Show HN: Crunching 1,200 Authors' Favorite Reads of 2023(shepherd.com)
shepherd.com
Show HN: Crunching 1,200 Authors' Favorite Reads of 2023
https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023
79 comments
The idea is cool, but I have some suggestions.
1. Use links, when there’s a list, I open links in new tabs that I want to check. This is some kind of JS-only app that doesn’t have links, only JS behavior. Please don’t break the browser for no good reason, this makes it really hard to actually use the site.
2. Get a better source for the book data:
> What is this book about?
> Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon - soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.
> 15+ pages of new, original content, including a glossary of terms, in-universe writings, and more!
> A USA Today Best-Selling Novel!
> "Unlike anything I've ever read. " --V.E. Schwab
> "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" --Charles Stross
> "Brilliantly original, messy and weird straight through." --NPR
Almost everything I checked had a bunch of absolutely useless marketing blurbs at the top, maybe one or two paragraphs of explaining what the book is about at the end, but not even always that. I don’t know how accessible it is, but goodreads tends to have descriptions without those blurbs.
1. Use links, when there’s a list, I open links in new tabs that I want to check. This is some kind of JS-only app that doesn’t have links, only JS behavior. Please don’t break the browser for no good reason, this makes it really hard to actually use the site.
2. Get a better source for the book data:
> What is this book about?
> Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon - soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.
> 15+ pages of new, original content, including a glossary of terms, in-universe writings, and more!
> A USA Today Best-Selling Novel!
> "Unlike anything I've ever read. " --V.E. Schwab
> "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" --Charles Stross
> "Brilliantly original, messy and weird straight through." --NPR
Almost everything I checked had a bunch of absolutely useless marketing blurbs at the top, maybe one or two paragraphs of explaining what the book is about at the end, but not even always that. I don’t know how accessible it is, but goodreads tends to have descriptions without those blurbs.
> 1. Use links, when there’s a list
Yep, this is on my list to do for next year. I just ran out of time to do that this year (this is the first year I've done this).
I will also rethink what data I show for 2024 as I want to better show which authors picked which books visually.
> 2. Get a better source for the book data:
I wish there were a better source; book data is a nightmare. There is only one source of book data and that is the publishers through a format called ONIX. The publishers have no idea what they are doing, and so they stuff the book's "description" full of marketing crap as well as abuse the BISAC-defined genres :(. Goodreads has an army of unpaid people who clean this all up.
I am looking at rewriting the book's description using AI as it seems like it is the only choice to get rid of that nonsense without a ton of manual work (since I don’t have user accounts to crowdsource that).
Genre miscategorization is harder, I am playing with AI to help me clean that up, but also thinking about using crowdsourcing some of that.
Just one example: I found several editions of Dune that report they were published in the 1780s and 1880s... and this is a book selling millions of copies a year.
Yep, this is on my list to do for next year. I just ran out of time to do that this year (this is the first year I've done this).
I will also rethink what data I show for 2024 as I want to better show which authors picked which books visually.
> 2. Get a better source for the book data:
I wish there were a better source; book data is a nightmare. There is only one source of book data and that is the publishers through a format called ONIX. The publishers have no idea what they are doing, and so they stuff the book's "description" full of marketing crap as well as abuse the BISAC-defined genres :(. Goodreads has an army of unpaid people who clean this all up.
I am looking at rewriting the book's description using AI as it seems like it is the only choice to get rid of that nonsense without a ton of manual work (since I don’t have user accounts to crowdsource that).
Genre miscategorization is harder, I am playing with AI to help me clean that up, but also thinking about using crowdsourcing some of that.
Just one example: I found several editions of Dune that report they were published in the 1780s and 1880s... and this is a book selling millions of copies a year.
Have you tried archive.org’s OpenLibrary [0]? They have an API and at least sometimes decent data.
Great news for 1. ;)
[0]: https://openlibrary.org
Great news for 1. ;)
[0]: https://openlibrary.org
Ya, I tested it in the first year and it was worse than publisher data by a wide margin. I will take another look soon to see if it improved. And maybe I can use their data to augment publisher data and improve the overall quality.
Ouch, okay, that sucks. At least the descriptions I checked were always decent.
Ya I didn't test that at the time (more book meta data), that I will look at. I also might be pulling the wrong ONIX data and need to up my license and take on the full HUGE database of books rather than the API I am using.
> Genre miscategorization is harder, I am playing with AI to help me clean that up, but also thinking about using crowdsourcing some of that.
