JoeB1934 Searches for Books with Maximum Match to His Reading Fingerprint

During 2022 I expended a lot of time & energy trying to develop a more precise definition of the genres that return to me maximum enjoyment returns for my time spent reading.
Using the LT features of the Tag Mirror and Tagmash analysis capabilities I did arrive at those genres which I call my reading fingerprint. That list is presented in the table below.



The first column is the standard genre analysis that LT provides. The next two columns display how the same library is described by use of the tag mirror capability. The differences are startling, except for the Mystery genre. There is a commonality between some of the LT Genres and the Tag Mirror genres but, for example historical fiction exists in 24% of the books according to LT, while the mirror result is 62%.
There are two observations that are important to make. First, the only way to get such high content percentages, 7 to 22 to 67 across the library is for multi content genres for most of the books in the library. Second, the genres which I call Personal Interests, e.g., Family, Relationships, Racism, Romance were especially surprising to me.

I have always been described as a mystery reader, which evolved to a Literary Mystery reader at 67%. But what kind of literary mystery reader? How about Family at 57%, Relationships at 53%, Romance at 45%?
This analysis led me to the realization that my appreciation for a book increased by the inclusion of the attributes listed as Personal Interests. In simplest possible terms the-more-the-merrier.
Across my library my favorite authors commonly included 7, or more of the sub-genres in the table. If you analyze all the books I have read by my favorite author, Kate Atkinson she touches on 15 of these sub-genres.
I was also very surprised that 20% of over 600 authors accounted for 40 % of the books I have read. Those authors, that I designate as my personal 5 Star-Authors will be the core of my 2023 reading but will need to be supplemented by new-to-me authors.

How will I find books which contain such a diverse set of attributes? So, how did I do it this year?
1) First, look at new books written by any 5 Star author.
2) Books with the description of Literary Fiction has resulted in many of my finds this year.
3) Don’t consider any book which is described as a Thriller. I don’t like them.
4) Books described as Historical Fiction almost always contain many of the personal interest attributes I prefer.
5) Any book which is being promoted as being of a special category, e.g. Books about Books, Magical Realism, Native Americans will get my interest.

A key factor in my search for books to read is that all my reading is in the audio format. I obtain these books by placing holds for them at the Denver Public Library.

This has both good and bad aspects. If I checkout a book that isn’t a good choice, I can return it early at no cost.

The unfortunate part of the process is that most of the books I want are quite popular and there can easily be a 5 to 10 week wait to receive the book. Additionally, I can only place holds on 15 books at any time. This causes me to postpone reading a specific book I really want to read.

To provide some clue as to what I want to read, my current hold list is presented below.

Great to see you have setup a thread for 2023. I've dropped a star and I am looking forward to following along.

Looks complicated! However, where or how did you arrive at the column labeled "similar to LT"?

I like your layout. I will put British Mysteries in my list so I can finish my Sherlock Holmes readings.

>4 Tess_W: Your question caused me to re-think my introduction so I hope that the new version I have posted will remove some of the confusion.

That's very interesting. I see Taylor Jenkins Reid on your list who my granddaughter just recommended, and I grabbed one for my kindle at a reasonable price. I'm not sure if it sounds like something I'd like, but, hey, I'll put into my plan for next year and give it a try.

>7 dudes22: Some of my very best ideas come from my granddaughter! She has really supported me in all of my late-in-life book diversity analysis.

This website might be useful to you for your analysis: https://www.literature-map.com/

Good luck with plans and reading! And that sounds like a great granddaughter!

>9 majkia: It is ironic that you mentioned literature-map.com as I have been using it extensively for several years. I have mentioned it to others before but didn't have any response before you.

Last year I used it extensively to develop my list of 123 favorite authors. I get an incredible picture if I do a map of the authors related to Ian Rankin, my earliest favorite author. Almost every author on his map is in my favorites list. I contemplated doing a screenshot of it and posting the picture, but decided no one would understand it.

Thanks for your comment.

>9 majkia: - That's pretty interesting.

>6 JoeB1934: got it now!

Here is my Ian Rankin map. There is only a small handful of authors on this map that I don't read extensively. You can daisy-chain to any author on the map to expand to others of my favorites. Just try Kate Atkinson, for example.

The odd thing is that I found a great many of those authors before I learned about literature-map in 2021. Also, I have never been able to determine what the scale of the x-y values are, other than the more you move away from Rankin in any direction the increased difference the new author might be.

This has also allowed me to discover surprising new authors that were revealed to me.

Try it on your favorite authors and I guarantee you will be excited by it.

>13 JoeB1934: How have I never seen this before? What a fantastic resource. I tend to just use Goodreads recs on books I love but sometimes they are so weird and not at all related.

I like your analytical approach to reading. I look forward to following along.
>13 JoeB1934: I've just tried that - I can see me spending hours getting lost there. How does it manage with authors that write quite different books not under a pen name And is it just current(ish) authors?

>15 Helenliz: The data seems to be obtained through a global data base using comments, or analyses of contributors. As such I have found that for newer authors the data is more limited in usefulness. In early 2022 when I was reading some brand-new authors the references existed but not especially revealing. I think that the volume of books by an author provides improved usefulness.

I have found the same author under two different names that seem to be explained as misspellings. This indicates to me that the app simply produces user-supplied data without overall data cleaning.

However, when I find a new author that I really like it is the first place I go to see which other ones might be like them. I am truly author centric and when I like a book the first thing I want to know is who else writes as well.

You are so right about spending hours linking from one author to another one and on to another one.

I find it mesmerizing.

Since my last posting I have reanalyzed my library using tag mirrors, including the books I read during 2022 and those I have specified to-be-read in 2023.

Included is every book I listed as being on my holds list. I have also re-analyzed other books for potential interest in 2023. Some of these came about because of the announcement of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2022. Certain of the award candidates drew my attention.

I will post a complete analysis of that effort with insight into my reading fingerprint later.

This post is to introduce you to a book from my hold list that became available in audio last week. If you want to find a book which almost perfectly defines me as a reader, consider:

'Self-Portrait With Nothing' by Aimee Pokwatka. This is her first book, and I was so excited to read a book which captures so well everything I am looking for in a book. I can hardly put the book aside for other more pressing items going on in my life. The Goodreads listing of their genres for the book is:

Fiction,Science Fiction,Fantasy,Magical Realism,Literary Fiction,Adult,Mystery,Science Fiction Fantasy,Contemporary,Mystery Thriller

My tag mirror analysis came up with a similar, but less detailed set of tag genres.
Mystery, Fantasy, Magical-Realism, Science-Fiction

The totally unique aspect of the book is the postulation of parallel universes where individuals live different lives. Sort of similar to Kate Atkinson's 'Life After Life'.

My connection to such universes brought to my mind that back in the 1960's I was offered a job to do data analysis at the Dept of Defense by a true physic genius with the name of Hugh Everett. I turned the job down but performed the analysis under a different contractor.

In 2020 I discovered that Hugh Everett is now given credit for conceiving of multiple universes as a contribution to quantum mechanics when he was a grad student! If you are interested, you can look him up on Google to see how our non-physics paths crossed and his life devolved after I knew him.

I also want to remind you that my review of a book is strictly based on how the book impacted me. I never get into concepts about how the author could have done something better with the plot.

The book is so new that LT doesn't even have any reviews. Reading the 5 star reviews in Goodreads will capture most all of how I feel. It is one of the nominees in Science Fiction, but it could also be included in Fantasy

>17 JoeB1934: Adding this to my to-read list, looks great. Pretty much anything published by Tor will be on my list!

