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Unsuggester: Don't read this
mcc
glitchRegistered User, ClubPA regular
glitchRegistered User, ClubPA regular
An interesting website called "LibraryThing" has started a new service called "Unsuggester". Librarything has a database of various people's book collections, and like amazon, they have a "if you like this, you'll probably also like..." feature. Except that now they've added an interesting twist on this: An "If you like this, you probably WON'T like this" feature, which they call Unsuggester.
Unsuggester takes a book, and returns a list of the books that the people who own that book are LEAST likely, according to their database, to be interested in. Various uses for this include:
- Warnings. I really liked "Them: adventures with extremists" by Jon Ronson. According to Unsuggester, this means I probably won't like "The four loves" by C. S. Lewis, "The lake house: a novel" by James Patterson, or anything by John Grisham. Whew, that was a close one!
- A fun game suggested by Uncertain Principles on scienceblogs: Try to find a somewhat mainstream American book where the first few entries of unsuggestions are NOT dominated by Christian evangelical niche literature! Seriously, this is actually really pretty hard. The theory I heard here is that people who read lots and lots of "Christian" books don't read anything else, tipping the algorithm. Also: when I checked, nearly every single fantasy novel out there has an unsuggestions list full of... books about knitting. Huh?
- A chance to be contrarian! For example, according to this, no one who has read MIT Press's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" has ever read "Gone with the Wind". WELL, I GUESS IT'S UP TO ME TO CHANGE THAT!!!
- Getting reading recommendations! For example, entering in "Godless, by Anne Coulter" to the unsuggester-- though I've gotten results on different days-- invariably gives a list made up almost entirely of Pratchett, Gaiman, and Douglas Adams:
Which is a bunch of really excellent suggestions, though I personally feel the first three discworld novels are to be avoided until you've already read most or all of the rest.
- This beautiful gem:
Unsuggester takes a book, and returns a list of the books that the people who own that book are LEAST likely, according to their database, to be interested in. Various uses for this include:
- Warnings. I really liked "Them: adventures with extremists" by Jon Ronson. According to Unsuggester, this means I probably won't like "The four loves" by C. S. Lewis, "The lake house: a novel" by James Patterson, or anything by John Grisham. Whew, that was a close one!
- A fun game suggested by Uncertain Principles on scienceblogs: Try to find a somewhat mainstream American book where the first few entries of unsuggestions are NOT dominated by Christian evangelical niche literature! Seriously, this is actually really pretty hard. The theory I heard here is that people who read lots and lots of "Christian" books don't read anything else, tipping the algorithm. Also: when I checked, nearly every single fantasy novel out there has an unsuggestions list full of... books about knitting. Huh?
- A chance to be contrarian! For example, according to this, no one who has read MIT Press's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" has ever read "Gone with the Wind". WELL, I GUESS IT'S UP TO ME TO CHANGE THAT!!!
- Getting reading recommendations! For example, entering in "Godless, by Anne Coulter" to the unsuggester-- though I've gotten results on different days-- invariably gives a list made up almost entirely of Pratchett, Gaiman, and Douglas Adams:
# The light fantastic by Terry Pratchett (expected 9.1, found 0; unsuggestions)
# The long dark tea-time of the soul by Douglas Adams (expected 9.1, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Mort by Terry Pratchett (expected 9.1, found 0; unsuggestions)
# The Sandman, vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman (expected 8.9, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Equal rites : a novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett (expected 8.6, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Smoke and mirrors : short fictions and illusions by Neil Gaiman (expected 8.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
# The colour of magic by Terry Pratchett (expected 12.1, found 1; unsuggestions)
# Wyrd sisters by Terry Pratchett (expected 7.8, found 0; unsuggestions)
Which is a bunch of really excellent suggestions, though I personally feel the first three discworld novels are to be avoided until you've already read most or all of the rest.
- This beautiful gem:
UnSuggestions for State of emergency : the Third World invasion and conquest of America by Patrick J. Buchanan
...
Sorry. A book must be owned by at least 75 members to have unrecommendations.
mcc on
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Accurate enough for me.
Even better:
She's a nazi too.
And nazis hate Pratchett:
He also clocks in at 14 and 16. Oddly enough, The Hobbit is at 17. Of course, this is "The Holy Bible," so we don't really know which one that is
Edit: Also, revenge and knitting seem to be repellent. Count of Monte Cristo pops up with the knitting books.
Is it possible that knitters are as obsessive and exclusionary as fundies?
Needs more Good Omens.
Top 10 books:
1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2. Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
4. Harry Potter and the goblet of fire
5. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
6. Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban
7. The Da Vinci code : a novel
8. Nineteen eighty-four
9. The hobbit, or, There and back again
10. The catcher in the rye
If we discount those first seven, the list isn't bad, including the next batch. But....damn.
A whopping ONE book in the top 25 unsuggestions for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince doesn't involve Christian Theology. And it's written by Freud.
yeah, it's hard to get away from the christianity niche market. But I'm going to give it a shot. I shall now try some E Annie Proulx.
Man I used to love Star Wars books.
Not too hard if you think about it.