AI could indeed help with that.
But if you're publishing a books-of-the-year list, you could also check the categorisation manually - especially if you adjust the inclusion criteria to give you a tractable number of books.
For some datasets, 4 hours of manual classification will do a better job than 40 hours of trying-to-get-the-AI-to-work :)
AI could indeed help with that.
But if you're publishing a books-of-the-year list, you could also check the categorisation manually - especially if you adjust the inclusion criteria to give you a tractable number of books.
For some datasets, 4 hours of manual classification will do a better job than 40 hours of trying-to-get-the-AI-to-work :)
For 1, try this quick-and-dirty fix:
For sites I use regularly that have problematic UIs like this, I write TamperMonkey userscripts (yes, I have quite a lot of them at this point).
document.querySelectorAll('.book-preview-body').forEach((e, i) => { let title = e.querySelector('h2').innerText.toLowerCase().replace(/ /g, '-'); let button = e.querySelector('button'); button.innerHTML = `<a href="/book/${title}">Learn more</a>`; })
For sites I use regularly that have problematic UIs like this, I write TamperMonkey userscripts (yes, I have quite a lot of them at this point).
Issue #1 irks me so much. Often I'll find myself having gone through many things in a list opening all in new tabs. Only to check my first tab 5 minutes later and find the same page reloaded.
I get that HN is an english-language website from the US, and that I'm not entitled for this website to include me. Don't take this as personal criticism -- if anything I like your project --, I'm hating the game and not the player. But the english language and US/UK culture are hegemonic today, which means people from all around the world read and write the words "book" and "author" on HN without realizing, or realizing too well, depending on who they are, that what is actually meant is "english-language books" (including a moderate amount of translations, thank goodness) and "english-speaking authors" (a majority of whom are American or British, even when they are immigrants). I'm not sure this comment will do anything, but someone had to say it, maybe just to maintain a modicum of awareness that millions of books are written in other languages and never make it to the english-speaking eye, and are thus buried alive as not-really-books and their writers not-really-authors in the global conversation. Maybe the relevant adjectives ("english-language", "American", "British") might be used more to remind readers that by "books" we do not mean "all books", but "books accessible in the US"?
Isn’t it kind of implicit in the English language description? Like if there was a site/post “les cent meilleurs livres de 2023”, it would be fairly unsurprising if they were all in French.
I would love a more inclusive, multilingual culture, but I’m not sure qualifying sentences to refer to the language they’re written in is the right place to start?
I would love a more inclusive, multilingual culture, but I’m not sure qualifying sentences to refer to the language they’re written in is the right place to start?
There would never be a site/post "les cent meilleurs livres de 2023" on a global discussion board such as this because by definition it would not be in English. There might be a "the best french books of 2023" post, although there wouldn't be, because French books simply don't exist in the anglosphere, but my point is precisely that the global conversation happens in English, the only word that ever reaches it is "book", and it's never about anything else than English books.
You're just wrong. You're defining "global" discussion boards to only include that which is in english. There are vast francophone sections of the internet, not to mention chinese, malay, hindi, spanish etc. You are fully welcome to go and look at these places as well; they are also global in the same sense that y combinator is.
hacker news is a discussion board attached to a startup accelerator based in silicon valley. it's only global because many people find the content that's *already here* valuable.
hacker news is a discussion board attached to a startup accelerator based in silicon valley. it's only global because many people find the content that's *already here* valuable.
> You are fully welcome to go and look at these places as well; they are also global in the same sense that y combinator is.
Allow me to respectfully disagree: they are not. The dominance of US culture around the world, for the best and for the worst, is a fact of life for all of us who live outside it. If you look at the rates of translation of books from and to English, you will immediately see where the center and the periphery lie.
Allow me to respectfully disagree: they are not. The dominance of US culture around the world, for the best and for the worst, is a fact of life for all of us who live outside it. If you look at the rates of translation of books from and to English, you will immediately see where the center and the periphery lie.
That seems to be an isolated standpoint. While the US and UK undeniably have a big influence on global thinking, they are surely far from dominant in any than some specialised categories?
Going through some the biggest countries by population: China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Iran, UK, Germany, France, which one would you say would have a big to moderate US cultural influence? I would say UK, Mexico, and to a lesser degree Germany, and then France, everything else hardly?
Book publishing looks also healthy in a lot of countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_...
Going through some the biggest countries by population: China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Iran, UK, Germany, France, which one would you say would have a big to moderate US cultural influence? I would say UK, Mexico, and to a lesser degree Germany, and then France, everything else hardly?