>17 JoeB1934: I’m a fan of Hugh Everett’s from quite a few years ago! I cannot recall the name of the documentary at the moment, but there’s a great one where his son, Chet goes on a quest to understand his father’s work. I don’t really have the mind for quantum physics (though it fascinates me)— but this is a great entry point into the basics as well as being a decent biography of the man who probably saved us from nuclear annihilation! So take that, Niels Bohr! 😂

ETA: I just looked it up and the name of the documentary is Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives

>19 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Thanks so much for that info. How did you interest in Hugh come about? My interactions came about when he and I were both working on mathematical modeling for the Secretary of Defense.

>20 JoeB1934: In the mid-1990s to 2001, I was a computer programmer--- in the days after punch cards but before "C" had pluses and sharps in its name! I worked at a Fortune 500 company based in the Washington DC area, in an old, and very cold mainframe room. I was specifically tasked with a particular bit of code and my supervisor-- who was a former CIA analyst, had me reading a lot on game theory and certain types of randomization models (e.g. the Monte Carlo). It was in the context of game theory that I heard about Everett originally. After I left that job, I didn't hear about Everett for a long time... And then, it seems like in the past ten years or so, he's everywhere!

>21 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Thanks, I can understand now.

By the way in the book there is a participant that is named The Everett Group. It seems too much just to be a coincidence.

Building A Selection of Books to Meet my Goals for 2023

If you go to my catalog there you can see a Collection of 101 books that represent an initial set of books for my 2023 reading. These books were derived by the following steps:

1) Those books which I had hoped to read in 2022 but couldn't obtain my preferred audio versions up to now.
2) Books that are of interest to me as they appeared in 2022 Best of Lists from Goodreads and the New York Times. Books that I haven't yet read.
3) Books which are included in the LT Books to Borrow from members that have over 600 books that are also in my library. Such lists typically have over 500 books to consider, and I selected around 25 that seemed to be of special interest to me.
4) As 2023 proceeds I will continuously be reviewing additional new books that I find out about. For example, new books from any of my favorite authors

Once I added all of these books to my library, I used the Tag Mirror facility from LT in combination with my previously built Excel platform to assign appropriate tags to each book. The result of that exercise is displayed in the Books of 2023 Collection I mentioned.

(I should mention that I have managed to refine my Tag Mirror/Excel model so that I can perform a complete analysis in 2-3 hours, where I used to spend 2-3 days)

In my next post I will discuss how I evaluate this initial set of almost 100 books for inclusion as I move forward. My hope is to read about 60 books in 2023 so some of the 100 will be dropped for not being worth the time and effort. But as new books are being published, interesting ones to me will be added.

The most important consideration to me is how the tag genres describing a book comply with my overall fingerprint objective.

I hope to clarify this concept in my next post.

I have revamped my 2023 reading list today as I decided to use more of the LT Books to Borrow in a consistent manner and to isolate them in a Wish List collection. I also placed in the To-Read collection the books I have left over from my books from 2022 that I never got to read.

This is the first time I have seriously looked at Books to Borrow and I am quite impressed as that LT process clearly is tying my existing books with all the books from the member's books in a comprehensive way.

With some exploration I determined that if I matched up with someone who shares around 350 books with me the books to borrow tended to be from my mystery writers from earlier in my life. By doing the analysis with a member who shares 500+ books with me I obtain books that are more current and reflective of my reading now.

My next step is to use Tag Mirrors to assign tags to all of these additional books. As I mentioned above this will take 2-3 hours to accomplish.

Welcome back and have a great reading year! I really need to play with the "books to borrow" feature sometime. It looks like it makes interesting recommendations.

>25 rabbitprincess: I am finishing the process described above and will discuss how I used the 'books to borrow' to find 20 books to read in 2023 that fully comply with my search. I could easily develop an even longer list.

One explanation I have been given is that:

"Because LT knows what books everybody has, they know what books cluster together. They know that, in general, the people with Book X also have Books Y and Z. So the "what should you borrow" algorithm looks at your books, and at that member's library, and finds which books in that other member's library cluster with the books in your library, but that you don't already have. I'm pretty sure that the list is prioritized by how strongly the books in question "cluster" LT-wide."

I now have two lists of books to consider reading in 2023.

First, are 28 books that I considered reading in 2022, but for various reasons didn't get to them during 2022. These books are listed in the To-Read collection in my library.

Second, are 20 books selected by using 'books to borrow' from several other members that share at least 500 books in my current library. These books are listed in the Wishlist collection in my library.

There are two other special collections in my library. They are 'Books in 2022' and 'Books in 2023'. The 2023 collection combines the books from the To Read and Wishlist collections'

How do I make a judgement about the books in these collections with respect to my so-called 'Reading Fingerprint'?

Consider a central thesis of my thinking. Reading a good book is like enjoying a memorable dinner.

What made the celebration meal we just had so memorable? My answer would usually be that the main entree was one I have enjoyed from childhood. Then, there was a terrific appetizer, followed by a variety of side-dishes, and finished by one of my many favorite desserts from my Scottish, or Slovenian ancestors.

In simple terms the meal is a composite of flavors, textures and substances that I find enjoyable to me. This same analogy applies to many artistic disciplines. Oscar winning movies and even wine tasting come to mind.

In the book reading world my list of Tag Genres expresses the same depth of dimensionality as the meal.

I don't want to beat this meal analogy to death, but I feel it might be useful to tie certain dimensions of my Tag Genre list to meal equivalences.

First, I think of the various mystery related genres as a main entre in the book reading adventure. Certainly, almost all of the non-mystery genres could also be considered the main objective in reading, but certain genres, for me never are the main point of a book. Romance would be an example of this, but to myself romance is an ingredient more akin to a side-dish.

Regardless of this last point I want to emphasize that I truly do not have favorites, or rank orders to the genres in my personal list. I can be as excited by a books-about-books find as to a new book classified as literary fiction.

What I love the most are books that touch on many of the genres, to include ones that are typically minor genres. It is this multi-dimensional nature of the books that I prefer.

If I have any strong requirement, it is what I call the literary, or literature features of a book. I want to read books by a strong storyteller. The non-fiction books I read are, of course not required to meet this requirement.

I have been developing my personal set of genres that are most important to me. Through various steps, including use of the Tagmash feature of LT, the list of book genres has evolved. I started as a classical British mystery reader with literary interest unidentified. Then I discovered Literary Mysteries which exposed me to a much broader set of genres that were interesting.

I now feel very comfortable with the set of genres listed in the following table as ones that express my interests completely.



The next step in my analysis is to determine for each book in my library which specific members of this tag genre list can be ascribed to the individual books. I have 1300 books in my library, and I have never in any detailed way attached tags to any book, so it is critical that I find a way to automate the tagging of books in an accurate and reliable manner.

For any individual book it is straightforward to use the book detail page to learn how the book is described by specific tags. My favorite author is Kate Atkinson and I wanted to demonstrate how her latest book 'Shrines of Gaity' is described by LT tags. The following screenshot displays full details, including the number of member designations for each tag.



If you do a simple scan of this figure you can observe how many of my tag genres are attached to this book. My choosing this author to be a favorite provides an excellent demonstration of the attributes that I love in a book.

Another observation that is astounding to me are the numbers attached to the tags. At this time there were 335 members who have read this book, but the majority of tag assignments are numbered less than 10 and many are 1 to 3. This tells me that a very minimum of members bother to make tags. This even includes most of the 15 who wrote reviews!

Even more important to me is that, however small the number of taggers the accuracy, from my perspective is terrific. Whoever they are, it seems obvious that they truly have read this book and performed insightful tagging.

