From a link at Neil Gaiman's website: the UnSuggester -- type in a title, and it'll tell you how unlikely people who own one book are to have another.
So plug in Speaker for the Dead... and you'll get a bunch of Christian texts UnSuggested, which suggests that not only is OSC an atheist and possibly the Anti-Christ, but, more significantly, OSC is the Anti-Knitter:
quote:UnSuggestions for Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
1,608 members (171 more popular); 16 reviews; average rating 3.98 stars. Members with the book have have a total of 662,509 books in their libraries (see good suggestions).
1. A hunger for God : desiring God through fasting and prayer by John Piper (expected 13.3, found 0; unsuggestions) 2. Revolutionary road by Richard Yates (expected 19.2, found 1; unsuggestions) 3. The purifying power of living by faith in-- future grace by John Piper (expected 18.9, found 1; unsuggestions) 4. Knitting on the road : sock patterns for the traveling knitter by Nancy Bush (expected 12, found 0; unsuggestions) 5. Calvin's Commentaries (22 Volumes) by John Calvin (expected 11, found 0; unsuggestions) 6. A thousand plateaus : capitalism and schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze (expected 16.3, found 1; unsuggestions) 7. The way of the heart : desert spirituality and contemporary ministry by Henri J. M. Nouwen (expected 10.9, found 0; unsuggestions) 8. One-skein knitting : 30 quick projects to knit and crochet by Leigh Radford (expected 10.5, found 0; unsuggestions) 9. The shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber (expected 10.5, found 0; unsuggestions) 10. When I don't desire God : how to fight for joy by John Piper (expected 15.7, found 1; unsuggestions)
Posted by Avadaru (Member # 3026) on :
Odd, when I enter in a lot of the random books I own, I seem to be returning a lot of unsuggestions regarding knitting as well....
Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :
plaid, thank you so much for the link! I didn't know about Library Thing and am finding heaps of new titles on my favourite subjects!
Posted by Steev (Member # 6805) on :
I stumped it with several books in my library. It had nothing to unsuggest.
They were all programming books so I guess that's not really fair.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
I have Uncle Tom's Cabin on my shelf, and I've read it more than once.
The Unsuggester not only says I'm unlikely to have knitting books on my shelves, but also TWO OSC books -- Magic Street and Maps in the Mirror.
Bah! Read 'em both! Plus some of the others on the list.
Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
I wonder how breyerchic will feel about this...
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Hmmm . . . interesting little activity, but I think they're going to have to gather more data.
I put in Please Understand Me by Keirsey (on Myers-Briggs personality types), and it gave me a list of a bunch of books I have read and liked, including a number of the Dune books. So I put in Dune by Frank Herbert (now this cracked me up), and one of the books the UnSuggester listed was Evidence! : citation & analysis for the family historian by Elizabeth Shown Mills. Which is on my shelf and I referred to it extensively for a project last year. But you know, in that case I guess it was right--I hate that book. I think I'd rather have my eyelashes plucked than have to format sources and endnotes.
Anyway, I guess it cracked me up because it's such an obscure title--who'da thunk I'd own it?
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I plugged in Hamlet, and it shot back a LOT of Terry Pratchet, Steven King, and some Dan Brown...popular authors. I guess the assumption is that people who read Shakespeare are all Ivory Tower types like Harold Bloom.
Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :
It's not about assumptions, it's just that people who added Hamlet to their online list of books tend not to have much Pratchet, King or Dan Brown in their libraries.
I'm going to make an account later on. As Uprooted said, it'll get better as they get more data.
And the suggestions (as opposed to the UnSuggestions) actually work fairly well.
Posted by B34N (Member # 9597) on :
Funny thing is that if you type King James Bible or Bible it comes up saying that more people have to own it to make any unsuggestions. I think knitting comes up for just about any nonfiction work, I typed in a couple and at least one or two books on religion and knitting pop up. Must not be a whole lot in their database just yet. Give it a couple of months and the unsuggestions will probably get better.
Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :
Yeah, or make an account yourself and contribute to the data. Posted by dean (Member # 167) on :
I typed in several books on my shelf and many of the unsuggestions were books I also have on my shelf. Like I put in Le Ton Beau de Marot, and it came back with the Lemony Snicket books, several Tamora Pierce books, lots of Anne Rice and Stephen King books, Where The Red Fern Grows, and several LM Montgomery books.
I put in Alien Taste (the first book of a series of SF novels that I really enjoyed), and it told me that I wouldn't like The Red Tent, Siddharta, or Fight Club all of which are on the same shelf as Alien Taste.
Funny stuff. I should probably join and contribute data. But I'm weird enough I might accidentally skew it.
Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :
The unsuggester is just a gimmick. How are people finding the actual suggester?
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Yeah, it's not doing very well for me, either.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
It seems that if you read anything Discworld, you're pretty much the Antichrist.
I haven't actually gotten to my bookcase of non-fiction or my bookcase of children's books. The books in those categories on my list thus far are all the misshelved books or the ones sitting on my desk.
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
You know there's a Hatrack group there, as well. Posted by dean (Member # 167) on :
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)