404 Tech Support

The Book Seer – Book Recommendations for What’s Next

The Book Seer is a very straight-forward web app that would be useful to anybody looking for recommendations as to what they should read next. When you visit the site, you see a gentleman in the background with a speech bubble over his head. The speech bubble has two blanks where you put the title and author of the last book you read as if the guy is saying it. Both title and author are required but once you’ve filled out the fields simply hit the arrow to get your recommendations.

For an example, I’ll put in The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. (A book I’d recommend for any fan of fantasy fiction or willing to try one out.)

After the next page loads, you’ll get your list of recommendations. Pulling from Amazon and LibraryThing, a site I’ve recommended before, you end up getting a lot of compiled data in one fell swoop and in one convenient place. Both Amazon and LibraryThing’s recommendations come from synthesizing a lot of individual recommendations and purchasing data.

If you see a recommendation you like, you can click the link and it will take you to the respective page on either service. Unfortunately for those of us States-side, it links to amazon.co.uk and the easiest way to get to the Amazon.com version seems to be to go to Amazon.com and search for the title. An easier way is to click-through LibraryThing, if the title is listed, and then take their link to Amazon.com.

I’d like to take Amazon’s top recommendation and read the second book in the trilogy, but The Wise Man’s Fear isn’t out yet! (*grumble, grumble*)

So after you finish the book you’re reading currently, head on over to BookSeer to get some recommendations for your next great read.