Okay, I love LibraryThing. It was my inspiration to start blogging in the first place. Well, not technically, since I had already been blogging for a year or so before that, but it was the inspiration for THIS blog, which is the only one I do now and I enjoy it much more than what I was doing before.
But sometimes… LibraryThing is full of beans! Check it…
On every LT works page (that’s the page for a specific book, if you don’t LT) there’s a bar right under “recommendations” and above the first review. This bar is titled “Will you like it?” and when you click the “Will I like it?” link, it tells you whether you LibraryThing thinks you will enjoy a book or not.
Let’s try an experiment. I just recently read and reviewed The Last Lectureby Randy Pausch and it’s one of my new favorite books, but does LT think I like it?
Not only does LibraryThing think I won’t like it, but they’re certainty of this fact is very high.
Okay, then… Maybe that’s a fluke… How ’bout Dune, then…. I loved the award-winning sci-fi/fantasy classic and think about the book every time I thirstily guzzle a bottle of water. I wouldn’t have this luxury on Arakis, I tell myself. I’ve got the next book in the series, Dune Messiah, on my Books on Deck Pile, even. Surely LT will say, with a very high certainty, that I’ll LOVE Frank Herbert’s masterpiece Dune.
Even with my all-time favorite book, The Book Thief, LT says I’l probably like it. “Probably like” is the middle of the graph, and the majority of books I check are “probably likes.” Occasionally I get a “You’ll love it!” but that’s a rare event, and I can’t think of the last book I got one on. Oddly enough, about half the books I give 4+ stars on gets the “probably WON’T like it” result.
I love to play with the graph and see if LT thinks I’ll love or hate books I’ve read, but I avoid checking it before I read a book because, even though I have such great proof it’s unreliable, I’ll actually give weight to the thing and NOT get a book if it says I won’t like it. Dumb, I know… and think of the books I would have missed if I had checked to see if I’d like it first.
By the way… LT thinks I’ll love The Gun Runner’s Daughter.
Filed under: Random | Tagged: Arakis, beans, blog about books, blogging, Book Reviews, Books, Dune, Dune Messiah, favorite, favorite books, Frank Herbert, graph, hate, LibraryThing, love, luxury, Randy Pausch, reading, The Book Thief, The Gun Runner's Daughter, The Last Lecture |
In the Shadow of Mt. TBR 
The “will you like it?” is really strange! The problem is that it goes off of your library, so even if you love a book, if it’s not exactly in your top genre, it will predict that you won’t.
I haven’t tried this feature in Library Thing yet. I want to go check it out!
I played with that feature when I first discovered it and haven’t looked at it since. I hope to read The Book Thief soon!
I haven’t tried the feature, but it looks like I”m not missing much.
I think it’s fun to mess around with that feature but mostly I think it’s bollocks 🙂
I haven’t tried that feature yet either. I’ll have to go play with it now even though I should be doing other things. I can’t wait to find out what I’m going to love or hate!
Interesting post. I just wrote a post this week about Library Thing, but not about the meter. I’ll have to check it out.
I play with that a bit for fun, but never take it seriously!
I haven’t yet tried it, but now you’ve got me curious! LOL
Yeah the thing makes no sense. It predicts I will not like books that I have ALREADY rated 5 stars in my library. Um, okay…