I'm a regular visitor of books-related subs on Reddit and my fomo regarding an excellent book goes out of control whenever I see related threads on HN.<p>I've noticed that a lot of people want book recommendations but they don't want the "best" books in a field. They are looking for something that falls in their area of reading interest and something similar to what they've read earlier and liked.<p>--> In the absence of any context of what a person has been reading, it becomes difficult to recommend a book to him.<p>--> On the other hand, if I know someone likes reading biographies, my first reaction on discovering a great biography is to either message them about the book or try to "sell them the idea" of reading this book. Both the approaches are easily forgotten.<p>So to make asking for book suggestions easy, I've added this feature on ShelfJoy, called Recommend a book.<p>Now, you can simply share your ShelfJoy profile with your friends/with people whose recommendations you trust and ask them to recommend a book to you.<p>Example: I am on a reading challenge in 2017 where I am reading a business biography every month.<p>By sharing my profile here:
<a href="http://shelfjoy.com/sia_steel/recommendations" rel="nofollow">http://shelfjoy.com/sia_steel/recommendations</a><p>I can simply ask for recommendations and friends can browse through my reading list, books that I've liked before and recommend me books they think I'll like.<p>My entire recommendations stay at the same place and I can simply shift that book to the books that I've read once I finish it.<p>+ I'm looking forward for some feedback on this feature and whether you find it useful.
Feels like it needs some selection from shelf & list right on the recommendation page. People are generally lazy and digging through two lists to recommend just one sounds like a lot of work. On the other hand, glancing at random 5 (N) and trying to suggest something similar from your list feels much easier.<p>You can then share on socials something like "Could you please recommend me something like `title 1`, `title 2`, `...`", so that people know if they can help right after reading your ask. imho.