Goodreads: Are Book Recommendations Doomed to Failure?

I've been a member of Goodreads for a few months now. It's a popular social networking website with 2.8 million users, and it's based primarily on books. It allows people to list books they've read, to review books, and to recommend books to their friends using a variety of features.

But I'm not entirely sure why I use Goodreads. I don't use it as it's meant to be used: I never take book recommendations from my friends, and I rarely use the lists or reviews to discover great new books that I want to read. I don't even pay attention to the News Feed, which shows what my friends are reading on a daily basis.

To be honest, I'm constantly confounded by others' reading selections. My grad school friends are busy listing every tome of critical theory they tackle. My high school and college friends are reading mostly popular contemporary fiction, which I rarely attempt. And my writer friends are reading very impressive novels and short story collections by very famous writers; their selections make me feel impressed, ashamed, and a little bit sleepy.

On the whole, Goodreads reminds me how impossible it is to match your reading interests up to those of others. Even with good friends, it's an incredible challenge: have you ever met anyone who shared your reading tastes exactly? I mean, someone who could recommend books to you that, 85% of the time, you just love, and vice versa? Even for close friends, family, and former classmates, the best I can claim is about 35% shared tastes, and that's with my mom and boyfriend!

For some reason, reading tastes, unlike musical tastes or movie tastes, are nearly impossible to match up. Perhaps this is because reading a book is a real commitment. Reading one takes something like 8-10 hours (depending on the book and the reader). That's the kind of commitment that can deter someone from trying a novel outside of his/her known interests, preferred genres, and comfort zones. I mean, I respect, admire, and commiserate with the intellects and tastes of my Goodreads friends, but I wouldn't take one of their recommendations blindly without already feeling some strong interest in the book's subject matter, author, style, etc.

Even though I doubt the plausibility of building friendships through reading lists, I'll probably keep using my Goodreads account. I'll probably never use it for its recommendations or reviews, but I'll use it to keep myself honest: once I've posted a book on my profile, I feel compelled to finish it or face the shame of everyone knowing that I stopped in the middle.

Speaking of which, William Carlos Williams, I'm coming for you! I am determined to see your Sour Grapes through to the end!

The High School Novel: Books that Everyone Should Read

Do you remember when Facebook let you search for the most popular activities, movies, and books that users list on their profiles? These stats were always fun to look at: you could see just how many young people in the U.S. played frisbee golf and listened to Weezer and were obsessed with the Harry Potter movies.

However, what always impressed me the most was the Favorite Books section. Harry Potter was, of course, always near the top, as were the Bible and The Da Vinci Code. But, surprisingly, the most commonly listed Favorite Books were classic high school reads like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

These are all great books--I know that I enjoyed them--but there are plenty of other books out there that are easier and more fun to read. There are also a lot of books out there that show more depth of thought and literary craftsmanship. Yet people's favorite books are neither the most entertaining nor the most profound novels available. So why are they so universally beloved?

Well, these tested and true High School Novels are wonderfully teachable: they strike a healthy compromise between depth, readability, and age appropriateness. Their ability to provoke thought while remaining accessible and inoffensive has made them the most widely taught and therefore the most widely read books in America. They're our universal texts--even people who aren't avid readers outside of a classroom have encountered them--and so, statistically speaking, these books are the most likely to be considered favorites.

In a very real way, our high school English teachers have placed these books at the center of the de facto American literary canon: everyone is expected to have read them, and they have become beloved symbols of our national culture. In this sense, being a high school English teacher is an awesome responsibility because the texts teachers assign will continue to have a huge impact on students and, arguably, our natural mindset and culture.

I've been thinking about this because I'm teaching an introductory literature course at a business college in the spring. This is the only literature course that my students will ever take at the university level, and I'm struck by the unexpected importance of my task. Statistically speaking, between 1/4 and 1/2 of my students will cease to be regular readers after they've turned in their final papers. The books that I teach them may become their lasting favorites and permanent influences on their way of thinking.

So what works should I choose for them? What books can they grow to love and learn the most from? Should I choose the books I love? Those that are the most emblematic of American literature? A wide, strange array to show literature's scope, or a traditional yet limited segment of stories? Should I choose the most morally edifying books (Huckleberry, I'm looking at you!), or should I choose great literary works whose message is less than inspiring (The Waste Land, anyone?)?

Perhaps I'm worrying about this too much. But when I think back to high school, I remember how little I knew and how important each new book seemed to me. What if I hadn't read The Grapes of Wrath as a junior and Jane Eyre as a senior? These are the kind of works that made me fall in love with literature, the books that made me want to be a writer, the books that really made me think.

