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MonsieurChoc posted:My favorite's The Island of the Day Before.
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Feb 23, 2016 18:53
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| # ? May 16, 2024 23:27 |
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I've always been fond of Baudolino as I'm sure everybody knows already, it's a really good companion to Name of the Rose, even if it's not that good.
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Feb 23, 2016 19:13
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Is it the fate of all Oxford Classics paperbacks to get bent into really weird shapes?
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Mar 7, 2016 21:31
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The_Angry_Turtle posted:open new tab 
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Mar 8, 2016 04:31
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Is there any way to get Magician by Raymond Feist on the Kindle in the US? The US seems to be the only country it's not available for. I haven't thought of the series in like 20 years and would love to give it another read, but I can't seem to buy a digital version anywhere. I normally hit up Amazon - are there other legit ebook file sellers out there?
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Mar 9, 2016 02:47
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Ragequit posted:Is there any way to get Magician by Raymond Feist on the Kindle in the US? The US seems to be the only country it's not available for. I haven't thought of the series in like 20 years and would love to give it another read, but I can't seem to buy a digital version anywhere. I normally hit up Amazon - are there other legit ebook file sellers out there? It doesn't look like it. You'll need to fiddle with your address settings to be able to buy from the UK Kindle store, if you're comfortable with that, or wait for the publisher of all the older Feist books to get off their asses.
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Mar 9, 2016 03:54
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Ornamented Death posted:It doesn't look like it. You'll need to fiddle with your address settings to be able to buy from the UK Kindle store, if you're comfortable with that, or wait for the publisher of all the older Feist books to get off their asses. Maybe I'll write
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Mar 9, 2016 04:49
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Hello thread. Goodreads thinks that because I have read Conan Doyle and Wodehouse I want to read https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27751016-the-unpleasantness-at-baskerville-hall which is "Wodehouse steampunk version of The Hound of the Baskervilles!" and now I want to cry. 
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Mar 9, 2016 10:40
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Is the Maximum Ride series good? I glanced through one of the comics and it seemed interesting, a little more X-Men-y than any of the other recent hit teen series. Anyone have an opinion on it?
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Mar 9, 2016 13:44
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Huh, odd how you have never heard of something and then it randomly crops up again. Here is something Dickens wrote in 1836 http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/pickwick/4/quote:Many authors entertain, not only a foolish, but a really dishonest Death of an author?
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Mar 9, 2016 16:07
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I swear to you on Goodreads I've never seen a book above 4.2, It seems everything ranks between 3.8 and 4.2. Also for some reason so many of the classics have really low ratings (frustrated school kids?). I don't understand the people who rate books on that site.
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Mar 10, 2016 13:13
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It's frustrated school kids. It's social media, it's heavily skewed towards teens.
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Mar 10, 2016 13:17
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Just out of curiosity, I looked around on Goodreads. The "Warriors", a kid series about a war between anthropomorphic talking cats, averages 4.3 stars. Top rated comment? "Read the series in order!" Uh, thanks. Catcher in the Rye, 3.3 stars. Charlotte's Web, 4.1 stars. Twilight, 3.5 stars Frankenstein, 3.7 The Stand, 4.3 Pride and Prejudice, 4.2 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 3.2 Harry Potter and LotR series manages an average at or higher than 4.5. What I'm saying is Goodreads is full of idiots
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Mar 10, 2016 16:03
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Don't get me started on people who read or listen to the abridged versions and then rate the book low, for example the abridged version of David Copperfield is 200 pages instead of 900 and has no reference to Traddles in it, how they handled the part with HEEP in it I do not know. Go back, read the full book then come and rate it kid.
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Mar 10, 2016 16:28
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Paying attention to star ratings on anything that is based on popular opinion is dumb
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Mar 10, 2016 16:39
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I forget which book it was, probably one of the rivers of London books, but I ended up with the small achievement of being the first person to have finished reading it. Went to review it and there were shitload of reviews going back months from people who hadn't read the book yet but were sure it was going to be great five stars. btw, if goodreads is not showing up on your kindle there is a bug, de-register your device and re-register it and it will show up.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:05
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learnincurve posted:I forget which book it was, probably one of the rivers of London books, but I ended up with the small achievement of being the first person to have finished reading it. Went to review it and there were shitload of reviews going back months from people who hadn't read the book yet but were sure it was going to be great five stars. Sounds like a feature, not a bug
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Mar 10, 2016 17:15
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learnincurve posted:I forget which book it was, probably one of the rivers of London books, but I ended up with the small achievement of being the first person to have finished reading it. Went to review it and there were shitload of reviews going back months from people who hadn't read the book yet but were sure it was going to be great five stars. Pre-ratings are annoying, but pre-reviews are so loving irritating.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:37
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yeah you will find tons of pissy one star reviews on goodreads, amazon, b&n, etc. for any book that is commonly assigned in any kind of high school or college class. some classes even have students write and post these reviews as an assignment.
