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I started a book club when I was pregnant with my first child, worrying I wouldn't make time to read. Years later, the book club is still going strong, but we struggle, as many clubs do, to find great new selections. I create a list of possible choices and we select them together, but, all too often, we make terrible choices.
In the past, I relied too heavily on Amazon and Barnes & Noble recommendations, which typically recommended current best-sellers. I tried looking through best-seller lists, relying on friend recommendations (a trusted source), and book club lists. One friend swears by Salon.com, the NY Times Book Review online; and a magazine called Booksense, which compiles reviews from several publications as well as its own. She's also a fan of NPR, especially Fresh Air. I tried some of these, but I got desperate for a better way.
With a meeting looming in a few days to pick our next several books, I set out to review book recommendation engines to see if anything out there could help. My research discovered one real gem worth sharing and I highlight it below. When I happened upon LibraryThing.com, I knew I had found the Holy Grail of book recommendation engines.
With most book recommendation engines, you enter an author or book title you like to retrieve recommendations. I used Snow Flower and the Secret Fan as my test book on LibraryThing. I knew I wanted only selections highly recommended in Amazon reviews (4-5 stars), less than 350 pages, and available in paperback. Within an hour, following various recommendations made by LibraryThing, I had a list of 18 books I thought my book club would enjoy.
Most book recommendation engines use collaborative filtering to deliver their results (e.g., Amazon and Barnes & Noble). That means a set of books is recommended off one element of the criteria you entered; enter an author and you'll get a recommendation list the engine has deemed to be similar to that author or a set of choices from people who have purchased that author's books. With the advent of social networking, people are entering the book titles of their collections at home, taking time to tag them in special ways and to review them...