The blend of the tags displayed dramatically matches what I would use if I assigned tags to this book after having just read the book. This example provides me with support for a process which uses the Tag Mirror facility of LT to automate tag assignments for each book in my library.

The quickest and easiest information that can be extracted using the Tag Mirror is the number of books belonging to any selected tag. Doing this step for each of my tag genres provided such numbers. I want to analyze such information for three different periods in my library:

1) All years from 2000 to 2021 to determine my reading profile for the bulk of my reading life.
2) The year 2022 to determine for the current year what books I have read.
3) The books I have provisionally listed for reading in 2023.

Since each of these periods involve differing numbers of books, I have normalized the Tag Mirror results by the percentage of books read for each Tag Genre in a given period. The following display provides those results.



I have indicated significant +/- changes for each tag for the period in question when compared to the just prior period. For example, the reading I did in 2022 which can be described as Crime Fiction fell from 68% to 46%. The most significant changes across all tags are spotlighted by the Green & Red fills.

The color-coded changes for 2022 clearly indicates that my reading concentrated on far more of what I call Personal Interests in Art, Relationships, Family etc.

The 2023 column, which is strictly my first cut for 2023, when compared to 2022 shows a very sharp drop-off in British Mysteries, 5 Star Authors, etc. My interest in what I just labelled Personal Interests is holding fairly well.

This display is very useful in tracking my reading evolution, but it doesn't really measure how I am doing with respect to a 'Reading Fingerprint'.

More insights to that issue requires a determination of which books are attached to each tag. Those issues will be discussed in my next posting where I will present my approach to what I call Scoring a Book Fingerprint.

What do I mean when I talk about my 'Reading Fingerprint'?

Is this a list of my favorite authors, or my favorite books? Some of both actually, but the phrase I created goes back to 2020 when I was doing a lot of self-reflection about the books I had read over the years up to 2020. I guess some of my thinking was due to my age at the time (86) so part of me revolved around the question.... how would I describe to my grandchildren, and maybe great-grandchildren what kind of a reader I was.

The easy, but I think inadequate answer would be to list my favorite books. Maybe, along with details about why those books were my favorites.

Not being very good at that type of verbalization, the idea came to me that a possibility was to come up with a specific set of books, say 25 or so, that if read by someone they could perceive from the nature and quality of those books what my reading was all about.

This concept sent me off to find the best set of books to achieve this rather abstract concept. Being a long-term mystery reader, I obviously know about the use of fingerprints to identify suspects in a case. Also, we have often heard someone use the phrase 'his fingerprints are all over this' even if the 'this' has nothing to do with real fingerprints. Thus, the creation of my concept for a 'Reading Fingerprint'.

For the rest of 2020 and 2021 I used many of the features of LT to try to isolate the desired books. These efforts used a lot of Tagmash and more reading of books. I became far more introspective, and I was forced to accept the reality that no one was ever going to read any 25 books which would define my reading fingerprint.

The more reading and thinking I did it became obvious that what I preferred in a book included some aspects that I hadn't previously considered important to me. The net effect was that I had to learn more about myself before I could even approach a reading fingerprint. The efforts during 2022, I think has brought me to where I actually feel that I recognize what it is that I value in a book.

The starting point to my search now is the set of tag genres I use to identify my reading preferences. Full completion of the Tag Mirror process by connecting every book in my library with their appropriate tags will, I believe lead me to my best appreciation of what can be considered my reading fingerprint.

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>21 Tanya-dogearedcopy: I just got a response from the author Aimee Pokwatka who I asked on Goodreads about her reference to the Everett Group in her book. She said that, YES it was in his honor and that I was the only reader who had recognized it as such.

I have completed the assignment of tags to my library books, including the current candidates for reading during 2023. As I have mentioned before this provisional list was derived from books I had targeted in 2022, but never got to them and a small set of books derived from Books to Borrow from members that I share a lot of books (500+) with.

I will continue to add books throughout 2023 as I see books from favorite authors, or various book media outlets.

In order to spotlight the books of most interest to me I have created several collections, as follows:

1) Books read in 2022.
2) Books targeted to be read in 2023.
3) 127 Books from the complete library which scored the highest in my Fingerprint Scoring System.

As the list of tag genres has evolved over the last two years it has become very clear that what I prefer the most in any book is a diversity of attributes. The desired attributes are defined by the 37 members of my Tag Genre list.

This concept led me to scoring a book by the count of the number of tags attached to a book. This is the Fingerprint Scoring System.

This scoring system is not a book rating system, like the five stars assigned to a book by a reader. The system simply measures my personal satisfaction with the books mix of attributes.

I have a setting of 'C' for visitor viewing of my book catalog. If you go to such a viewing be sure to select the Number of Tags in descending order to see how I rate the books in the whole library, or in any collection.

It is very important to realize that this scoring system, which uses the tag count is only applicable to my catalog because I ONLY have genre-like tags. There aren't any tags which I would consider administrative, or book tracking by nature. If LT had a way to categorize tags as being genre-like, or non-genre-like the concept could be applied elsewhere.

One final point worth mentioning is to inspect the total library catalog with the Number of Tags in descending order. I used that technique to identify the list of 127 books which are the top of the list. The diversity of book genres and the specific books is very important.

I venture to suggest that those specific books would be recognized by any reader familiar to those genres as being noteworthy.

You can confirm this by selecting Avg Rating in descending order. This is the average rating for the book by all LT members, and not by me personally. Note the prevalence of ratings of 4 and above.

Given these results my next effort will be to select which books I will first place holds on for my 2023 reading.

Why In The World Did I Do All This?

The answer to this question is very simple, I want to make the most of my reading time, which at my age is certainly limited.

First, some boring statistics. I have read about 1300 books in my life. These books were written by over 600 authors.

I have reviewed those book/author combinations many times. My memory is certainly fading but repeatedly there are about 150 authors that ring a bell with me.
These authors wrote about half of the 1300 books.

This means that 25% of the authors wrote 50% of the books. In baseball parlance this is a .250 batting average. Not HOF material.

These statistics were accumulated, for the most part, before I had any concept about a reading fingerprint, or a tag genre list with 37 members.

The genres I called my heritage consisted of about 6 items. Other than these specific genre-like statements I simply chose to read books that had some sort of unanalyzed appeal to me. It wasn't until 2020 that I discovered that the books I enjoyed the most were called Literary Mysteries.

There were clues in some of those favorite books that my true reading enjoyment involved attributes that I hadn't recognized before. Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction and even Romance!

So, I have spent 2021 and 2022 doing a lot of self-reflection and the Tag Genre list I have arrived at is the most specific expression of that process.

I plan to use these results to choose books that are most likely to please me the most. If I am to spend 8-15 hours on a book at my age it better be a really good page-turner.

This doesn't mean that I will use the scoring system results only to read those that score 10+. If you look at the collection I call 5 Star Authors you can see that, while most have high scores it doesn't mean I only read such books. Some of my most favorite authors are in lower numbers.

If I am looking at what book to read next from the 2023 books, I will be biased to those ranked in the upper echelons unless I have a personal knowledge about why a book is on the list.

Speaking as a mathematician, I want to read a book which has the highest likelihood to be exciting/rewarding for me to read.

There is also the condition I am in emotionally and mentally at the time when I select a book to read. Is the book intriguing to me, or entertaining, or is it presenting a challenge to my thinking about a personal attitude, or belief I possess.

After reviewing my initial set of books to read in 2023 I was not satisfied. A big deficit was that there weren't any literary mysteries. This is not at all surprising since most readers don't seem to recognize such books by that label. In addition, there seemed to me to be too much emphasis on 2022 books that I hadn't read yet.

