Exploring UnSuggestions
I’ve been playing around with LibraryThing’s new UnSuggester feature, which, when given a book, returns the reasonably common books that its readers are least likely to have read (based on LibraryThing users’ aggregate listings).
For example, folks who read Orientalism are exceedingly unlikely to also have read Ella Enchanted, while readers of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom aren’t reading The Devil Wears Prada.
UnSuggestions are fascinating to explore. I’ve been running across significant disconnects between some readers of contemporary Christian nonfiction and that of what I’d consider mainstream contemporary lit. For example, books by prolific Christian writer John Piper appear as the #1 or #2 UnSuggestions for:
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
- Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith
- The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Maus by Art Spiegelman
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Why are John Piper readers not reading these books (or alternatively, why are readers of these books so unlikely to be reading Piper)?