Book publishing looks also healthy in a lot of countries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_...
Random people from all these countries can name of the top of their head a bunch of any of the following:
- US presidents
- US pop artists
- US filmmakers
- US cities
- US CEOs
- US companies
- US TV shows
I stopped there but I could go on for long. Now, take any country X other than the US and ask a random resident of any of the other countries to name just one of each category: a president of X, a CEO, a film, etc... If you think the answer has any chance to compete with the equivalent question asked of the US, well, I think you don't realize how big the cultural influence of the US is. What is domestic news in the US is still news in the rest of the world, but the reverse is simply not true.
- US presidents
- US pop artists
- US filmmakers
- US cities
- US CEOs
- US companies
- US TV shows
I stopped there but I could go on for long. Now, take any country X other than the US and ask a random resident of any of the other countries to name just one of each category: a president of X, a CEO, a film, etc... If you think the answer has any chance to compete with the equivalent question asked of the US, well, I think you don't realize how big the cultural influence of the US is. What is domestic news in the US is still news in the rest of the world, but the reverse is simply not true.
We apparently live in very different societies.
Of course a random Indonesian would know Indian, Chinese, and French presidents, and vice versa. Young people I see hype up Korean bands. Chinese, Japanese, German, French and Indian companies are well known and highly influential (Ant, Tata, Huawei, all car brands, Samsung, Sony, Nintendo, …). Who are US filmmakers that are more known than non-US ones, Spielberg and Nolan?
Your experience is obviously vastly different. Let’s just not state it as fundamental truth.
Of course a random Indonesian would know Indian, Chinese, and French presidents, and vice versa. Young people I see hype up Korean bands. Chinese, Japanese, German, French and Indian companies are well known and highly influential (Ant, Tata, Huawei, all car brands, Samsung, Sony, Nintendo, …). Who are US filmmakers that are more known than non-US ones, Spielberg and Nolan?
Your experience is obviously vastly different. Let’s just not state it as fundamental truth.
> books accessible in the US
Sadly books accessible in the US / English language is slowly becoming synonymous with general availability, through no fault of the US/UK or other English speaking countries. A huge amount of books are simply never translated to language with smaller markets. I can read English just fine, but an entire book is a struggle. There are so many books that I want to read, mostly non-fiction, and they are never going to be translated and even when they are circulation is low and reprints are rare. Normally I can read a book in Danish in about a week, depending on the time available, and English book is normally about three to four weeks.
To be clear: I solely blame Danish publishers and bookshops. They churn out crime/detective novel at an absolutely insane pace. Want to read about someone being killed and have the murder investigate by an alcoholic Scandinavian cop, the Danish publishers have you covered. Want to read "Meditations" in Danish, well screw you. Want to read the most popular book on this list, Demon Copperhead, well to bad. Slaughterhouse-Five you can get, for more than three times the price of the English version.
I get this is probably different for Chinese, German, French or Spanish, but for smaller language you either read what everyone else reads or you read English language books.
Sadly books accessible in the US / English language is slowly becoming synonymous with general availability, through no fault of the US/UK or other English speaking countries. A huge amount of books are simply never translated to language with smaller markets. I can read English just fine, but an entire book is a struggle. There are so many books that I want to read, mostly non-fiction, and they are never going to be translated and even when they are circulation is low and reprints are rare. Normally I can read a book in Danish in about a week, depending on the time available, and English book is normally about three to four weeks.
To be clear: I solely blame Danish publishers and bookshops. They churn out crime/detective novel at an absolutely insane pace. Want to read about someone being killed and have the murder investigate by an alcoholic Scandinavian cop, the Danish publishers have you covered. Want to read "Meditations" in Danish, well screw you. Want to read the most popular book on this list, Demon Copperhead, well to bad. Slaughterhouse-Five you can get, for more than three times the price of the English version.
I get this is probably different for Chinese, German, French or Spanish, but for smaller language you either read what everyone else reads or you read English language books.
> Sadly books accessible in the US / English language is slowly becoming synonymous with general availability, through no fault of the US/UK or other English speaking countries. A huge amount of books are simply never translated to language with smaller markets.
Depends on the market I guess. I've checked the availability of the top 10 books of 2023 on Shepherd (https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023) in Hungary, which is a tiny market of ~10 million people. 50% of the books are available in in translated version, which I think is not terrible.