I then did two things. First, I went back to the Books to Borrow for several members that I share a lot of books with and went deeper into each list and added books which were 4-star books. Second, I went to a member that recognizes literary mysteries as a category and picked up a number of them that I hadn't already read.

These steps ended up bringing the candidate books to read from 58 up to 106. I already know that there will be a few new books from my favorite authors as well as new and exciting authors for 2023. This means that the list will grow somewhat, but I am determined not to fall for the sirens call from many of the new authors and concentrate on some of the older books.

These new books caused me to re-do the Tag Mirror analysis for my library. I have refined my approach so that I can do this in about one hour so that is very acceptable to me.

The final results from this process are now included in my LibraryThing catalog displays. In addition to the full library there are two special collections. They are the 2022 collection for all the books I read in 2022 and the provisional 2023 books that are candidates for reading in 2023.

If you view those two collections, please do a selection to display by the number of tags in descending order. It is remarkable to me that the fingerprint scoring system which simply counts the number of tags assigned to a book results in a book order that truly matches my personal level of satisfaction on reading a book.

I never in this process identified how much I preferred any book, but the top 100 books in 2022 are all in that display. It isn't the precise order that counts, but simply that my top 100 books are all included somewhere in the list.

Is this outcome peculiar to me?

I realize many readers of this chat will not be able to visualize what the 2022 collection displays, so I have included a figure of the top 50 books in that list.

I need to repeat that the list doesn't necessarily rank these books, but instead spotlight the books that are near the top in my personal evaluation. A list of the top 100 includes even more of my favorites. The top 25 are absolutely books that I could happily read again.



Just for comparison I have the display of the top 50 book candidates for 2023. I will consider other books lower on the list but this top 50 is interesting.

I need to mention that the books ordered by descending Number of Tags needs to be combined with the books ordered by descending Avg Rating.

Books with very recent vintage often have such a small set of readers in LT that the tag mirror ends up with zero, or maybe a single tag. In those cases, I can go to Goodreads and obtain a reasonable set of tags because their readers are more numerous than for LT.

A more useful approach is to use the Avg Rating in LT. Those numbers exist for all books even if none of them assigned tags to the book.

Over the years the most common factor in my deciding to read a book was to look for books with an average rating of 3.9 and above. Of even more value has been the percentage of readers who assigned five stars to a book. I read a sample of such 5-star reviews and if their statement appeals to me the book can go on my to-read prospect list.

An excellent example of this issue is the book Septology by Jon Fosse that is included in my 2023 books. There aren't any tags to be found in LT and only a few in GR. But the description I came across somewhere struck me as a book to read. This is a book classified as Norwegian literature and the Avg Rating for other books in the series are in the 4.5 to 5.0 range.

Another book on the list is an example of the need to read books that have a middling score based on tags, and even the rating. This is the book The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. This book has 6 tags and an avg rating of 3.9. I read a book of hers in 2022 and am really looking forward to this book.

The bottom line is that the tag score and the avg rating are simply pointers to books and not the final reasons to read a book. I need to use my personal preferences to finally read a book from the 2023 list.

Combining the two approaches of ranking by the number of tags and the ranking by average rating is what helps me to choose my next book to read.

Now that this preliminary set of books for 2023 is available I will be narrowing the list down and actually reading them one at a time. Future tracking of the books I read will be reported on in this chat.

My first step in choosing my next book to read was The Maid by Nita Prose. This book has a 12 tag and 3.8 avg rating by my system. It also was the Goodreads most popular book in the Mystery and Thriller category for 2022.

It finally became available in audio from the DPL, and I started reading it in Libby. After getting into the book several chapters I found that there wasn't any desire to continue, and I returned the book for someone else to read. In the simplest of terms, I didn't want to spend the next 10 hours, or so with the book.

Dropping the book had an interesting side benefit with the discovery of the book I am currently reading. This came about as follows:

Our dog Percy, a wonderful terrier/poodle mix was pleading/demanding to go on our daily walk, and I didn't have an audio book to read. I went into Libby and did a browse which led to a list of mystery candidates which were immediately available. I went down through several pages of books until The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis came into view. The word literature/literary was listed so I retrieved it.

This is the book I am currently reading, and it has all the attributes I desire in a book. Look at the book in the 2023 list and you will see that it has 9 tags and a rating of 3.9. The 9 tags all hit my sweet spot and every day I am anxious to pick it up to continue the story.

If you have been reading along with this chat, you will now see that for an analyst there isn't ever a final step in the definition of how to achieve a desired outcome.

In my case I was dissatisfied with the lumping of all 2023 candidates to read into one list. I have mentioned before that I used several different sources in building the 2023 list and I decided to partition into separate collections where these books came from. I also decide to add books that will be released in 2023 from my favorite authors. These steps led me to the following collections:

1) 2022 Carryovers to 2023 22 Books
2) Books to Borrow 37 Books
3) New Books by Old Authors 23 Books (Found using Fantastic Fiction)
4) Literary Mysteries 15 Books
5) Literary Fiction 47 Books

I was still not satisfied with only 15 Literary Mysteries, but I realize that not everyone even recognizes what such a book is. Then I looked at the 35 books labelled as literary fiction and learned that 18 of them also have the tag Mystery attached to them. In other words, undesignated literary mysteries.

Speaking of literary fiction, I really only became cognizant of the tag in 2022 as books I was interested in seemed to be coming with that tag. In fact, of the 22 books in the 2022 carryover list, 14 are in this tag group. It is also interesting that 17 are tagged as mysteries. I think I will look at a tagmash of literary fiction and mystery.

Having this list of 122 books to consider reading in 2023, I re-did the Tag Mirror analysis for all books. This step led to another revision in my process for assigning tags to every book on the list.

The New Books by Old Authors haven't been read yet and minimal tags are attached to them. Goodreads tends to have more readers of most books so I could go there to establish a set of tags for any books that are lacking in the tag mirror world, but that would still be limiting.

My solution to this tag problem was to create for each author in my library an overall summary tag set. If you go to an author page in LT you will see a list of all their production and a combined set of tags for the author. For example, with the author Elizabeth Strout, her author page displays the following of what is called Related Tags.



Notice in this display that the tags for Strout includes several that exist in my personal set of favorite tags. My thesis is that authors have a recognizable set of ingredients to their writing and that any new book will likely include a subset of the author profile tags.

The list of author's Related Tags shown by LT is necessarily confined to the major tags. In order to see how this major tag set is limited, simply click on any specific book for Strout and in the tag section click on numbers and Show All. Usually, the more minor tags in my list will be found outside the tags with larger numbers.

Within the Excel tag assignment worksheet I can produce a summary author tag list by combining the tag set for all books in my library for a given author. In the case of Elizabeth Strout, I have 3 books and they will combine to produce, for my purposes the tag profile for her books.

In any case where the tag mirror doesn't have enough ingredients to produce a tag profile for a book these author tag profiles will be used to create a reasonable one for my analysis. The results achieved using this technique can be observed in the New Books Old Authors Collection in my library.

I am still in the process of creating the tags and collections I have been talking about so today 12/25/2022 you won't see the final details as the process is on-going.
Hope to finish it all up in the next few days.

12/26/22 I did just finish the promised rebuild so my library with collections has now been updated. You can now browse it all and see what it reveals. For myself, my next steps will be to create some type of reading priorities with the emphasis on audio books available at the DPL. Will do some preliminary soon.