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Mar 10, 2016 17:58
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Paying attention to star ratings on anything that is based on popular opinion is dumb
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Mar 10, 2016 18:15
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Nakar posted:Are there instances where star/score reviews have any value whatsoever that's inseparable from the score itself? I'd think just about any review of any merit would be equally interesting and useful with no indicated score at all. They help for metacritic style stuff which I take a lot of value from. Also they give a good quick visual feedback if it's from a critic I already respec.
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Mar 10, 2016 18:24
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My dad gets a lot of people bitching at him because his reviews don't "match" the scores. The man reads about 8 hours a day and reviews a lot of books from classics to really popular books, or books that publishers are pushing, that may or may not be bad but he feels duty bound to find out and give them honest reviews. If you look at goodreads scoring system then 5 is "really amazing" 4 "really liked it", 3 is "liked it" 2 "it was ok" and 1 "did not like it" . He takes this ultra seriously and won't mark something at a 5 unless it's one of the best things he has ever read so Dickens and maybe a couple of John le Carré will get top marks. The Harry Potter series got mostly 3s and a couple of 4s, and he got a shitload of grief.
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Mar 10, 2016 18:39
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There are books that I read years ago that I round up my rating because of the emotional impact I get from nostalgia. Harry Potter probably does deserve 3 or 4 stars at most, but I read them each when I was the same age as Harry, and you love what you grow up with. I think that technical skill is important, as is literary merit, but if a book is written in an average style and it makes me feel something, I think it's earned its marks. Seventeen year-old me did give Life of Pi 2 stars, despite everyone loving that drat book.
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Mar 10, 2016 19:02
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I basically just use the ratings for myself and don;t much care if they match up with what other people do or expect. I also feel like using a 1 or 2 stars is weird because why finish a book that bad
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Mar 10, 2016 19:11
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Some books are three stars until the last 20 pages or so, where they poo poo the bed and lose a star.
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Mar 10, 2016 19:17
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What do 1-2 stars mean to you? It probably depends on reviewer standards. For instance 1 might mean "mediocre/bad but I finished it" or might mean "I dropped it, terrible." Without a clear standard it's hard to know what the reviewer means. Is 1 star the shitpile or is it as bad as a book can be without being not worth bothering with? Bit of a difference there. Most people who rate books or TV shows seem to think 3 stars or 50% is bad, but someone else might say that's average and rate books they consider average at that. Hence someone getting mad at 3 star Harry Potter which to that reviewer means "good but not great." That's a far cry from bashing it, yet people lose their minds. Kind of why I'm cynical about scored reviews, because if you can clarify your scoring system you can probably express a nuanced opinion without a score anyway.
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Mar 10, 2016 19:19
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Nakar posted:What do 1-2 stars mean to you? It probably depends on reviewer standards. For instance 1 might mean "mediocre/bad but I finished it" or might mean "I dropped it, terrible." Without a clear standard it's hard to know what the reviewer means. Is 1 star the shitpile or is it as bad as a book can be without being not worth bothering with? Bit of a difference there. Even this is overly optimistic about people's motives. There are people who will give a book they never read 1 star because of something the author said in an interview on tv, or because they really dislike a person they know who enjoys a movie based on the book, or because the book contains a positive portrayal of the homosexual lifestyle according to an email they got from their cousin, etc. And at the same time there are people who will give a book 5 stars unread because their friend or cousin wrote it, or because they like a previous book by the same author and just assume this one is good, or they're told it supports their political beliefs, or because they feel like they're "supposed to" have read that book or supposed to like it because of whatever social group they consider themselves a part of, etc. And then there are of course people who rate a book based on their experience with the shipping company who delivered the book to them, or based on the price set by the retailer, etc. And none of these kinds of bullshit ratings are outliers, they are all extremely common.