Depends on the market I guess. I've checked the availability of the top 10 books of 2023 on Shepherd (https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023) in Hungary, which is a tiny market of ~10 million people. 50% of the books are available in in translated version, which I think is not terrible.
Well, I don't think anyone in particular is to blame; I'm guessing Danish publishers and booksellers cater to their public and have little economic leeway to risk translating risky books for a small linguistic group. That's the problem, it's the effect of the forces at play in a global free market economy dominated by the English language: we all have to roll over and make way for what sells, regardless of the respect literatures and languages otherwise deserve.
I'd agree with that, it's just that the bookstores complain about rapidly declining business, and honestly most bookstores aren't bookstores anymore, they are arts and crafts stores with a few books. It's just that if they want to sell a larger number of books, then they need to have a larger selection, which would require them to invest in translations.
It's true that translations are costly, so instead they opt to push books they know will sell well, but the supermarkets sell those exact same books. It's just that without a large selection there's no reason to specifically go to a bookstore and so they die out.
It's true that translations are costly, so instead they opt to push books they know will sell well, but the supermarkets sell those exact same books. It's just that without a large selection there's no reason to specifically go to a bookstore and so they die out.
Agreed.
A side note I want to add to this: copyright and other IP laws make sure a lot more money goes from Denmark to the US than from the US to Denmark. I think smaller cultural domains are loosing in a sense. European movie makers constantly need grants where Hollywood booms.
A side note I want to add to this: copyright and other IP laws make sure a lot more money goes from Denmark to the US than from the US to Denmark. I think smaller cultural domains are loosing in a sense. European movie makers constantly need grants where Hollywood booms.
I appreciate the discussion but this does read a bit ridiculous to me. If we are speaking English and we say the best books of 2023 I cannot imagine any scenario that we would think the books are not written in English. I would immediately assume this includes translated books but again in English. Similar if it was the best book list in German or any other language I would assume all of the books are written in that language.
I don’t understand what there is to hate. If I was visiting a site written entirely in French I would have zero expectation that any book list would clarify that the books are French language. What game is being played?
I don’t understand what there is to hate. If I was visiting a site written entirely in French I would have zero expectation that any book list would clarify that the books are French language. What game is being played?
Thanks for your answer. I will try to clarify a bit.
Of course we all know the books are going to be written in English. I am not trying to ask for an idiot-proof label stating the obvious lest a reader might waste a click expecting German-language books.
The point I am trying to make is that the word "book" in the dominant anglosphere has come to mean almost exclusively books coming from an English-speaking country (and even among those I'm sure the proportions are skewed towards the US/UK, although I would be happy to be disproved). So if I discuss "books" in an English conversation (English being the language we are all forced to speak globally now) it is often implicitly expected that we are discussing those books, the books of the anglosphere. Some food for thought, less than 1% of books read in the US are translations[0], which is not the case in other countries (if only because a lot of countries read a lot of translated books from.. English).
> If I was visiting a site written entirely in French I would have zero expectation that any book list would clarify that the books are French language
This comment seems to assume that all languages are equal and interchangeable; they are not. This is maybe hard to realize from within the English-speaking global culture, but other languages are now vassals of English. What I'm saying is that it would be a small act of acknowledgement of this hegemony to remember what is being left out of the conversation.
[0] https://lithub.com/why-do-americans-read-so-few-books-in-tra...
Of course we all know the books are going to be written in English. I am not trying to ask for an idiot-proof label stating the obvious lest a reader might waste a click expecting German-language books.
The point I am trying to make is that the word "book" in the dominant anglosphere has come to mean almost exclusively books coming from an English-speaking country (and even among those I'm sure the proportions are skewed towards the US/UK, although I would be happy to be disproved). So if I discuss "books" in an English conversation (English being the language we are all forced to speak globally now) it is often implicitly expected that we are discussing those books, the books of the anglosphere. Some food for thought, less than 1% of books read in the US are translations[0], which is not the case in other countries (if only because a lot of countries read a lot of translated books from.. English).
> If I was visiting a site written entirely in French I would have zero expectation that any book list would clarify that the books are French language
This comment seems to assume that all languages are equal and interchangeable; they are not. This is maybe hard to realize from within the English-speaking global culture, but other languages are now vassals of English. What I'm saying is that it would be a small act of acknowledgement of this hegemony to remember what is being left out of the conversation.
[0] https://lithub.com/why-do-americans-read-so-few-books-in-tra...
