Why 'What Should I Read Next?' Is the Most Important Question in the Age of AI
The Essential Question: "What should I read next?"
An exploration of how we choose what to read, from library shelving to a new book search engine built on 72 literary prizes. The author argues that human curation remains the best filter, contrasting it with algorithm-driven social media and AI, and reflects on the value of personal recommendations.
People remain the great filter, whether we ask a trusted friend what they’ve enjoyed reading, or a stranger of kindred spirit brings you their passionate obsessions.
- doorpheus
A few collections i've been reading are the sci-fi and fantasy masterwork ones by gollancz. A few standouts have been the dying earth by jack vance and A Voyage to Arcturus. There are some amazing works in here which i would never have found without the curation that shows the history and evolution the genres. https://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_fantasy_masterworks.a...
- QuantumNomad_
The biggest library in my country has a wide selection of books. I go there sometimes and find books that interest me. For example I currently have 8 books about different aspects of music production on borrow and am currently reading one of them.
I never even felt a need to consult goodreads or other online sources when deciding on the library what books to look at or to borrow. Setting enough time aside and going to the shelves that interest me is enough, thanks to great amount of books they have there.
In smaller libraries I more often end up empty handed because the books they have in smaller libraries about my interests are either non-existent or not particularly interesting.
The library is one place where more is better. Even though they have a lot of books, I don’t get paralysis about which to choose, because only a subset is of interest to me. The problem is rather when the selection in a library is too small so that my interests are not well catered to.
I like the big library a lot :)
- JennyWeston
https://ryanholiday.net/the-reading-list/
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/info/index.html
Start somewhere.
Go places.
It's fun.
JW
- Sebastian_09
I find the best recommendations to be the works cited in other works you like. You can press pause in a movie when the camera goes over the bed side table book, or write down the movie they go see in the book you read. Gives a growing list to discuss with your librarian, although some time you need to branch out. Nice idea that’s mentioned there, shame it is only for non fiction books, would be interested in a fiction equivalent!
- giobox
This for me is one of the last great unsolved problems on the internet. I've yet to find a book recommendation site/algorithm/social thing/whatever that actually works well enough for me to trust it and invest my time in logging my own reads to improve the results etc.
I've had far more success personally in growing my reading list with books I ended up loving by following a few people on Instagram who share their reading groups choices. Similarly, anytime anyone whom I vaguely trust recommends me a book I just order it immediately on Amazon and add to the input pile.
It's vitally important for me to keep the next read pipeline well stocked - I get through a lot of books, and if I run out for whatever reason it can take me weeks to get the habit going again.
Virtually every other form of media, I can find a recommendation system that works well enough, even if it's not perfect. Books have always been an outlier for me personally.