A Book Like Foo
Learning and science
book recommendation
SHOW HN2020
Legend
A Book Like Foo
An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber
abooklikefoo.comHow HN took it
18 positive, 43 neutral or asking, 10 mixed, 43 critical, out of 114 comments about the project. Thread score -0.24.
Idea: 13 for, 10 againstPerformance: 0 for, 20 againstExecution: 3 for, 13 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful discovery tool, especially with filters like acclaimed fiction.
From 1 comment
I enjoyed playing around with this and I got real value out of it as a discovery tool when I filtered to showing aclaimed fiction. I know its survivor bias, but I dont want to…
mercury_craze on HN
Found favourite authors through it.
From 1 comment
This is quite fun actually! Tried different philosopher combinations. Get Alcoholics Anonymous recommendations for quite a few until I add Schopenhauer. And if you are a Rand,…
Neputys on HN
Objections
Recommendations skew to children's books, which the maker is addressing.
From 2 comments
Love the idea! My one suggestion would be to add the ability to filter out children's books from the results. After I added Hitchhiker's Guide, Children of Time, and the Iliad,…
kamharrah on HNInteresting idea. Assuming this is still under development, I thought my experience might be of use. I input The Three-Body Problem (Cixin), Sapiens (Harari), Leonardo da Vinci…
samlents on HN
Results often stay inside the same bubble, such as feminist or fantasy books.
From 2 comments
As an experiment, I gave it The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, a Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, and the silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. A pretty standard selection…
frederikvs on HNPut some of my own favourite books (maths, business and Japanese fiction) onto the engine and got recommended african-american and feminist literature (and a cookbook.) Then I…
sol_invictus on HN
Many searches return 'Unable to find that title'.
From 1 comment
"Carl Sagan" Unable to find that title "Demon-Haunted World" Unable to find that title "Richard Dawkins" Unable to find that title "The Selfish Gene" Unable to find that title I…
mdoms on HN
Recommendations include books in Spanish and other languages the user cannot read.
From 1 comment
I really like this idea but I think it would be nice to the recommendations to a specific language. After adding - The Brothers Karamazov - Infinite Jest - Asterix the Gaul I get…
Bootvis on HN
Requests
Filter out children's books.
From 1 comment
Love the idea! My one suggestion would be to add the ability to filter out children's books from the results. After I added Hitchhiker's Guide, Children of Time, and the Iliad,…
kamharrah on HN
Add synopses without leaving the site.
From 1 comment
This is a great idea! Thanks for making it. Is there any way you could bring in a synopsis without me having to leave the site? It would be nice to keep browsing there rather…
jonplackett on HN
Allow more than three input books.
From 1 comment
Weirdly, I keep getting books I like in the search. It would be nice if I could add more than three authors because my reading is already extremely diverse, like music listening…
fao_ on HN
Filter by language.
From 1 comment
I really like this idea but I think it would be nice to the recommendations to a specific language. After adding - The Brothers Karamazov - Infinite Jest - Asterix the Gaul I get…
Bootvis on HN
Questions
Is the site down or failing to load queries?
From 1 comment
Is it down? I am stuck at: Your query is taking a while. Sorry about that, but it's not long now! We're leaving no book unturned in order to find you your perfect matches.
CortexM4 on HN
Alternatives named
Literature Map (literature-map.com)
From 1 comment
This site always works well for me to broaden my literary horizon: https://www.literature-map.com I found some of my all time favorite authors this way.
TooCreative on HN
ReadThisTwice people book recommendations
From 1 comment
One great way to find books to read is to see what people you look up to recommend. I've built a service that scans twitter for book recommendations from ~2000 thought leaders.…
vhpoet on HN