Comments on: Bookish Impressions

By: Juli Monroe

Juli Monroe — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:15:47 +0000

Unfortunately, neither of the recommendations sites we’ve reviewed recently will give recommendations on indie or small press books. Most of them don’t end up in the big databases. Word of mouth and Goodreads seem to still be the best places for those.

By: Dale

Dale — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 21:54:21 +0000

Oddly enough, if you enter A Memory of Light in the search box at top of the page rather than in the middle, it has no problem finding it.

As for ads, on my visit to Bookish I saw a Google ad for Bookish itself. Curious, I clicked it, and was taken straight back to the front page of Bookish. So in other words, Bookish paid Google for an ad I clicked that took me to their website, which I was already on. Poor configuration of Adwords I suppose.

I haven’t figured out yet whether the site will be useful. I’m all for recommendations, but I’m not sure I’d make a special trip to the site for them, especially when I read a lot of indie and small press books, none of which I tried could be found in its database.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:26:40 +0000

“It’s never been easier to find books you’ll love.” Yeah, right. The Bookish website is nowhere near ready for primetime. What a rush job. I couldn’t believe the the books it was trying to tell me I’d be interested in. Talk about way way off.

By: Greg M.

Greg M. — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:21:54 +0000

I looked at the site via my iPhone, so maybe I missed stuff. But here are my results from books I read recently.

The Last Lion: Alone 1932-1940:

I got recommendations for books written by Churchill, but that is to be expected. And Dreadnought by Massie. I’ll give that a maybe.

Still Forms on Foxfield:

No recommendations, but it is an OOP science fiction novel from the 80s.

Doubt: A History:

No recommendations. They should have found something.

Hydrogen Sonata:

They gave me a Fire Upon the Deep by Vinge. Good, but common. But they also recommended the Brain Herbert Dune sequels. FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! Despite both being science fiction, Banks and Brain Herbert don’t belong together.