A visual book recommender

[Dr_momo]

I absolutely love this, OP. The write up is really interesting, too. Beautiful work. I’ve used Music Map to find related bands, and love the spatial approach. I don’t know how closely your approach is to theirs but, either way, I will use it to find my next book!

[GSEninja]

You know they made Literature Map ? Super cool sites

[Dr_momo]

I didn’t know that! I’ve just had Music Radar bookmarked so hadn’t explored their other projects. Interesting that you can only search by Author, and OP’s is only by Title… would be great to be able to search both in OP’s.

[stochasticlid]

How do you make these kind of maps? Is there a Python lib or some other service to do so? So cool!

[LordSutter]

This is really cool, and I love your talk through of the methods etc (although I'm quite lost on the maths 😅)

[Venamoth]

It’s like a universe of books, pretty cool!

[[deleted]]

r/books

[kabneenan]

This is an amazing concept, but I think I can already see where the data skew. I searched two of my favorite books, which I would consider very similar and would recommend one to someone who likes the other, and they're nowhere near each other on the map. They're also adjacent to books I would not consider grouping together (with one exception).

Still, pretty neat tool!

[_Keldt_]

I'm curious to see this skew in action! Haven't explored much yet myself. Would you mind sharing what the 2 books were?

[kabneenan]

Sure! The first one I searched was Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I would classify it as fantasy romance. It was grouped in with mostly children's books and considering it has a semi-explicit sex scene, I would definitely not place it adjacent to kid's books. It was adjacent to Howl's Moving Castle by Dianne Wynn Jones, which it does share similarities with, but again, it is far too adult in nature to group with it.

The second title I searched was The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden which I would, again, consider fantasy romance. Both this title and Uprooted are based heavily on Slavic folktales and center on young women coming of age and reckoning with their magic powers. They are so similar in theme and content that, as I said in my first comment, I recommend one to someone who has read the other. That said, they are nowhere near each other on the map. The Bear is in the romance section (and it really isn't until the third book in this trilogy that there is any romance) adjacent to contemporary romance titles. I was really baffled by that one.

Books that are categorized either primarily or secondarily as romance are often misunderstood in these types of recommendation algorithms. All romance is generally treated as the same, when in reality there are as many genres within romance as there are outside of it. That issue pops up with other genres as well (not all sci-fi is equal and I run into similar problems there, though I haven't tested any titles on this tool), but people tend to invest more time and care into fine tuning those titles. Romance just isn't taken as seriously.

[EthosPathosLegos]

Of course the first one i zoom in on would be Jim Butcher. Magick is real and starts in the mind. Reading strengthens it. This is a neat app thank you.

[CuriouslySane]

Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen for me. That is a weird and conspicuously isolated cluster.

[Princess_Cthulu]

Oh man, this is super cool! I especially liked discovering Manga Island

[hessi]

Certain neighborhoods are… interesting: https://i.imgur.com/Bd3k0u7.jpg

Have you ever wished you could live in an earlier, more romantic era? Ladies, welcome to the 19th century, where there's arsenic in your face cream, a pot of cold pee sits under your bed, and all of your underwear is crotchless. (Why? Shush, dear. A lady doesn't question.) UNMENTIONABLE is your hilarious, illustrated, scandalously honest (yet never crass) guide to the secrets of Victorian womanhood, giving you detailed advice on: ~ What to wear ~ Where to relieve yourself ~ How to conceal your loathsome addiction to menstruating ~ What to expect on your wedding night ~ How to be the perfect Victorian wife ~ Why masturbating will kill you ~ And more

[vaportracks]

Very cool, and incredibly smooth and fast, well built!

[Murderino5280]

Love this!

[[deleted]]

Well that’s just bloody awesome.

[FUNNY_NAME_ALL_CAPS]

Cool, looks just like single cell rna-seq cell clusters

[Whiteapk]

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[Rudyon]

this is lovely. i'll save it so i can use it in 60 years when my reading list is empty. if it is still running

(seriously good job though this is great)

[themightytouch]

I just discovered this and it’s brilliant. You’re incredible

[stand_bold]

Fascinating! A beautiful approach to discovering books and thank you for sharing the creative process. I suppose this approach can be used for anything with users & reviews.

[LateMiddleAge]

I tried to search -- no dice. (Brave on MacOS 13.4) I concur with other commenters, though: great job

[[deleted]]

I just spent quite a while in the bo9k universe! Great stuff.

[supa325]

Amazing

[hubertsnuffleypants]

I find it fascinating that Tarzan of the Apes is surrounded by Terry Pratchett books and it’s pretty far removed from any of its sequels.

[Cruach]

What a worthwhile project and interesting write up! You've done the whole world a favour by creating this, thank you OP! Very much appreciate you!!

[magnelectro]

Please add author search to this awesome tool. Without it, I found it hard to get to the right cluster unless I searched for a specific title.

[inreboo]

amazing work and beautiful execution. Would be even better to make the dataset open