What Should I Read Next?

[Robert Mahnke]

I have spent too much time over the years telling Amazon.com how much I liked books, in the hopes that their fancy algorithms and massive database would give me some useful recommendations, and I have always been disappointed with the results.  They do things like tell you to read another book by an author you like (gee, thanks) or the latest Harry Potter (ditto).  It seems like someone should be able to do a good job of this, and that Amazon.com should be better positioned than anyone else to do this with books, but no.  Has anyone had better luck with this sort of thing?  Does anyone know why the technology doesn't work better?

-----Original Message-----
>From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>Sent: Dec 4, 2008 10:02 AM
>To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: What Should I Read Next?
>
>http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/search
>
>Enter a book you like and the site will analyse our database of real readers'
>favourite books (over 47,000 and growing) to suggest what you could read next.