Unsuggester: Finding the Book You'll Never Want

Selanit writes "Lots of socially-oriented sites provide suggestions for things you might like based on user-provided data. But how many can claim to offer you things you'll probably hate? LibraryThing, the social book-cataloging site, has used its database of personal libraries to create UnSuggester, which does exactly that. You type in a book you like, "It analyzes the seven million books LibraryThing members have recorded as owned or read, and comes back with books least likely to share a library with the book you suggest." For example, apparently readers of Edward Said's "Orientalism" rarely purchase "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine. Who'd have thought? Quirky though it may be, the tool seems an interesting way to broaden your horizons. If you're a hidebound, crufty old fogey, I un-recommend it!"

In reverse...

[fitten]

Probably a better way to broaden your horizons is to enter a book that you read (or started to read) and knew you hated. Then it might tell you about some books you may like. It won't always work because it isn't tailored to your own tastes (your own likes/dislikes) so there aren't two poles in the general evaluation but at least it may give you some ideas and even open you up to some other genres of books.

King vs Pratchett

[XenoPhage]

I tossed Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" in there to see what I might not like to read and to my surprise the result was a great deal of Terry Pratchett.. Of course, like many others, I love Pratchett and I've read most of the Discworld series...

I was going to toss Pratchett in there and see if King was the result, but with the slashdotting of the site, I think that will have to wait..

I must remind myself to never get listed on the frontpage of slashdot...

I'd rather see a system based on ratings...

[jimstapleton]

not purchases.

I've purchased many books it turned out I didn't like, and I didn't recommend.

I'd rather see a "You liked these books, which indicate the following books may also be for you, and the other books here won't be as interesting, based on reviews of other users."

Rather than a "Users who bought this book also bought that book!"

I dunno, say something that takes your oppinion on a book, such as:
"Book A", 8 of 10

and then comes up with:
The top three books for people who gave "Book A" an 8 of 10 are:
"Book B"
"Book C"
"Book D"
The bottom three are:
"Book E"
"Book F"
"Book G"

The top three books for people who gave "Book A" greater than 5 out of 10 are:
"Book B"
"Book H"
"Book I"

hmm... slashdotters unite! We could make this!

It's all the other way around: the Da Vinci Code

[tgv]

You're all missing the good thing: type in a book you loath and it will come up with a good one instead! Perfect for changing Christmas gifts!

I typed in "Da vinci code" and it came back with (amongst others) two Lisp books and Knuth's Art of Programming (3 volumes). If that isn't a good alternative to world famous besteller author Dan Brown's biggest cash cow...

"Books you don't need in a place you can't find"

[dpbsmith]

Reminds me the Book Mill [wikipedia.org] in Montague, Massachusetts, whose slogan is "Books you don't need in a place you can't find." The Bookmill is a good place to look for books you didn't know you wanted.

Another good place is the New England Mobile Book Fair. [nebookfair.com] The fact that the "mobile book fair" is a huge, stationary building tips you off that there's something quirky here. This huge bookstore in Newton, Massachusetts is only good for two things: finding one specific title, or pursuing utter serendipity.

Its slogan should be "Books you can't find in a place that has them all." OK, it doesn't have all of them, but your chances of finding a specific title there are way higher than at Barnes and Noble.

You see, for unknown reasons--I assume the bulk of their business must be supplying schools or something--their books are organized, first by binding (paper or hardbound); then, by publisher; and, within publisher, by title. You don't realize how bizarre this is until you experience it. After all, even if you know the title you often don't know the publisher, so the first step in finding any specific book is to look it up in their electronic copy of Books In Print.

Once you've found the book, even if you are curious about other books by the same author and are correct in suppose they're published by the same publisher, you still can't find them because they're not alphabetized by title.

Oh, and did I mention that they double-shelve their books, so even if you know the binding, publisher, title and they have it, it may not be visible on the shelf?

Re:I'd rather see a system based on ratings...

[Abcd1234]

IOW, you want a literary version of MovieLens [umn.edu]. You know what? So do I!

Re:King vs Pratchett

[radtea]

I was going to toss Pratchett in there and see if King was the result, but with the slashdotting of the site, I think that will have to wait..

Wyrd Sisters results in a bunch of Christian evangelicalish stuff, some of which is not totally dissimilar to some of what's on my shelves (I have an interest in ecclesiastical history.)

While this is a kinda clever marketing idea--see what you hate!--I'm doubtful about the underlying logic. For one, some of us are really ecelectic: I own works ranging from de Sade to Augustine, formulaic pulp SF to the nominated-for-the-Booker genre, chick-lit to classical history, and so on. No Dan Brown, though, so maybe there is something to it after all...

Re:I'm not so sure about that...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I tried typing in "The Holy Bible" it unsuggested the following:

• The hours by Michael Cunningham
  
• Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
  
• The last continent : a discworld novel by Terry Pratchett
  
• The bean trees : a novel by Barbara Kingsolver
  
• Saturday : [a novel] by Ian McEwan
  
• Good in bed : a novel by Jennifer Weiner
  
• The fifth elephant : a novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
  
• The girls' guide to hunting and fishing by Melissa Bank
  
• The truth : a novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
  
• The reader by Bernhard Schlink
  

Apparently geek-friendly, hunting, fishing, sci-fi chicks are anti-Christian.

Find the Best Unsuggested Library

[wsanders]

A colleague points out that current sport among search mavens is to find the "the
perfectly evil book which causes the Unsuggester to generate a great library. The best try so far was "Who Moved My Cheese? For Kids", but not enough people own it."

The very fact that there is a WMMC for kids gives me greater despair then knowing GWB will be President for two more years.

Although the WMMC regular ed. unsuggestions are pretty good, good enough to keep my book club busy for a few years:

http://www.librarything.com/unsuggester/12799 [librarything.com]

Better way to broaden your horizons

[ciaran.mchale]

Quirky though it may be, the tool seems an interesting way to broaden your horizons.

The way I use to broaden my horizons is to buy books in a discount store. In England, a typical novel might cost about £7.00 or £8.00, while some discount stores have a "3 books for £5" offer. Often, these offers are for authors that I have never heard of. I have been buying most of my novels in this way for several years and most of the discount books by authors-unknown-to-me that I have bought have been as entertaining as full-priced books by authors I know. As somebody who reads 100+ books a year, there is the added bonus that it saves me a lot of money.