Store Hours: W: 10am-3pm, Th-Fr: 10am-6pm, Sa: 10am-3pm
June 28, 2023
Recommending books to friends is an intimate experience, if done correctly. You cannot recommend all books you like to all friends. In fact, sometimes I recommend books I do not like to friends because I know they will like it.
There are several factors to take into consideration when recommending a book. Obviously, genre and topic. But for some that is not always enough to make a good book.
A good book recommendation takes into account so many other things. Is the reader a plot driven person? Angela loves Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and Milkman by Anna Burns. Kate loves Blind Assassin but couldn’t get through Milkman. Both have strong female characters and are historical fiction. But Kate loves plot and character; Angela loves character and writing style. This is important to know.
When we started selling subscriptions online, we thought “if we can collect enough data we can create an algorithm one day and become rich.” As soon as we got deeper into the business, we realized how important it was to have thoughtful humans reading the surveys.
In those surveys people tell us so many things beyond what they like to read. They share so many things that we have taken risks when sending books. We have read and processed what they have said about their reading, their wishes and their lifestyle and chosen books they might not have chosen for themselves.
And the reviews we have gotten have been amazing. The number of people that have told us that they feel like we are friends or they are shocked that we could pick a book they would have never picked for themselves but that that ended up loving has been amazing.
Algorithms are great for so many things. We use them all the time. But we know nothing can replace a thoughtful human in our lives.
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February 12, 2024