Creator here: Translations are on my radar, and I will look at how I can identify translations as well to break them out into their own subsection of this list in future years (I think there is value in that). I don't know how to do that yet :).
To the larger point, I understand what you are saying. The world is moving toward one global language, and that has pros and cons. My hope is it has more pros than cons, but we could also be losing or minimizing some very special aspects of culture/thinking that language impacts. I think about this a lot as I live in Portugal, and I am likely moving to France in 2024.
I was just reading this NY Times about this type of thing happening within French today: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/world/africa/africa-frenc...
To the larger point, I understand what you are saying. The world is moving toward one global language, and that has pros and cons. My hope is it has more pros than cons, but we could also be losing or minimizing some very special aspects of culture/thinking that language impacts. I think about this a lot as I live in Portugal, and I am likely moving to France in 2024.
I was just reading this NY Times about this type of thing happening within French today: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/world/africa/africa-frenc...
Thanks for the link! And I really appreciate any work about books, really, and yours is of great magnitude, thanks for sharing your project. If you ever look to expand it to French, I could be interested in helping.
Sweet, how can I get in touch? my email is [email protected] if you want to drop me a hello :)
I think you might have some sympathy with the arguments made in the book-length essay 日本語が亡びるとき: 英語の世紀の中で, which also argues that the English language dominance has a deleterious effect on non-English-language literature and that English speakers don't really notice this. (The book is available in English translation under the title "The Fall of Language in the Age of English". I don't think it's available in French translation, which is another example of English-language-dominance: English books get translated into lots of other languages, non-English books often get an English translation only, if that.)
I've read it, and I warmly recommend it! And it is true and ironic that the only language I could read it in was.. English
It’s funny, because your response highlights the problem:
For a native speaker, it’s obvious. For the rest of the world that speaks English as a second language, there is no such implication; most content we consume and platforms we visit online is in English, and the language also serves as a common denominator between speakers of several foreign languages, where the only shared one is English. Hence, we absolutely use English platforms to discuss non-English content.
For a native speaker, it’s obvious. For the rest of the world that speaks English as a second language, there is no such implication; most content we consume and platforms we visit online is in English, and the language also serves as a common denominator between speakers of several foreign languages, where the only shared one is English. Hence, we absolutely use English platforms to discuss non-English content.
Creator here: I would love to expand and support books in other languages. But the technology challenges and costs associated with that are massive. It is on my radar but not something I can examine until I meet my costs on this project. I have talked to friends in Spain and France about this (I live in Portugal).
A “list of Sci-Fi” books is suspect with fantasy books in its mix. And if it’s meant to be a cross over, it should make that case. What am I to make from: “Award for Best Fantasy Novel… Winner of the British Fantasy Society Award…” uuhh? It’s a fox in the hen house! Get your dragon out of my spaceship!
I love the design and the site.
but.. I am not liking the recommendations. I consider The Midnight Library to be one of the worst books I have read this year, but it has highest ratings in Sci Fi beating Project Hail Mary By Andy Weir and Klara and the Sun By Kazuo Ishiguro
https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/science-fiction
but.. I am not liking the recommendations. I consider The Midnight Library to be one of the worst books I have read this year, but it has highest ratings in Sci Fi beating Project Hail Mary By Andy Weir and Klara and the Sun By Kazuo Ishiguro
https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/science-fiction
Thanks!
Everyone loves books for different reasons, it is something I am hoping to start peeling apart in future years. I find that Midnight Library is enough traditional sci-fi so it pulls a different type of reader. So you get a lot of non-sci-fi readers who love it. I hope it is a gateway drug :)
Try the sections on space opera, cyberpunk, and hard sci fi... they are usually going to be more hardcore.
Everyone loves books for different reasons, it is something I am hoping to start peeling apart in future years. I find that Midnight Library is enough traditional sci-fi so it pulls a different type of reader. So you get a lot of non-sci-fi readers who love it. I hope it is a gateway drug :)
Try the sections on space opera, cyberpunk, and hard sci fi... they are usually going to be more hardcore.
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It's a little sad that 1984 still sits near the top of the list for sci-fi favorite reads of the year in 2023. Not that it's a bad book by any means, but just because the genre feels neglected.
On the plus side, this is the first I am learning of Project Hail Mary, and definitely plan to give it a read. Thank you for compiling this list!
On the plus side, this is the first I am learning of Project Hail Mary, and definitely plan to give it a read. Thank you for compiling this list!
Project Hail Mary was also my favorite book of 2023, and probably the best sci-fi I've read in a decade. You're in for a real treat!