I have partitioned the candidate books to read into a single collection which will be my focus and where I can show how I will prioritize as a beginning.

The amateur data geek that I am is in awe with your data crunching!

>38 lkernagh: Thanks very much for your comment.

I realize that the vast number of readers don't have the time, or obsessive need to analyze that I do. As I explained earlier in this chat, I started this exercise with a reasonably simple set of objectives but got drawn in more deeply as I developed a better understanding of what I really enjoyed about the books I have been reading for the last 50+ years.

If these thoughts help others to think about their own personal reading journey it will be terrific reward for me.

Out of curiosity I took a look at your library and found that we shared 89 books, which isn't many compared to other members of LT. However, the books we share are all very important to me and it would appear from your Tag Mirror that in terms of tag varieties we share an incredible number of preferences.

I believe that a better measure of our common reading interest would be the number of shared and favorite authors. I have been thinking of doing an analysis about shared authors between members but haven't had time to do much with the idea. Maybe in 2023.

For example, I have read over 600 authors, but my true favorites amount to less than 200.

Enjoy your 2023 reading!

After several attempts at using the Collections feature of LT libraries I have settled on a structure for indicating which books I am considering reading in 2023. This is the collection named Candidates to Read in my library. I will maintain that collection throughout the year. Adding additional books that have captured my interest and removing books which, upon reflection I have decided actually to read.

It turns out that from an original list of 120 candidate books to read in 2023 I have currently 18 books that I have already made a commitment to read. Most of these are carryovers from 2022 that exist as longstanding holds at the DPL. Many of these holds are about to come free after many weeks since I requested them.

These books have been removed from the candidates to read in 2023, which currently stands at 103 books. The books already committed to have been placed into the collection Books in 2022. As I read those books, I will report on each one individually.

........................A Restatement of My Objectives in This Challenge

I am fearful that the previous 41 postings have likely dwarfed the objective I had when I created this challenge. All of the data crunching and book scoring likely has your eyes glazed over and encouraged you to move on to a more fun/educational challenge.

With these fears in mind, I determined that I want to clarify completely that my reading objective for 2023 is simply to find those books which provide me with the highest level of enjoyment possible.

I have now read around 1300 books written by about 625 authors. When I look back there are 150 authors that I truly found to be of lasting value to me. At my age I can't afford to 'waste' time reading books that are just O.K.

All of the data crunching was my way of trying to increase the odds that I find more of those books which appeal to me like 'Possession' by A.S. Byatt did 20 years ago. Any book I start this year is going to be on a short string and I will move on as I have already identified 120 books that appear to be of the quality I am looking for.

I realize that many of the other readers using LT have a similar objective to mine. It just happens that my nature is such that this number crunching approach works for me, but most likely not something for anyone else.

I sincerely hope that if you follow along during 2023 you learn something useful to help you realize that same objective of reading the highest enjoyment possible books for your criteria.

Good luck with the books you have chosen.

At the core of my reading preferences there has always been an attempt to answer the great question: Where did I come from and who am I? This question definitely explains my interest in Scottish ancestors, Native American and Paleo Indian occupations of Wyoming, paleoanthropology, geology and numerous other subjects. In my library there are quite a number of non-fiction books which provide insight into the longest time aspects relative to this part of my quest.

In the fiction realm I have learned that I always value stories about how individuals dealt with issues in their lives. I am currently reading the book Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. This book really hit me this morning as I was walking Percy on a typical Colorado sunny day with about 6" of snow on the High Line Trail.

I am at a loss to adequately provide reasons why you should also read this book, so I stole a short review from a Goodreads review by Peter which goes as follows:

"The only reason I gave this book five stars was because I couldn't give it five thousand.

I can't express how beautiful this book is. I've never cried so hard (no, not even when Mrs. Johnson read us "Where the Red Fern Grows" in the third grade), nor have I felt so much love from a bunch of grouped together, sixty-year-old, courier-fonted words. I've never been more scared than I was by the possibility of the Lonely One being just around the corner, hiding in the shadows. I've never thought so much about my own mortality without running away from the subject in fear and forced-naivete. I've never felt more fulfilled by a reading experience on both an intellectual and spiritual level as I was with "Dandelion Wine"

Please go to Goodreads to read countless other reviews that are even more comprehensive than this one.

What was the impact on me? First, the book is a series of vignettes relating to young boys living in a small town during the 1930's. Bradbury describes what can only be described as 'magical realism' situations experienced by the boys and adults living there.

While I was walking there was a story about the creation, and failure of a 'Happiness Machine'. The point being that happiness exists from the smallest events of life and not by having happiness delivered to you.

Percy was gamboling around in great happiness and expressing that happiness by strong sneezes, which he uses to communicate so with us. Meanwhile a young woman came by with a long lens camera searching for and finding a species of bird that she was after. These sound like happiness events to me. As for myself, I was very pleased to experience the walk with Percy.

It is ironic that I just learned about magical realism this year and I find that about 10% of my library has that as an attribute. Even more importantly, about half of my most memorable books can be so described.

There are 7 magical realism books of the 20 I already have on my books I will read in 2023. Meanwhile there are just 17 out of the 104 I have designated as candidates to read in 2023. As you can imagine, I will very obviously add those to my must read in 2023.

I need to add that my younger years were spent in a situation very similar to that described in this book. However, there is a dramatic difference with my activities during that time period. My friends and I roamed the town and surrounding desert of Wyoming doing whatever my mind conceived. These activities weren't nearly as imaginative as those portrayed in Dandelion Wine.

We didn't interact with many adults, other than parents and the schemes we came up with were universally lacking in one key aspect. The consequences of our activities were never evaluated. No imagination of the future for us! Leading to some hilarious, embarrassing and painful results.

>44 JoeB1934: I have Dandelion Wine on my TBR, it sounds like one I will enjoy. I am looking forward to getting to it.

>45 DeltaQueen50: I had to tend to another of life's interruptions before I finished my reaction to the book, so please read my revised post when you get time.

In the next few days I will be reporting on a small number of books that I have read recently. First, I want to discuss some of the results I have developed as part of the process of trying to focus on those books that provide the highest likelihood of being most interesting to me.

Without a doubt my preference is to read literary mysteries. This raises the question of which books qualify as a literary mystery? Currently my library contains 1384 books and, using my Tag Mirror methods, 317 of those books were described by some LT readers as being literary mysteries. Of the 140 books listed as my candidates to read there are just 23 listed.

One solution to the variability in readers tagging by rules which are arbitrary, is to combine tags into partnerships. For example, a book which is described as a mystery, as well as being literary, or literature qualifies to myself as being a literary mystery even if no reader designated it as such.

In my tag genres there are 5 tags which, collectively could be used to designate that a book can be considered a literary mystery. These tags are: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Literary Mystery, Historical Mystery.

If I analyze my list of candidate books there are 82 which have at least 2 of these 5 tags attached to them. Those 82 will be my main focus in finding books to read.

I have now finished, starting in December 2022, six books and have one book that I just started to read. These books included in the collection 'Books in 2023' in order to differentiate them from the 135 books currently listed as 'Candidate To Read'

I have considered several ideas for presenting how I felt about each book and have decided simply to provide a single post for each book as I read them. The order will be as I finished reading them.

For each book I will display my tags and my personal rating. The rating details will be supplemented by rating details from Goodreads. Th number of books and reviews is considerably greater than for LT. GR also makes it easy to see the fraction of readers that provide 5-star and 4-star ratings. I am always very interested in the 5-star percentages, as you will see.

It is important to note that the tags were all derived using the LT Tag Mirror data.

