starting a new book today." -- is a wonderful occasion for serendipity. In the promotional copy on the Bookshop page of "Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance", for example, nearly a dozen other books are mentioned by way of comparison. Those, and their authors' other works, could make up at least a couple of hours of follow up exploration. Endless opportunities; who could be bored?
Hi John! I'm curious about how you come up with your recommendations. Is it intuitive? Or do you have a set criteria you use? And why the last five books a reader has read--how did you come up with that structure?
I so agree with you about book recommending by machines. Years ago when I purchased a lot of books from Amazon it was hilarious because I would buy gifts for other people, book club picks, etc. I enjoy your recommendations because they often lead me to books I would never have found. I even enjoy your choices for other people in this newsletter. Started Mrs. Fletcher this morning which is one I would never pick and am enjoying it.
This was a common problem with people returning audiobooks when they were finished with them. It is my understanding that Amazon cracked down on this problem with audiobooks. Hopefully, they will do the same with e-books.
"Another is that my hunch is that the audience that is here generally already has more books than they can handle lined up to read" - Bingo!
"With books, there is no real substitute for a recommendation that comes from a human." - For this reason, I always enjoy looking through annotated bibliographies or Acknowledgements pages or 'For Further Reading' lists.
Even a casual reference -- "I’ll be starting a new book today." -- is a wonderful occasion for serendipity. In the promotional copy on the Bookshop page of "Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance", for example, nearly a dozen other books are mentioned by way of comparison. Those, and their authors' other works, could make up at least a couple of hours of follow up exploration. Endless opportunities; who could be bored?
Hi John! I'm curious about how you come up with your recommendations. Is it intuitive? Or do you have a set criteria you use? And why the last five books a reader has read--how did you come up with that structure?
I so agree with you about book recommending by machines. Years ago when I purchased a lot of books from Amazon it was hilarious because I would buy gifts for other people, book club picks, etc. I enjoy your recommendations because they often lead me to books I would never have found. I even enjoy your choices for other people in this newsletter. Started Mrs. Fletcher this morning which is one I would never pick and am enjoying it.
This was a common problem with people returning audiobooks when they were finished with them. It is my understanding that Amazon cracked down on this problem with audiobooks. Hopefully, they will do the same with e-books.