Is it much better than the martian? Everyone said this about that book and it frankly sucked. It was probably still true though because for a lot of people it was the only sci fi they read in years?
I'd say they're about even, it has some things I enjoy more and some places I think The Martian was better, they're very similar in how they read though, if you didn't like The Martian you almost certainly won't enjoy Project Hail Mary.
I agree with this 100%. They are very similar in idea -- I can understand why some people might feel some kinda way about Weir pushing out a samey book. I adore both though.
Ditto here, it was my favorite of 2022, and I loved it. I can't wait for what he writes next.
Deffo my pick for 2022. Movie in production now...
For great sci-fi, definitely review The Hugo Awards (and previous awards) https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2023-hugo-awards/ and the Arthur C Clarke awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke_Award . I found many great authors and series there.
I highly recommend anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky. His themes and ideas are deep and fascinating. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Adrian-Tchaikovsky/author/B002... (Children of Time Series, Dogs of War and City of Last Chances are great). Him and Dan Simmons are my favorite new(ish) authors. If you haven't read the Hyperion quadrilogy, it's my favorite sci-fi series ever.
I hate to be that guy, but I find Andy Weir's books to be very simple and 'light' sci-fi. Fun reads but usually suffers from the protagonist being a genius and smart aleck. No deep themes or characters. I never understood the crazy appeal after reading all of Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. Personally I want giant themes, huge space operas, complex characters and long storylines!
I highly recommend anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky. His themes and ideas are deep and fascinating. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Adrian-Tchaikovsky/author/B002... (Children of Time Series, Dogs of War and City of Last Chances are great). Him and Dan Simmons are my favorite new(ish) authors. If you haven't read the Hyperion quadrilogy, it's my favorite sci-fi series ever.
I hate to be that guy, but I find Andy Weir's books to be very simple and 'light' sci-fi. Fun reads but usually suffers from the protagonist being a genius and smart aleck. No deep themes or characters. I never understood the crazy appeal after reading all of Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. Personally I want giant themes, huge space operas, complex characters and long storylines!
Thanks for the suggestions. I read the first book in the Children of Time series and really enjoyed it. I don't think the next two books had been released yet when I read it, so I definitely will go and follow up on those. I will give the Hyperion quadrilogy a look, too.
I agree with your take that Andy Weir's writing can feel a bit lacking - at least in the Martian. But I was willing to give him a bit of a pass based on how the story was originally self-published in serial form. My hope is that Project Hail Mary will be a bit more refined - but even if it reads just like the Martian, I am definitely interested to give it a read.
I agree with your take that Andy Weir's writing can feel a bit lacking - at least in the Martian. But I was willing to give him a bit of a pass based on how the story was originally self-published in serial form. My hope is that Project Hail Mary will be a bit more refined - but even if it reads just like the Martian, I am definitely interested to give it a read.
I enjoyed Children of Time, but I also was frustrated as the characters are a bit flat, they don't have any type of arc or change or learn in any way. The main character was interesting but the rest just kinda there. I loved the world though.
PHM is amazing! I'd highly recommend consuming it via Audio Book though, because of reasons :)
The Red Rising series is also very good.
The Red Rising series is also very good.
This is my first year to do this, so I was very curious how many people read the classics versus new books within genres like sci-fi. I've been surprised how widely authors read, but that was my hope as I think they naturally read a lot wider than most readers.
So my hope is that as I keep growing this every year that we get a very wide selection even if a lot of classics also popup :).
So my hope is that as I keep growing this every year that we get a very wide selection even if a lot of classics also popup :).
Project Hail Mary is absolutely worth a read, it’s in my top books recently.
I like this, thank you for building it.
My wish is that the book blurbs were better. For instance I click on Demon Copperhead to learn "What is this book about?" And what I see is "*A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION TWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE ..."
That's marketing garbage (in all caps, no less) that doesn't tell me anything about what the book actually is.
I imagine you're pulling this summary from the publisher's website or somewhere similar. Not sure how to automate a more useful blurb. FWIW, Goodreads starts "Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer..." which is much more what I was looking for.
My wish is that the book blurbs were better. For instance I click on Demon Copperhead to learn "What is this book about?" And what I see is "*A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION TWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE ..."
That's marketing garbage (in all caps, no less) that doesn't tell me anything about what the book actually is.
I imagine you're pulling this summary from the publisher's website or somewhere similar. Not sure how to automate a more useful blurb. FWIW, Goodreads starts "Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer..." which is much more what I was looking for.