Book #1 was The Maid: A Novel by Nita Prose Avg Rating 3.84, 25 % 5Stars, 42% 4stars. Did Not Finish

TAGS: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Historical-Mystery, Non-British-Mysteries, Suspense, Crime-Fiction, Historical-Fiction, Relationships, Family, Coming-of-Age, Romance

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.

Despite this book being an award winner and so heartwarming I did not finish the book.

In retrospect, I was in an impatient mood and simply never connected up with the plot. I probably should go back and give it more of a try, but with my feelings at this time, which I have expressed before, I am looking to read as many 5-star books as possible. This book will never be one of those for me.

Book #2 was Magnolia Palace, The: A Novel by Fiona Davis Avg Rating 3.9, 25 % 5Stars, 46% 4stars. My Rating 4.0

TAGS: 5Star, Mystery, Historical-Mystery, Non-British-Mysteries, Historical-Fiction, Art, Relationships, Family, Romance, Womens-Fiction

Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue, returns with a tantalizing novel about the secrets, betrayal, and murder within one of New York City’s most impressive Gilded Age mansions, the Frick art museum.

I accidently chose this book when I was desperate to have an audio book for walking. I enjoyed the book immensely with components of art, history and the other dimensions listed in the Tag Genres list.

I read The Lions of Fifth Avenue in 2022 and liked it very much.

Book #3 was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A novel by Gabrielle Zevin Avg Rating 4.34, 52 % 5Stars, 32% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

TAGS: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Literary-Mystery, Non-British-Mysteries, Historical-Fiction, Art, Relationships, Family, Coming-of-Age, Books-about-Books, Romance, Fantasy, Science-Fiction

This is an incredible book that is the GR award of Best Fiction of 2022.

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

The story is about two individuals that teamed up to create a video game for wide commercial use. The technical hurdles and individual relationship challenges are described extremely well.

During my professional career I was the leader of a small group of programmers that created and developed commercial software for national defense and professional service firms. While we didn't venture into video games the technical challenges and individual career choices were comparable in some way.

Having 52% of readers designating the book with 5 stars says it all.

Book #4 Dandelion Wine: A Novel (Grand Master Editions) by Ray Bradbury Avg Rating 4.08, 42 % 5Stars, 32% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

TAGS: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Magical-Realism, Historical-Fiction, Family, Coming-of-Age, Fantasy, Horror, Speculative-Fiction, Biography & Memoir, Science-Fiction

This book has had the largest impact on myself of any I have read in the last few years. The setting is very reminiscent of my youth, but the eternal thoughts about my life that it triggered were so pertinent to book searches.

I can't add anything of value to what I said in an earlier post about the book.

It appears, with the exception of book #1, that your calculations and formulas have been successful in providing you with satisfying reads.

>51 JoeB1934: I've seen lots of great reviews for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it!

>53 Tess_W: Thank you for that comment. It provides me an opportunity to discuss something about my process which I should have presented much earlier.

What I have done is generically called analytics and much more complex varieties are used in all sports. But, in my use there aren't any tags that have to do with my mental/emotional condition. On a different day I might have really appreciated The Maid, but for some reason, on that day it wasn't true.

In essence, analytics can only help reveal the probabilities, or likelihood that I will like any specific book. Just like, on any given play in any given game an individual player can exceed or fall short in any situation.

In 2022 I was starting a book which had an extended road trip by a mother and several children. The absolutely non-stop dialogue among this group was so offensive to me that I thought "do I want to spend 8 hours with these people?". The answer was no, so I abandoned the book and found Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Taylor and my reading trip was wonderful.

After re-reading my first four book reports I recognize that I need to clarify to some degree that I don't actually write reviews of any book. I feel that existing reviews on a book are vastly superior to anything I might write. Occasionally I might copy a review that I find especially meaningful to myself, like I did with Dandelion Wine but that is an exception.

I do want to communicate what there is in any book that has special meaning to me, without overdoing it. In essence, my list of personal Tags on a book show which dimensions in a book pique my interest. While I do behave as all tags are of equal value to me, in any book I discuss I will try to indicate which dimensions of the book especially piqued my interest.

Another important point is my use of a personal rating for a book. If I find that if a book leads me to re-read the book, or absolutely to look for further books by that author I give it a 5 stars. A 4 star book is one that I enjoyed greatly and will also probably place the author in my 5Star author list.

Sounds like your system is guiding you well and hopefully will continue to do so. I have Dandelion Wine on my shelves and have enjoyed other Ray Bradbury books that I have read so that's one that I need to nudge forward on my list.

>49 JoeB1934: That one's been on my radar, but I've kept putting it off. Perhaps there's a reason?

>58 thornton37814: I encourage you to read the book. I am embarrassed that my impatience caused me to stop reading. I have subsequently learned that the maid has a disability and my impatience with her does not feel like something to be proud of.

Book #5 Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet Avg Rating 3.69, 17 % 5Stars, 43% 4stars. My Rating 4.0

Tags: 5Star, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Non-British-Mysteries, Crime-Fiction, Historical-Fiction, Scotland, Scottish-Literature

London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character.

In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite.

I found the book to be very convincing, believable and informative as to the innermost thinking of a person with multiple personalities.

I selected the book because of a previous book, His Bloody Project by this author.

His Bloody Project is a strong 5 Star on my list of books. It haunts me to this day for the portrayal of early Scotland lives and the judicial system of the times.

Graeme Macrae Burnet has an impressive ability to integrate historically based information with fictional details not actually available in the historical information. Both of these books are a product of those skills and I highly recommend them both.

If you haven't read His Bloody Project please start with it.

Book #6 A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny Avg Rating 4.62, 69 % 5Stars, 23% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: 5Star, Literature, Mystery, Literary-Mystery, Non-British-Mysteries, Crime-Fiction, Historical-Fiction, Scotland, Art, Relationships, Family, Religion, Science-Fiction

This is the eighteenth Inspector Gamache story in the incredible series by Louise Penny. Like all of her books this is a don't put it down until the end book. As per usual I am unable to say how this book struck me, but I found a review on Goodreads by Melissa that says what I wish I could say.

"This novel explores misogyny, nature vs. nurture, art history, and the long lasting effects of abuse. Penny has a way of taking fascinating historical facts and making them a part of the story, so that readers don't necessarily know they are learning something profound until one thinks things through in the end. And above all, this is a tale of family, friendship, and community. It's about finding the humanity in others and revealing yourself to them in return. Isn't that what most of us want in the end?"

Isn't that what most of us want in the end?

Book # 7 The Whalebone Theatre: A novel by Joanna Quinn Avg Rating 4.10, 37 % 5Stars, 39% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: Literary Fiction, Historical-Fiction, Family, Coming-of-Age, Espionage

A transporting, irresistible debut novel that takes its heroine, Cristabel Seagrave, from a theatre in the gargantuan cavity of a beached whale into undercover operations during World War II—a story of love, family, bravery, lost innocence, and self-transformation.

“The Whalebone Theatre is absolute aces…Quinn’s imagination and adventuresome spirit are a pleasure to behold.” —The New York Times

I haven't finished this book yet, but I am so excited by it that I feel the need to share with you. In fact, I am only at the discovery of the whale by the 14-year-old heroine of the story!

I don't have the capacity to describe the literary quality of the writing, but I can say that from the first few pages the language and exquisite details about events and individuals were so descriptive that I was hooked immediately. It is difficult to believe that this book is the first by Joanna Quinn. Are there more to come?

I also need to acknowledge that this book has only 5 tags and on my tag scoring system it isn't very high. This perfectly demonstrates how analytics can't replace human knowledge, or instinct. Analytics can point in directions which should be useful but, in this case, the 5 tags are all very important to me.