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe counts as mainstream, right?
Not a single christian novel in the top ten.
EDIT: What the heck, like everything 10-20 in the unsuggestions list for that is either about computer programming or communism
The Hobbit doesn't either. Nor does the Count of Monte Cristo.
I think you'll find the divide in terms of "old" popular and "new" popular, really. Anthing...eh....pre-1970s popular won't list the Christian novels
I put in Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and got almost exclusively fantasy and genre novels. Even a Pratchett in there, which is kind of disappointing.
Edit: "The Firm" produces a list of a bunch of my books.
Mario Kart DS: 3320 6595 7026 5000
THE EARTH IS SEPARATING INTO TWO CAMPS
Actually the top twenty unsuggestions for that one had about seven of my favourite books in it. I'm only going to enter self-help books from now on, try and get some good reading material.
I've been in people's houses who had shelves and shelves of nothing but terrible christian books.
There are also a lot of people into the fantasy genre who read nothing but fantasy as well. They also be a pretty scary group.
Mario Kart DS: 3320 6595 7026 5000
I think they're largely correct though; some people seem to buy only God books, which bifurcates the database and throws the algorithm
a lot of his books comes up when i put in my favorites
what does it all mean?
http://www.librarything.com/unsuggester/12938
I still think the Carver list is better - only one Christian book and one Programming book in the whole thing, as far as I can see.
Too easy.
and got a long list, number 49 was interesting though:
49. The Hobbit ; [and], The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (expected 199.4, found 49; unsuggestions)
Apparantly if you read this book you won't like these afterwards.
Edit: Number 33, apparantly had me in stitches
Knitting vintage socks : new twists on classic patterns by Nancy Bush (expected 27.7, found 6; unsuggestions)
The first one on that list was "Desiring God : meditations of a Christian hedonist by John Piper". Its Unsuggestion list is interesting in that I've read everything on it except Wide Sargasso Sea.
# Idoru by William Gibson (expected 21.4, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Lies and the lying liars who tell them : a fair and balanced look at the Right by Al Franken (expected 21.1, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Mona Lisa overdrive by William Gibson (expected 20.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Carrie by Stephen King (expected 18.5, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Mostly harmless by Douglas Adams (expected 27.4, found 1; unsuggestions)
# Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (expected 18.2, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Virtual light by William Gibson (expected 17.4, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Nightmares & dreamscapes by Stephen King (expected 17, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Lasher : a novel by Anne Rice (expected 16.6, found 0; unsuggestions)
# The girl who loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King (expected 16.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Pyramids : the book of going forth by Terry Pratchett (expected 24.2, found 1; unsuggestions)
# The vampire Armand by Anne Rice (expected 15.8, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Chapterhouse, Dune by Frank Herbert (expected 15.7, found 0; unsuggestions)
# A widow for one year : a novel by John Irving (expected 23.1, found 1; unsuggestions)
# Firestarter by Stephen King (expected 15.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Night shift by Stephen King (expected 15.3, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami (expected 22.3, found 1; unsuggestions)
# Friday by Robert A. Heinlein (expected 14.7, found 0; unsuggestions)
# Moving pictures by Terry Pratchett (expected 21.9, found 1; unsuggestions)
# Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (expected 14.6, found 0; unsuggestions)
Edit: Richard Dawkins's anti-lists don't seem to have a lot of Christian books in them, which I suppose isn't all that surprising when you think about it. Instead, the lists are full of romance. Also, LM Montgomery's "Emily" books feature big here. I don't think I'm gonna get any work done today.
Awhile back, we had this "Favorite Books" thread here for some reason.
This was my list:
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
- The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
- The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
- Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
- Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled by Harlan Ellison
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
- The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
...I'm not entirely sure those ARE my favorite books, but that's what I came up with.
These were the first results for each of those:
- New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (New Testament Commentary) by Simon J. Kistemaker (and all 74 others were similar books)
- Wild at heart : discovering the passionate soul of a man by John Eldredge
- Prep : a novel by Curtis Sittenfeld
- Through painted deserts : light, God, and beauty on the open road by Donald Miller
- Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
- An introduction to the Old Testament by Raymond B. Dillard
- Something borrowed by Emily Giffin
- The undomestic goddess by Sophie Kinsella
- Boy meets girl : say hello to courtship by Joshua Harris (what?)
- Dark symphony by Christine Feehan
So...yeah. I don't know about anyone else, but I've never heard of any of those books or their authors.
Also, this topic reminded me that I have three books to add to my catalog there. Thanks mcc! :P
To continue:
- Boy meets girl : say hello to courtship by Joshua Harris (what?)
- Dark symphony by Christine Feehan
So...yeah. I don't know about anyone else, but I've never heard of any of those books or their authors.
Also, this topic reminded me that I have three books to add to my catalog there. Thanks mcc! :P
The Dragonlance Chronicles
Palahniuk, Dostoevsky, Knowles, Hawthorne, Fitzgerald, Burroughs, Kafka, Faulkner, and Beecher Stowe.
I knew that it was a little weak in terms of composition and plotting but I never would have guessed that it is, in fact, diametrically opposed to actual literature.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.