I participate in LibraryThing’s Tuesday Thingers group — a weekly blogging exercise. This week’s question:

Recommendations. Do you use LT’s recommendations feature? Have you found any good books by using it? Do you use the anti-recommendations, or the “special sauce” recommendations? How do you find out about books you want to read?

Every few weeks, I click into LibraryThing’s recommendations areas and I am, sadly, usually not inspired. I don’t think anybody–not even mega-companies with hordes of mad scientists on the task day and night–has nailed the ability to do machine-created recommendations. It just isn’t there yet; there is no good enough algorithm. I mean, look at how piss-poor Amazon’s recommendations are, for a start.

What does have greater value is LibraryThing’s recently-added feature that allows you to personally recommend books based on another book. I have definitely added a few of those recommendations and found that some that I have seen from others have had merit.

As for figuring out what to read next, let’s just say I “have my sources.” Well, OK, they are, for the most part:

• The New York Times Book Review
• Powell’s Books, which I visit, in person, at least monthly. And wander around.
• Various book lists online that say what books a well-read person should read.
• Award-winners. These are easily tracked by the handy-dandy free Powell’s bookmarks you can get with them listed. Booker Prize, Pulitzer, National Book Award, Nobel Prize. Et cetera.
• Book clubs. Sometimes they tell me what I’m going to read.
• Personal recommendations from people I trust. Though I find, alpha reader that I am, that I spend more time giving these out than receiving them.
• Personal interest. Sometimes I want to read about the scientific revolution. Or linguistics.
• The Oregonian’s Sunday book section, though it could be stronger.
• Podcasts: NPR Book podcast, NYT book podcast, New Yorker podcasts.
• OCCCCCcccccccccassionally, I have to admit that Amazon has my number. They send me a spamail and it is actually a book I find I must must buy and read (e.g. Lief Enger’s So Young, Brave and Handsome).
• Other bookstores. If I see one, especially when traveling, there’s no keeping me out of it.
• Amazon.com’s “Best of the month” book pages. Often the books they think are good, well, frankly, they are.

Boy, howdy, that’s a longer list than I expected!