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Comment by lambdatronics | Hacker News Reader

I think it works: I put in "Zero to One", "The Idea Factory" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" -- one of the top results was "We Are Never Meeting in Real Life." This was reviewed on Amazon as "Not For a White Male Forty-Year-Old Software Engineer."

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1WB4G83DRI8PV/re...

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The problem is, there's a line between "things I don't consider because they're out of my comfort zone / I don't even know they exist" and "things I don't consider because I consider them to not have quality".

You give me a novel from a niche author from the middle East, I'm game; you give me a cash grab book signed by a teen youtuber and I'm probably out.

I'm not sure this site can tell the difference.

I guess one question is if you can tell the difference. Without reading the book from the youtuber, how would you know you wouldn't like it and it's not just prejudices getting in the way of you giving it a chance? If we can't tell then I'm not sure whether the site being able to makes any difference.

I think it would make a difference, in that if the user is somewhat convinced that the site is able to handle that issue then they will be more willing to take a leap of faith.

My point being, I'm perfectly capable of finding books I'd never read by myself - I just have to enter a library or bookshop and grab the first title that makes me frown.

There's only value in giving me books out of my circle of comfort if there's an implication that I might like the book or get something out of it, with more likelihood than mere chance, isn't it?

It does not seem to work well IMO. If you start over and type in the books that it recommends for readers of the books that the dev obviously thinks are "bad", it still recommends more of the books that the devs think are "good" instead of giving you the "opposite" of those.

I think it would be more effective for the devs to manually put together a recommended reading list of progressive literature and explain why they feel each book is worth investing time into. I would find that really helpful because even though I'm not part of their target demographic of extremely conservative people, I wouldn't really know which progressive works of literature are considered essential reading.

I tried various combinations of the books I’ve read over the last couple of years[1]. And either I got stuff already on my bookshelf or sphere of reference[2], or a lot of Calvin and Hobbes (seriously every result had at least one, sometimes several), or children’s books, or adult comic books. Which I guess is by some definition the opposite of adult novels. But a fun and interesting tool to play around with either way.

[1] Underworld, Blood Meridian, The Bluest Eye, Milkman, Pale Fire, Borges, etc...

[2] Chekhov, Ursula Le Guin, Proust, Umberto Eco, etc.

Edit: I scrolled down and read the creators summary of how the search works. And now believe my results really nailed his description: rarest but highly rated by readers of the same books. Which also explains all the Calvin and Hobbes, which I think have a universal appeal.

I see the same; Neuromancer,Anathem gives me a Far Side comic anthology. If I add The Name of the Rose then I get Scrooge McDuck and Game of Thrones. For The Name of the Rose and Cat's Cradle, 9 of the first 12 suggestions seem to be kids books.

It's an interesting project, but so far I don't think many of the suggestions are useful for me.

I would point out, that there are also many positive reviews of the same book on the exact same amazon. As in, this guy gave it two stars, but the books overall rating is much much higher.

So it seems that you picked outlier review here.

Yes, because I thought the review title was so apropos that it was funny.

Cantos, Bros Karamazov, Gibbon, Junger, Norwich .... I get suggestions for crummy business self help books, a biography of Elton John, something about crazy ladies talking to their crazy therapists, and something on vegetarianism I had already read and found laughably insane and ill researched. I'll stick with my literary bubble.

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