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Mar 10, 2016 19:34
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5 stars - This is now an all-time favorite book, and I will re-read over and over. Starts as a four star, but gets bumped up if I'm still thinking about it a week later. (Inherent Vice) 4 stars - Great book, loved it. (So You've Been Publicly Shamed) 3 stars - Not bad, not great, but I probably won't revisit it, maybe sell my copy. (Christopher Moore books) 2 stars - Didn't like it, felt like a waste of time, or shits the bed in the last act. Somehow finished it. My copy is either getting sold or sent to Goodwill. (Ashley's War) 1 star - Actively hated it, and it's my new go-to reference as "Worst Book". Similar to the 5 star review, it starts as a 2 star review, but the bad taste lingers for so long, it gets knocked down to 1. (Look Who's Back)
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Mar 10, 2016 19:35
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Earwicker posted:Even this is overly optimistic about people's motives. I suppose it may have value if the reviewer ignores spoilers to properly discuss the book and you just want a yea or nay until you've read it yourself. I can't think of a reviewer that has ruined a book for me though.
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Mar 10, 2016 19:43
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Nakar posted:No doubt, but I think Mel was saying that if he respects the reviewer he finds some value to a score. Presumably people trusted like that have earned it by actually reading things they rate. My take is more that a person like that is probably interesting enough that their full opinion is worth reading, so I don't much care about them giving a score. To be fair though there are no book critics I read that give a star review for anything and the closest I can think of is when the AVclub manages to pull themselves out of the hipster pit to review a non-celebrity novel every once and awhile. Npr, sunday book review, and publishers weekly all don't have any scoring system at all.
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Mar 10, 2016 19:45
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Npr, sunday book review, and publishers weekly all don't have any scoring system at all. well publishers weekly just has something called a "starred review" which means they think the book is particularly good or they need to promote it for some political reason
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Mar 10, 2016 19:54
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I'm not sure starred reviews are a bad thing when it's a reputable source. People get to know certain reviewers likes and dislikes and sometimes a quick glance at what that person thought about it without having to read a wall of text is what you want. The problem is when dobbyfan2002's rating holds as much weight as an English literature Professor.
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Mar 10, 2016 20:04
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learnincurve posted:I'm not sure starred reviews are a bad thing when it's a reputable source. People get to know certain reviewers likes and dislikes and sometimes a quick glance at what that person thought about it without having to read a wall of text is what you want. The problem is when dobbyfan2002's rating holds as much weight as an English literature Professor. It doesn't, though. Few readers are going to give any individual customer review the same weight as a published review by a professional book critic - however they may give that much weight to the aggregate score of all the customer reviews, of which dobbyfan2002's score will make up only a percentage.. depending of course on how well known the book is.
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Mar 10, 2016 20:29
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Earwicker posted:It doesn't, though. Few readers are going to give any individual customer review the same weight as a published review by a professional book critic - however they may give that much weight to the aggregate score of all the customer reviews, of which dobbyfan2002's score will make up only a percentage.. depending of course on how well known the book is. The problem though is that there is an assumption that a rating system is inherently democratic. It's not, it reflects the limited tastes of the largest group who uses the site. The Imdb top 250 is film history through the eyes of a 20-something white single male, because 20 something white single males are the only people who care about rating movies on imdb. Same thing with goodreads, Goodreads is mostly a ghetto of trash and genre fiction gluttons and its ratings system is a reflection of that
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Mar 10, 2016 20:42
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If the 70% (number grabbed out of my rear end) of the ratings are from people who haven't even read the book, the aggregate rating is worthless.
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Mar 10, 2016 20:45
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Mel Mudkiper posted:The problem though is that there is an assumption that a rating system is inherently democratic. It's not, it reflects the limited tastes of the largest group who uses the site.
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Mar 10, 2016 20:55
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That may have been phrased badly. I meant that the problem is that when you have a collective rating like on goodreads anyone can vote and it will have the same weight no matter if they are a expert, a complete moron, or a teenager who is rating one of 10 books they have ever read and there are far more teenagers on goodreads than adults so the results are always going to be skewed to some degree. Often the only way you can find out if a book is any good is by ignoring the star system and reading the reviews, which makes the whole star system completely pointless.
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Mar 10, 2016 20:58
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In theory, the rating of the helpfulness of individual reviews is a more useful metric than the review scores themselves. Except sarcastic or funny reviews can artificially make their way up the ladder.
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Mar 10, 2016 21:05
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In theory yes, only I've seen 3 or lower star reviews of classics with loads of likes and comment chains hundreds long, and it turns out it was posted by a teenager who is popular within a group and they are discussing how much a book sucks/what they had for dinner/what they are being made to read at school next with friends. Goodreads is good if you have friends on there or have made friends within a group that have similar tastes as you so you can follow what those people think, which in all fairness is exactly how these kids are using the site as well.
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Mar 10, 2016 21:40
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| # ? May 16, 2024 23:27 |
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Leaves of Grass: Death-Bed Edition - Whitman has only like two topics, doesn't he?
BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 22:00
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