The family tag is really the key to the book as every type of family member is included, ranging from the young female child with an incredible mind that becomes a very strong woman. It truly is a family saga lasting many decades and including insights into such a variety of family members that each offer a sub story.

From Fran 5 star review on GR:

The pages of "Whalebone Theatre" by debut author Joanna Quinn are arguably an ode to the lifelong, uplifting healing power of books, theatre and music. This ambitious, captivating read of historical fiction is highly recommended.

In reviewing the 130 books currently in the Candidates to Read collection I detected a special group with the tag Magical Realism. Books with that tag were very important to me in 2022 and this list contains very many of my current interests. So, my focus for now will be on two subgroups in the total list. They will be new books by my previous favorite authors and books which contain the tag of Magical Realism.

In studying the 128 members of the Candidates to Read for this year I was drawn to those books which contain the tag Magical Realism. My most favorite books of 2022 had that tag and the 25 books with this tag are all very interesting to me. Other books very interesting to me are new books from favorite authors.

I will be placing those new books into their own collection so I can focus my consideration of which books to read next.

>64 JoeB1934:....that is the tag that I run away from screaming "never!" LOL

>65 Tess_W: That is truly hysterical! The odd part is that I didn't even know until last year that the tag existed. I can understand why you feel that way as the amount of magical realism I like is usually on the low content side.

In some ways my reaction to science fiction has changed over the years. I used to stay away from those, but I slowly stepped into them, but even now there is a limit as to how strongly I go there. I think magical realism has the same nature to me, in that how far can my thinking go.

I would encourage you to read Dandelion Wine as the magical realism there usually has a connection to my real world.

>66 JoeB1934: I'm a history prof and sci-fi, fantasy, and magical realism has absolutely no pull for me--it will cause me to reject even trying a book. I have been able to read a few of the classics--Fahrenheit 451, Frankenstein, Dracula, etc..... That being said, I have put Dandelion Wine on my to read list....but it's pretty far down there!

>67 Tess_W: That is exactly what you should do.

My main thesis is that everyone has their own reading fingerprint, and this is how I find books that match mine. If you look at the books in my Magical Realism collection you will find books where that tag is mostly a minor ingredient.

You might find Whalebone Theatre much more to your liking, and it is history of a special sort all the way.
The reviews on Goodreads are way more descriptive than mine and reading some of those will show why I am so enthusiastic about it. No magical realism there!

>68 JoeB1934: Thanks for the scoop on Whalebone Theatre, put that on my WL!

To complete my analysis of books to consider reading in 2023 I have now updated the books into categories that are meaningful to myself and, I hope, to make my process of picking the next book to read manageable.

After purging a few books that don't seem to be sufficiently interesting I have:

First are 24 books which have the tag Magical Realism.
Second are 33 books being released this year by my 5 Star authors. These are in a collection called Newer Books.
Third there are 61 books by authors new to me, and not Magical Realism. These are the remnants from the collection called Candidates to read.

Since I always borrow my books, I will place holds on the newly released books as they become available. If the book is available in audio, I place a hold in Libby. The wait time for books on Libby will be in the weeks to months long.

I currently have 15 audio books on hold that are carryovers from 2022, so those books will be read iin the next few weeks.

I will report on each read book in the style I have used in my first seven books. If I read about 50 books this year, there will have to be a lot of elimination.

In the latest State of the Thing from Tim I was very excited about the Recommendations facility. In some ways it allows a member to find books of standard genres, but with the option of looking for tags as a filter. The unique feature is that the list of tags offered for me are MY TAGS.

Another great feature is that you can look for books that are new, or all books over time.

The results I found in a short experiment were interesting, but inserting some reasonable tags resulted in an endless Loading twirl.

At any rate there is promise in this new feature and I will experiment more to see how to find books for 2023. As if I didn't already have more than I can read..

>71 JoeB1934: I'm playing around with that, also. I looked at page 1 of my historical fiction recommendations, and found that I already had most of them on my WL.

I have finished Whalebone Theatre and my initial enthusiasm continues and grows in confirming what I previously mentioned. As you know, I don't write reviews of the traditional variety, but emphasize the impact of the book on me.

Informative snippets I gathered from other Goodreads reviews are as follows:

Katie Lumsden
Author
1 book
2,560 followers

November 25, 2022
What a truly fantastic book. Powerful, moving, beautifully written, so compelling, with such fantastic characterization. Definitely a favorite of the year.

MaryBeth's Bookshelf
363 reviews
80 followers

December 6, 2022
Words can not adequately express my love for this book. I was a little intimidated by it at first, but I quickly fell in love with these characters and this story as I quietly turned the pages.

This book had been described to me as Scout Finch meets Downton Abbey and I wholeheartedly agree. Christable Seagrave is a child/woman ahead of her time - she is confident, brave, and speaks her mind. As a child, running the halls of Chilcombe Manor with her siblings/cousins, Flossie and Digby, she grows into a mature and strong-willed woman during WWII. The story goes back and forth between different narrators and will just capture your heart.

This is definitely the kind of book you want to hug as you turn the last page. When I finished and looked back at all the pages I read I was both happy and sad - happy that I was given the opportunity to experience such a lovely story and sad that it was over. This book is a triumphant debut.

For me it is a family saga with excellent characterizations of every member of the extended family, but the strongest of these are of the role of women in all aspects of the family.

I have experimented with the new Recommendations feature and find that there is significant value to use it. I even created a smaller library that only included my most favorite authors and none of my 2023 candidates to read.

Only a few of my 2023 choices appeared, but that simply acknowledges that there might well be uncounted numbers of books that I could easily choose and be pleased.

I have found that a better source of ideas is the LibraryThing Combined Recommendations that show up on the book page for a favorite book. In retrospect, for me that is superior to this new feature.

I was reading the Sunday edition of The Denver Post this morning and discovered that there is a new book about Rock Springs, Wyoming where I was born in 1934. Talk about a book belonging to my reading fingerprint!

The book is Out Here on Our Own: An Oral History of an American Boomtown by J.J. Anselmi

The Anselmi family is quite extensive and has been a part of my heritage forever. This author is undoubtedly much younger than my generation, but he has all the information to write an informative book.

Book # 8 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro Avg Rating 4.14, 41 % 5Stars, 37% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: 5Star, Literature, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Literary-Mystery, Magical-Realism, Non-British-Mysteries, Relationships, Family, Religion, Coming-of-Age, Romance, Fantasy, Speculative-Fiction, Womens-Fiction, Dystopian, Biography & Memoir, Science-Fiction, Science

I suppose that it is my age, but I seem to be drawn to books which inevitably lead me to introspection of my life with some success, but many decisions made that were not the best. Kazuo Ishiguro has written a most literary book about an individual that, in essence, forces any reader to follow on such a path.

As is my wont I found a review of the book on GR that expresses just such thoughts.

Adina
774 reviews
2,918 followers

February 23, 2022

“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”

I believe that a restrained beauty is what characterizes The Remains of the Day and the voice of its main character, Stevens. As it was also the case in Never let me Go, the message is hidden in the beautiful pages, only suggested, it comes to the reader in the form of a knot in the stomach or throat and the feelings linger for many days while one ponders on the meaning of his/her life.

If you happen to be wondering how I am choosing which book to read next, it is strictly by which book becomes available in Libby. You can see the 15 books by going to the collection On Hold. There is an ebb and flow to the list as a slot becomes available after each book is read. Then I study all the books on my candidates to read collections.