And that sort of passion is all I want for my students: I want them to fall in love with a book that I assign at least once, in the hope that they'll become lifelong readers and fall in love again and again.

Tips for Tentative Tweeters

Tips for Tentative Tweeters

August 27, 2009

I like Twitter.

There, I said it. I like to use it, and I like to read it, no matter how many pundits and laymen alike grumble over the microblog's purported uselessness. While not everyone who creates a Twitter account will find the site useful or compelling, the widespread appeal of Twitter is no fluke. In the right hands and with the right intentions, Twitter can actually be fun, useful, and even informative. Here's the why, who, what, when, and where of using Twitter to its best advantage.

Why should you be on Twitter?

I like Twitter because it's a quick, easy, precise way to post interesting stuff on the web. I get most of my cultural news this way: I've found new books to read, new blogs to follow, and new topics to think and write about through my friends' tweets. The best Twitter accounts should make you feel engaged, informed, and current.

Your tweets should do the same for your followers. Forwarding links, composing brief reviews, and sharing quick facts provides a varied and compelling array of information to your readers. It also allows you to promote great ideas, articles, and writers to ensure that they get the exposure they deserve. Think of tweets and re-tweets as brief, culturally enriching chain letters that can spread the best web content across the globe. But, you know, without the chain mail curses.

Twitter has not proven particularly useful for creating social intimacy or providing a space for intelligent debate. The site is not a "social network" in the conventional sense because it doesn't attempt to represent the self like Facebook and MySpace do; at best, Twitter conveys the momentary interests and fleeting preoccupations of an individual. So if you're looking for a web application to forge connections with your peers, Twitter might not be for you.

What do people tweet about, and what should people tweet about?

According to a recent study, about 40% of tweets are "useless babble" about the weather or eating a sandwich or buying a spice rack. These are bad tweets. Another 37% of tweets are conversational (meaning that they are directed at only one person, not at the general population of followers). Only 9% of tweets are re-tweets (meaning they're interesting enough to have "pass along value") and only 4% of tweets are news-related.

I'll be honest: about one in ten of my tweets is "useless babble" (actual tweet: "the plaster & paint are up @ the grandparent's house--what a day!"). No one cares. I know this, and I try to limit myself accordingly. But when I do fall under the Internet's siren song of unfettered self-expression, I try to make up for my inanity through cultural commentary attached to #hashtags (such as movie reviews or book recommendations) and links to articles that I think are worth reading.

I try to tweet away from personal topics as much as possible. Like any other form of writing, you should consider the needs and interests of you audience; your Twitter friends are following you because they want to be entertained or informed, not to be subjected to the minutia of your daily life. If in doubt about whether something personal is tweet-worthy, ask yourself this: if you were to run into one of your followers on the street, would you find it necessary to tell him or her that you "Might stop for a coffee before hitting the office!" or "Luv luv luv cantaloupe for breakfast!!!"? No? Then don't tweet it.

Who should you follow?

I follow friends, colleagues, and a few news accounts. I follow friends because we share a sense of humor and they add personal zest to my home page. I follow colleagues because they frequently post great links about interests we share; they help further my professional interests. I follow news sites to stay up to date on certain topics and publications, though I only follow news profiles if they don't tweet more than a few times a day and their interests are very similar to my own (like @newyorkerdotcom and @iwantmedia, which tracks digital media trends).

I follow less than thirty people, and I don't think that a tweeter could follow more than fifty without losing track of what's going on in real time (and that's the whole point of Twitter, right?). When it comes to who you follow, keep the list small to keep it useful.

Where does tweeting occur?

Basically, you can tweet on-line or over a mobile device like a cell phone. It doesn't matter where you tweet, but you should know that tweeting from your cell phone makes it easier and more tempting to post useless and off-putting blather to Twitter. Tweeting about a visit to the doctor's office ("Sitting in the waiting room for twenty minutes now. SOOO bored. Old Redbooks suck!") may alleviate your boredom, but it's only increasing that of your followers.

When should one tweet?

I tweet about twice a day on average: sometimes I tweet ten times a day, and sometimes I go for several days without tweeting. I have friends who tweet once a week and friends who tweet as often as they check their email (which is very often).

There is no ideal tweet frequency, but tweeting more than once an hour on average (more than 24 posts a day) is bad Twitter etiquette. It's annoying when a single tweeter fills your home page with updates. Besides, it seems implausible that a single person could have more than 20 hilarious epiphanies, bizarre experiences, enlightening opinions, and illuminating reading sessions in only a few waking hours. Anyone who's tweeting at this frequency is not tweeting much worth reading.

However, if your life just happens to be that fascinating, your mind that fecund, and your web trolling that extraordinary, you can find me at @amoebaspleez; I'll be sure to follow back.