Library Thing the Third

My new favourite bit of Library Thing is the unSuggestions. There is a Suggestions page where you can put in books you've enjoyed and it will suggest other titles based on the lists of other people who have enjoyed the same book - it's a bit like 'Who Writes Like?' or 'What do I Read Next?' only useful. If a large number of Terry Pratchett readers liked Douglas Adams or Robert Rankin then that's what will pop up - fairly straight forward. The unSuggester is more fun - you put in a book that you liked and it will come up with a list of books that you definitely will not like. These are books that did not appear on a single list of anyone else who liked your book and some of the results are really funny. I can't fault it - I really wouldn't have read any of those books, despite my sometimes eclectic taste. Even when I tried to trick it it could accurately predict books I had no interest in. I particularly liked it responding to Jane Austen with computer programming books.

You can have a go at it here: http://www.librarything.com/suggest

The Suggestions page would also be great for anyone who really does want a suggestion for what to read next since the books actually have all been read - so it's like a mass recommendation from other readers who share your interests. Plus thanks to the wonderful Shaun of IT geniusness we now have this integrated into our catalogue so people can generate their own lists of recommendations from Library Thing tags which will tell them straight away what we have available on our shelves and where. I realise not all library services have this feature yet, but we can't all be trailblazers.