Top book-recommendation platforms: what are your favourites?
From Goodreads to Jellybooks and from Whichbook to My Independent
Bookshop we round up the best places for reading recommendations on the
web. But do you use them? Which ones do you prefer and why? Or do you
resort to more traditional methods to find your next read?
As Penguin Random House launches a social network for book recommendations – seen by some as welcome support for independent booksellers
– we take a look at reading recommendations on the web. What are the
best platforms for social reading? Which, if any, are you using and
what are your tips for sharing your reads online?
This titan of personalised book recommendations uses algorithms created by an engine that "analyses 20 billion data points"
and has a very strong social component. You can organise your own
virtual library, create a wishlist and find out what your friends – or
other members of the community – are reading and reviewing. The site is
closely linked into both Twitter and Google+, and comes with a Facebook
app which can sometimes make it seem difficult to escape.
Described by its creators as "the Netflix of book recommendations", it also includes quizzes, quotes, its own awards and even a reading challenge. A bit much? The Authors' Guild called it "truly devastating" when Amazon bought Goodreads in 2013,
while Hugh Howey declared it was "like finding out my mom is marrying
that cool dude next door that I've been palling around with". But for
the moment Goodreads seeems unstoppable, doubling the number of users
for the second year in a row to hit 25 million users in 2013.
But did Amazon really need to buy Goodreads? The online shopping giant has allowed readers to review books
for almost 20 years, making the site a massive resource for book
recommendations. But do you actually use it or have you moved on to
other more user-oriented platforms?
The
new Penguin Random House platform, launched this Thursday, is conceived
as a bunch of online personalised "shops", organised by "streets",
where readers can review and display they favourite books in
beautifully-presented shelves. Of course, users can also buy books, with
a small but promising total of 70 independent shops connected to the
site so far – which Penguin hope will become several hundreds. This self-described "Desert Island Discs for books" – whatever that means – already has a few authors as its first users: you can already check the "shops" of Terry Pratchett, Irvine Welsh, Lisa Jewell and Tony Parsons. Have you started using it? Let us know your thoughts.
While
the selection of titles at Bookish is small compared to other platforms
and it's perhaps less effective to build an online library or get
accurate recommendations, it offers very nice thematic lists, blogs and features,
and its small size can make it less overwhelming than bigger networks.
When it comes to buying, it offers its own shop for paperbacks, and
also links to the main ebook stores.
Scrolling
down in this endless sea of book covers is a visual treat, but when you
try to tailor the choice by genre the number of covers is very much
reduced. Dig a little deeper and you quickly discover that their
collection is rather limited. On the plus side, the site offers the
opportunity to get free samples (the first 10% of each title) and links
to buy ebooks. Jellybooks's scrollable sea of covers.
Created by the Facebook marketing platform Odyl, Riffle has been described as a Pinterest for book discovery.
It works in a similar way to Goodreads but is much more visual with
much less noise. Recommendations are based not only on your favourite
past reads, but also on reviews from your friends and other key users,
such as authors, publishers or expert readers, who you are encouraged to
follow from the very beginning – you are actually forced to follow four
other readers when you sign up. It also allows users to create thematic
lists very simply. Here's an example of a Riffle profile.
This
is a nice contrast: all this site does is simply ask you to type a book
you've enjoyed, and it then offers a list of similar suggestions. You
can also browse the results by subject. It's as straightforward as they
come and doesn't require you to sign up – something of a relief compared
to sites that make you jump through all sorts of hoops before you get
to any recommendations. But if you're after anything more than a title
and a few keywords, then you're better off elsewhere.
Now
this has a completely different approach, which you might find
ridiculous or a stroke of genius – depending on your mood, perhaps.
Whichbook classifies titles by feelings or states of mind. Move the
sliders from "happy" to "sad" or from "safe" to "disturbing" and
Whichbook generates a list of best matches. If you can't decide where
you sit on the scale between "no sex" and "lots of sex" or "beautiful"
and "disgusting", then there are also curated lists ranging from "Short
and sweet" to "Laugh your pants off". A quick search for something "down
to Earth", "serious", "unpredictable" and "demanding" came up with CE Morgan's All the living as top result. Make of that what you will.
TEMA: Revoltele din Marea Britanie David Cameron, Ed Miliband și întreaga noastră clasă politică s-au reunit ieri pentru a-i denunţa pe revoltaţi. Și, firește că aveau dreptate să spună că acţiunile acestor jefuitori, incendiatori și tâlhari sunt demne de dispreţ și criminale, și că poliţia ar trebui să primească mai mult sprijin. Dar toată această manifestare publică a șocului și-a indignării a avut ceva extrem de fals și ipocrit. Căci deputaţii vorbeau despre teribilele evenimente din cursul săptămânii de parcă n-ar fi avut nimic de-a face cu ei. Eu, unul, nu pot accepta această ipoteză. De fapt, sunt de părere că avalanșa de criminalitate de pe străzile noastre nu poate fi disociată de degradarea morală prezentă în cele mai sus-puse cercuri ale societăţii britanice moderne. În ultimele două decenii, am asistat la un declin înspăimântător al standardelor morale în rândul elitei britanice și la apariţia unei culturi aproape universale a egoismului și a lăcomiei.
Zeci de familii din România trăiesc în condiții inumane, fără căldură, lumină sau chiar fără mâncare. În multe județe din zona Moldovei (considerate județele cele mai sărace din țară) mii de copii își fac temele la lumina lumânării și dorm înghesuiți cu frații și surorile. Un ieșean s-a decis, din dorința de a face bine, să schimbe viața celor mai puțin fericiți. Bogdan Tănasă (foto) își dedică o bună parte din timp și resursele sale financiare pentru proiectul Casa Share, pe care l-a dezvoltat în urmă cu patru ani. Persoanele inimoase care fac parte din comunitatea online salvează oamenii sărmani. Casa Share a fost modalitatea prin care 20 de familii – în total 110 copii – au început să trăiască altfel. Am stat de vorbă cu Bogdan Tănasă care mi-a povestit despre proiect, despre implicarea oamenilor, ceea ce-l motivează și despre cum arată acum viața celor pe care i-a ajutat. continuarea articolului la editiadedimineata.ro scrisă de Manuela Dinu
