As readers we are constantly bombarded with book recommendations. Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Goodreads. PEOPLE. That random guy in the bookstore who saw you glancing at that book on President Reagan. Book bloggers. The list never ends.
And now there’s a new player in the game. Shelfjoy. Which is so pointless it makes me laugh. Shelfjoy is absolutely no different than any other recommendation you’ve ever gotten. It recommends books based on topics you’ve already shown an interest in. Which is exactly what every other site or person does because obviously if you’re interested in a particular title, then you MUST be interested in what I think is “similar”.
They claim every book is hand-curated, but my understanding is it amounts to a bunch of lists on different topics. It isn’t creative. It isn’t groundbreaking. And it isn’t new. And it’s only available on Facebook Messenger, so there’s that. I think you can send them a message and they reply with a book for you to read. How grand.
I’m convinced every book recommendation is someone somewhere trying to infiltrate my brain. What do you think?
Johnny Reads 
I kind of knee jerk against being suggested a book. I always just appreciate the books that find me organically, so to speak.
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Same. I yell at people when they recommend something. 😂
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Lol, I think the internet & cell phones are far too pervasive in our lives!
Unless we turn off our GPS our phones know where we are at all times. If we turn off GPS nothing works on the phone.
I’ve been without regular phone service for a month now (it only works on Wifi) and I don’t miss it. If my kids, or anybody else who knows me, needs me they know I’ll get back to them the next time I get to wifi.
As for all those apps and other BOOKish things we can have on our phones…yeah, sure, they’re cool and all, at first, but then they start taking over our lives and eating away at the one on one face to face time we should be having with our family and friends
I know this doesn’t sound like it really has much, if anything, to do with the topic but it does. Goodreads, Kobo and all the others have apps which then push notifications to our phones letting us know which of our friends has updated their reading lists.
If that stuff lands in my inbox then I do the sensible thing and delete it :D.
Speaking of ‘do you want to read…’ I’ve learned of a new author…*snicker*
Yeah, it’s annoying and I’m best off ignoring/deleting that stuff.
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Like you said most book recommendations come to you based off of what you ALREADY like or it is something a lot of other people like. This leads to me getting recommended books I’ve either already read, want to read, or thought about and decided against, as well as books I’m so over exposed to I don’t have a fuck to give any longer. Unless you’re introducing me to a lesser known wonder that you personally adore and think everyone should read it’s usually a waste of time to try to add to my TBR.
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Ha! I just don’t want anyone shoving their favorite books in my face for no reason. Also, my TBR is roughly 80 books I haven’t yet read. Or 60? I lose track. These are books I own and want to read, so why do I need more from someone else?
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