Ya this is publishers :(
I am working to fix this and have AI clean it up.
Goodreads relies on an army of unpaid labor :), GoodReads librarians fix a lot of that type of stuff.
I am working to fix this and have AI clean it up.
Goodreads relies on an army of unpaid labor :), GoodReads librarians fix a lot of that type of stuff.
I was surprised, on mobile, that going back from a book detail took me back to HN. Maybe it’s different on desktop, but the way the book detail view takes up the whole page, it seems natural that swiping back should return to the list of books.
Nice site! I like the clean design and logical layout, but have some questions. Firstly you say it’s the top 3 books per author, but you ask for the top 5 in the “for authors” page? Which is it?
It seems you are asking them for the top 3/5 in a niche category? It’s not clear to me if you ask for books in the category or in general for 2023 or both. For example I saw one author giving a list of the top books on Leonardo da Vinci in 2023. This would make aggregation of limited value, and the first thing I am presented with is a list of books which have reached some kind of consensus amongst authors, but the lack of consensus was quite surprising before I found out how it worked!
I think there is a lot of value in getting an author's consensus of best reads, and then maybe secondarily including books from a niche interest. This would be a value-add for the author too, since there is more diversity of books.
Nice project, I wish you the best of luck with it.
It seems you are asking them for the top 3/5 in a niche category? It’s not clear to me if you ask for books in the category or in general for 2023 or both. For example I saw one author giving a list of the top books on Leonardo da Vinci in 2023. This would make aggregation of limited value, and the first thing I am presented with is a list of books which have reached some kind of consensus amongst authors, but the lack of consensus was quite surprising before I found out how it worked!
I think there is a lot of value in getting an author's consensus of best reads, and then maybe secondarily including books from a niche interest. This would be a value-add for the author too, since there is more diversity of books.
Nice project, I wish you the best of luck with it.
Thanks :)
Right now, I have two formats:
The first is a 5 book list where an author/expert recommends 5 books around a theme, topic, or mood. I've got 10,000 of those on the website that I have done with authors over the last 2.5 years. This one has nothing to do with the best books of the year and is an entirely different setup.
I just added this "favorite 3 reads" of the year, and that is where they pick their favorite 3 reads from the last 12 months. So I take their reads and then try to classify it to these categories on the best books of the year page (plus it fills into other parts of the website).
Does that make sense?
The idea is I am going to collect super high quality votes from authors, and then find cool ways to help readers connect with topics, genres, and eventually themes. And just kinda wander the virtual shelves. Slowly getting there...
Right now, I have two formats:
The first is a 5 book list where an author/expert recommends 5 books around a theme, topic, or mood. I've got 10,000 of those on the website that I have done with authors over the last 2.5 years. This one has nothing to do with the best books of the year and is an entirely different setup.
I just added this "favorite 3 reads" of the year, and that is where they pick their favorite 3 reads from the last 12 months. So I take their reads and then try to classify it to these categories on the best books of the year page (plus it fills into other parts of the website).
Does that make sense?
The idea is I am going to collect super high quality votes from authors, and then find cool ways to help readers connect with topics, genres, and eventually themes. And just kinda wander the virtual shelves. Slowly getting there...
This is very cool - I like the layout too (though I couldn't find a way to see a total list of authors surveyed, which I would have liked to see)
(As an aside, always happy to see "A Gentleman in Moscow" appear in anything to do with "best book" lists!)
(As an aside, always happy to see "A Gentleman in Moscow" appear in anything to do with "best book" lists!)
Thanks! I will work on a way to visualize a total list of the authors surveyed as that is missing. I also asked them for personality/expertise tags so I am going to play with letting you see book recommendations by those too.
I do have a "by the author" list but only for each individual book: for example, here you can see all the recommendations by authors for A Gentlemen in Moscow and click to see the book list it came from: https://shepherd.com/book/a-gentleman-in-moscow
A Gentlemen in Moscow is one of the most recommended books on the entire website.
I do have a "by the author" list but only for each individual book: for example, here you can see all the recommendations by authors for A Gentlemen in Moscow and click to see the book list it came from: https://shepherd.com/book/a-gentleman-in-moscow
A Gentlemen in Moscow is one of the most recommended books on the entire website.
This is really nifty.
It also shows how disparately people read. No doubt because every year there are thousands of new titles.
The top non-fiction book has 8 readers from 1200.
If you asked 1200 people what TV shows they had been watching there would be much more overlap.
