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Comment by nyku | Hacker News Reader

Hi HN,

A few months ago, I was struggling to get into new books. I wanted to read more but had a hard time finding ones that truly clicked with me. It made me feel stuck.

So, I built a small AI tool to help me discover books based on my preferences and past experiences. Looking back, I can confidently say it’s helped me find great books and read more consistently.

I’d love for you to give it a try and share your thoughts: https://www.readflare.com/

I’m mostly into nonfiction, so I’d really appreciate it if someone with a different taste (fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, etc.) could give it a go and let me know how it feels. It’s free to use (for now), and your feedback would mean a lot!

Thanks, and I hope it helps you discover your next favorite book!

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Just tried it with science fiction, and it's good. The recommendations are solid.

I'd suggest a couple of things:

- Make it possible for us to rate the books in our "finished" pile. To avoid getting recommendations for books I've already read, I need to indicate that I've finished them and add them to my library, where they're used as fodder for recommendations. But there are some books in that pile that I liked more than others, and some that I didn't like at all. I'd rather not input a rating as text; it would be much faster and easier to give a star rating.

- I only got five recommendations at a time. Consider adding a "more" or "cont" button if I want to generate more recommendations along the same lines, without duplication.

And one note:

- The book cover images were often wrong. Maybe as much as 20% of the time. You might want to get rid of cover images entirely, actually.

Hey, thanks for trying it out!

I basically agree with all you said. The cover book issue is something new for me :)

Ratings: That’s a great point. A quick star rating makes total sense and would definitely improve the recommendations. By the way: 5 stars or 10 stars?

More Recommendations: +1 for this. Adding a "Load More" button sounds like a no-brainer. I was thinking of adding it before but I put if for later. But I think now is the time to add it.

Cover Images: I’m using an external source for them, so I’ll look into cleaning that up. By the way, if you have some examples of messed up covers - you can share them here.

Really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts - this kind of feedback is gold.

Thanks again!

5 stars ought to be enough. I usually either like or dislike a book, simple as that, so I'd probably give everything either 5 stars or 1-2 stars. Speaking for myself, there are no cases where I'd want to give something 9 stars or 6 stars out of 10.

Here's an example of the book cover issue: https://ibb.co/DQLC584

In the pic, out of five recommendations, one is correct, two are wrong, and two have no covers available.

Thank you once again! I will take a look :)

Hey there,

All done! You can give it another try :)

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