#Microblog Monday 328: Judge a Book Without a Cover
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I fully own that I sometimes choose books because I like the cover and sometimes avoid books because I don’t like the cover. I am likely missing out on good books and wasting time on others.
Recommend Me is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen. It’s the first page of a book, but you read it without knowing the author or the name of the book. So you have zero preconceived notions of the book (unless you recognize a character’s name or the author’s writing style) and can experience it without knowing anything about it. If you like the book, you can click a button at the bottom of the passage and get the title and author. Or, you can skip to the next excerpt. It is amazing.
And sometimes it’s just fun to try to guess the title and author before pushing the button.
P.S. You can also go backwards, find a cover you love, and click to read the excerpt.
P.P.S. You can also submit a book to the database.
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8 comments
What a cool idea. Our library does “mystery reads” for kids – they gift wrap books and write 3 clues in a tag for the kids to read. I always wish they did it for adults, too. Sounds like a similar idea. Can’t wait to check it out!
Sounds like an amazing concept. I could see how this would be fun for old school paperback / hardcover book readers as well as eBook people. Thanks for sharing!
Beth – Since our library (Denver) has been closed for in-person browsing during the pandemic, they have gotten creative. You can reserve a bundle of 1-10 “mystery reads” for kids or adults. You just tell them what your interests are and they collect books for curb side pick up. It might not work for someone who is an avid reader, but it has been fun for our kids to explore new books we may not have picked up previously.
What an amazing resource! Definitely saving this to find more books, but also I have this weird fascination with first lines of a book.
I love the concept for Recommend Me, and I am so tempted to visit the site, but I already have so many books on my “Want to Read” list (over 400 titles) that I’m unlikely to ever read them all (unless I win the Powerball soon and can take up reading full-time). 🙂
“I fully own that I sometimes choose books because I like the cover and sometimes avoid books because I don’t like the cover. ”
Lol, I was thinking the same about wines & labels the last time I was in a liquor store.
That sounds like a really cool tool. I wonder if there’s a vino version…?
What a great site!
I also sometimes judge a book by its cover, but I think it is not that wrong, as the covers are designed for the target readers of the book. We can immediately tell by the cover if it is a romance book or a chick litt book.
I like this! Our bookclub used to have annual awards, and we’d always have Best Cover and Worst Cover categories. We’d spread out all the books (this is pre-ebook reading which really killed our bookclub) on the floor, grab a drink, and debate.