It also shows how disparately people read. No doubt because every year there are thousands of new titles.
The top non-fiction book has 8 readers from 1200.
If you asked 1200 people what TV shows they had been watching there would be much more overlap.
But they only get to pick 3. Also people are unlikely to watch old TV compared to read old books.
I bet if you asked about music you would get even less agreement.
I bet if you asked about music you would get even less agreement.
Thank you :)
This is the first year I've done this, and I was surprised at how widely authors reads. I had expected authors to read wider than most readers but visualizing it still surprised me. I've still got ~250 authors votes to add to the system in the next few weeks.
What I am very curious to graph in 20224 when I do this, is how many of the books published in 2023 show up at the "most read books in 2024". IE, how long does it take for those to pop?
For 2024 I am hoping to 2x to 3x how many authors take part. And I am looking at possibly adding reader votes as well but with a very different format. I need to see if I have enough money to be able to build that this year as that has some tech challenges.
This is the first year I've done this, and I was surprised at how widely authors reads. I had expected authors to read wider than most readers but visualizing it still surprised me. I've still got ~250 authors votes to add to the system in the next few weeks.
What I am very curious to graph in 20224 when I do this, is how many of the books published in 2023 show up at the "most read books in 2024". IE, how long does it take for those to pop?
For 2024 I am hoping to 2x to 3x how many authors take part. And I am looking at possibly adding reader votes as well but with a very different format. I need to see if I have enough money to be able to build that this year as that has some tech challenges.
There's orders of magnitude less TV shows than books. But yes, they are usually more viral as well.
Some of the books in sci fi are actually fantasy.
Also it seems if I filter to 2023 published most of the books have very few people. It might be better to ask for 3 books for each category (optionally of course).
Also it seems if I filter to 2023 published most of the books have very few people. It might be better to ask for 3 books for each category (optionally of course).
Ya, the genre data I get from publishers is terrible. And I can't find any other sources. Many of the publishers mix nonfiction and fiction categories and I am trying to figure out how I can possibly fix this with AI checks and/or crowdsourcing long term.
For example, a publisher will say a book is in categories of AI, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Space Opera. AI is a nonfiction category so that instantly tags it fiction and nonfiction. And the internet they have doing this often doesn't know the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. It is a mess.
For example, a publisher will say a book is in categories of AI, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Space Opera. AI is a nonfiction category so that instantly tags it fiction and nonfiction. And the internet they have doing this often doesn't know the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. It is a mess.
I just signed up for shepherd last week (I still need to fill out the word template and get it back to you). Had no idea you were on Hacker News! Any competition against GoodReads is good news, in my book! :D
- another Ben
- another Ben
Awesome! Hey Ben, ya this is where I first launched in April 2021 :)
btw, if you are curious about the build process Márton Salomváry (the dev I work with on this project) has a great post here on his website: https://salomvary.com/building-shepherd.html
And a more recent one about Django which touches on Shepherd: https://salomvary.com/django-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly.h...
And a more recent one about Django which touches on Shepherd: https://salomvary.com/django-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly.h...
Surprised Walter isaacson book on musk didn’t show up.. I don’t read many books but that one I couldn’t put down..
It definitely made the top 100 for non-fiction, 2 authors have picked it so far. And it is in the top for categories like business and biography: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/business?only-published
Nice concept. I don't like that open in new tab is broken though.
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As a web dev I really like your design choices and some great font choices.
I launched Shepherd.com on a Show HN in April 2021 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871660), and it has come a long way.
My goal with Shepherd is to create an experience that feels like wandering your local bookstore, along with little notes from authors & experts sharing why each book is one of their all-time favorites.
For 2023, I surveyed 1,200+ authors to get their three favorite reads of the year. Then I crunched that data and broke it by genre, age range, and when it was published. Publisher data is a nightmare, so some of the genres are not perfect; I am working on improving that and some of the NLP/ML that drives this.
Check out their top sci-fi reads: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/science-fiction
Or, their top nonfiction reads: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/nonfiction
You can also zoom in on each author’s favorite 3 reads.
Louise Carey - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/louise-carey
Kevin Klehr - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/kevin-klehr
Alice C. Hill - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/alice-c-hill
Sara Ackerman - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/sara-ackerman
My email is [email protected] if you want to share ideas or suggestions for 2024.
Thanks, Ben
P.S. I have a newsletter for readers here where I share what I am building, new features, my fav book lists: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/newsletter-for-readers