I Dream Books: Rotten Tomatoes For Books

Emily Temple over at Flavorwire writes:

Pretty much everyone we know relies on Rotten Tomatoes when deciding which movie to see, but what to do when you’re on the hunt for your next novel? Sure, you could just read whatever your best friend is reading, or pick up whatever’s on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, but for those who want a broader perspective, we suggest I Dream Books, a Rotten Tomatoes-like review aggregator that just launched this morning. Just like Rotten Tomatoes, I Dream Books collects reviews from both “professional publications and individual critics” and assigns a numerical value to those reviews, eventually coming up with a score somewhere between “Must Read” and “Don’t Read” (indicated by happy or sad little clouds), in hopes of offering readers an easy way to see what a wide range of critics are saying.

Great idea! I'm going to check out idreambooks.com for book recommendations, but so far I've had a lot of success with Amazon.

For instance, I just finished reading A Perfect Blood by Kim Harrison (good book!) and the "Frequently Bought Together" list on that page contains other books I like: Kiss The Dead by Laurell K. Hamilton and Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris. Kiss The Dead is on my 'to read' list and I've already read--and enjoyed!--Deadlocked.

Also, and I've found this invaluable, Amazon tells me what other customers who bought a particular book also bought. Granted, I've read and enjoyed about 80% of the books in the list for A Perfect Blood, but it's showing a few by Patricia Briggs I'm sure I'd like.

That said, I'm looking forward to using idreambooks.com for recommendations in addition to Amazon because there's no such thing as too much of a good thing. Right? ;)

Other reading:
- 10 Female Science Fiction Writers Who Changed Our Lives
- His Wish Granted: WIlliam Faulkner's, "The Sound And The Fury", Color Coded
- Google Drive: Who Owns Your Stories?