I’m a big reader and always have been. Rather than my love of technology drawing me away from reading, I find that it actually pushes me into a greater love for it. After sitting at a computer all day long, I find myself craving that moment of picking up my latest favorite book again and losing myself in imaginary worlds. It’s not just me, is it?
The only problem is the nagging question, What book do I read next? Should I stick with a familiar author? If not, do I stay within a genre I know a lot about, like crime thrillers or fantasy fiction? At times, the answer to those questions is a resounding yes but there are times that I want to branch out and try something new. This is where I become completely unstuck.
At these times, I often head to my local library and just pick the first book that takes my fancy. I couldn’t help but think that surely there was a more intelligent way of choosing new books. Thankfully there is, and the app’s name is StoryGraph.
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This is part of a regular series of articles exploring the apps that we couldn’t live without. Read them all here.
I had heard of Goodreads but never StoryGraph. I was intrigued to learn of its superhuman powers to recommend the best new books and knew I just had to give it a go. I headed over to the app store (also available on Android), downloaded the app, and started orienting myself around.
The first step involved answering a set of questions so the app could learn what I do and don’t like. Most were pretty straightforward: What authors and genres do I like? But I was most impressed by the question, “Which things most turn you off a book?” It wasn’t necessarily something that I had given much thought to before but if the app needed it to provide good predictions, then who was I to argue?
I proceeded to record the books I was reading along with a set of past books just to give the app some data to work with. This was easy to do, with StoryGraph never failing to find a book I had read. I have to say that my favorite feature while browsing and entering books was the personalized book summary that is powered by AI. It’s a beta feature but aims to take knowledge about previously read books and tailor a summary based on that info. I was really impressed and thoroughly enjoyed reading more personal summaries rather than your standard offerings.
All that was left was to check out my personal recommendations. I headed to that section and browsed the suggestions. On the list was ‘Where the Crawdads Sing.” What a recommendation! I loved reading it and couldn’t put it down. I don’t know if that’ll be the case for all the suggestions but it certainly gives me an informed starting point.
Everything I’ve mentioned so far has been pretty insular and focused on myself. That is only half of the StoryGraph experience. Behind all the books is a dedicated community that is ready and waiting to connect with you. You can follow readers and view what they are reading. All of this gives more recommendations for what you might like to read.
I also love reading specific community reviews of books as well as StoryGraph’s summary of reviews about specific books. The summaries include information about whether a book is plot or character-driven and whether the characters are lovable or not. All of this information, and more, is incredibly helpful for deciding whether to read a book or not.
Reading books is often a pretty lonely activity but it doesn’t have to be. You can obviously join book clubs, which is fun but I love the ease of having an online community to share my reading with. Through writing and reading reviews, I feel drawn into the reading worlds of others. Surely, that’s as pleasurable as reading a good book.
All of this reminds me; I think it’s about time I close the laptop and find a new book to read.
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paulo.n.hatton@gmail.com (Paul Hatton)