The book I am just starting is All the Broken Places: A Novel by John Boyne

Another point I need to remind you of is the source of tags for any book. For example, The Remains of the Day has 19 tags. This doesn't mean that those tags are the ones that have the highest number count for that book.

I am strictly finding for any book whether ANY reader used a tag that is included in my reading fingerprint. Quite often it can be that a single member applied that tag. To me even a single tag count tells me that the book has a partial dimension that is interesting to me. It is the dimensionality that signifies that the book might be a good one for me to read. It doesn't mean that you would like the book also.

If you scan the books I have read this year, there is quite a range of tag counts. Interesting is that The Whalebone Theatre has only 5 tags, but it still earned a 5 star rating from me because of the quality of the writing.

I have found that a high tag count almost guarantees that I will like the book. However, it isn't a guarantee and I need to really look at lower tag count books to make a final choice.

Another general note.

LT developers fixed a bug in their new Recommendations feature that produced a reasonable set of candidates when I did what is called 'New Books, Combined Recommendations and the tag literary fiction'. I don't need it now, but future times it will be useful.

I can place all candidates in a Wishlist and use the Tag Mirror routine to tag every book for future winnowing.

I mentioned that I recently started All the Broken Places: A Novel by John Boyne I am about 20% into the book when I heard from Libby that I can now check out Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. I am currently in the mood for a "lighter" read so I am tabling the John Boyne and forging ahead with the Lessons in Chemistry.

I will, of course finish both books as both of them are highly acclaimed.

Book # 9 Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Avg Rating 4.37, 54 % 5Stars, 32% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Womens Fiction, Relationships, Family, Romance, Non British Mysteries, Religion, Science

"Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist."

A wonderful read that I went through in 2 days. Looking forward to see if the author has more books in the works.

Your system seems to be working very well for you as I see you have already had a number of 5 star reads!

>80 DeltaQueen50: Yes, and I have several more coming up. How are you doing with finding books to suit you?

I have been concentrating on my older books, the ones that I have had on my shelf, Kindle and/or library list for some time. Overall more positive reads than negative, and on the plus side, I have moved a lot of books along - making room for new ones!

>82 DeltaQueen50: When I look at your activities in the Category Challenges +++ I am amazed at the diversity of genres and authors available to you. You have about six times the size of my library and I can see that choosing from that quantity of books is a real challenge itself!

A Tag Mirror of your library shows a significant overlap with my tags but definitely a different fingerprint. When I think about my reading over the years, I can see that I have evolved in my recognition of books that I now appreciate. I have come a long way from where I understood what I liked and why. I suppose every reader has some of that.

Book # 10 All the Broken Places by John Boyne Avg Rating 4.52, 62% 5Stars, 30% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: Literature, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Relationships, Family

From the publisher's blurb about this book:

"John Boyne writes a superb and profoundly moving sequel to his The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as he explores the psychological complexities of guilt and complicity, and the repercussions of WW2 and the Holocaust through the life of the widowed 91 year old Greta Fernsby, sister of Bruno, whose father was the Nazi commandant of the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp.

It is somewhat ironic that I finished this book on the Holocaust Memorial Day. The most important words in the description above are "guilt and complicity", which are ever present in my mind while reading this incredible book.

One of the great benefits for me in reading fiction about a real historical event is the depth that the author can bring to me by intricately drawing me into ethical and moral questions by focusing on hypothetical, but real individuals and exposing how those individuals actually resolved an ethical/moral question.

I don't believe that I personally could say how I would have behaved in these circumstances, as I don't have anywhere near the background that the characters in the book do have. What I can say is that 'since I never walked in their shoes' I can think through if I have personally ever been faced with consequential decisions about protection of family members, or other acquaintances.

This book truly exposed for me the length and breadth of the Holocaust events beyond the horrific death toll. The book took me to a next level in trying to comprehend that event, but it is even more incomprehensible.

For my next book I am reading something that will be less challenging, but still informative about what people do and maybe a bit of why.

That book is The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz. This is Horowitz on one of his very creative stories that are not only a books-about-books as this book includes Horowitz himself in the book!

Book #11 The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz. Avg Rating 4.17, 35 % 5Stars, 48% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: 5Star, Literature, Mystery, Literary Mystery, Historical Mystery, Historical Fiction, Books about Books, Espionage, Family, British Mysteries, Crime Fiction

It only took me one day to finish this book because I am somewhat home bound after a fall on ice last week and I could watch NFL games while listening to the audio.

"Anthony Horowitz, OBE is ranked alongside Enid Blyton and Mark A. Cooper as "The most original and best spy-kids authors of the century." (New York Times). Anthony has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he is also the writer and creator of award winning detective series Foyle’s War, and more recently event drama Collision, among his other television works he has written episodes for Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. Anthony became patron to East Anglia Children’s Hospices in 2009.

The Twist of the Knife is the latest addition to Anthony Horowitz's tongue-in-cheek detective series featuring Hawthorne, a quasi "hard-boiled" Sherlock Holmes, and Horowitz as his Watson. In addition to writing himself as a character in the fourth novel in the series, Horowitz becomes the chief murder suspect."

My rating of 5.0 doesn't apply specifically to this book alone, as I would say it is a strong 4.0 for this detective series. However, any book is a 5.0 because of the body of work from the author

Book #12 Lessons by Ian McEwan. Avg Rating 4.07, 36 % 5Stars, 48% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: 5Star, Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Literary Mystery, Historical Mystery, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Coming of Age, Books about Books, Espionage, LGBTQ, Relationships, Family, Romance, Non British Mysteries

"From the best-selling author of Atonement and Saturday comes the epic and intimate story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals: from the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic, Roland Baines sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it."

Atonement by this author is one of my favorite books of all time but spending 18 hours on this epic simply is not valuable enough to me. The literary quality is obviously very high in what seems to be an autobiography mixed with fictional memories. I usually love epic sagas but it appears that it is necessary for me somehow to tune-in to the individuals portrayed.

This led me to DNF the book while recognizing that it is of exceptional value to other readers.

If you want a simple summary of the books I have read for 2023 please go to the collection labeled 'Books in 2023'

I've been following your reads and am glad your method has thrown up so many 5 star books, but I'm not clear about your ratings e.g. 5 stars to a DNF?>87 JoeB1934:

>89 pamelad: My personal rating is really an author-based rating. When I read any book by an author that I deem to be one that I will want to follow and read future books I call that author one of my 5 Star authors. I have read prior books by McEwan, for example Atonement that caused me to place him on that list.

At this time, I have read books by 650 authors and 167 are on my 5 Star list. Even though this book wasn't a favorite book for me you can see that 84% of the readers of this book on Goodreads gave him a rating of 4, or 5 stars. Just because I personally didn't ring bells with this book doesn't reduce my appreciation of him as an author.

Another author I just read, Anthony Horowitz is an example where he is a 5 Star author to me, but that book standalone would be a 4 star.

In many ways my whole approach is really to find special authors and to follow them wherever they go. If you look at the tags in my complete library those written by my 5Star authors are tagged as such.

Since 9 of the 11 books read this year are from my 5 Star authors the deck is stacked in my being successful. However, the 5 and 4 star percentages I show for each book is there to indicate that other readers also find those authors to be very valuable.

I only determined in 2022 that the majority of my 5 Star authors coincide with their being described by a high number of tags from my personal preference of sub-genres. Use of that correlation provides me with a method to evaluate new authors for addition to my 5 Star list.

Look at my collection named thew 'Wishlist' to see where the new authors will come from for me personally.

>90 JoeB1934: Thanks.

Book #13: The Librarian Spy: A Novel of World War II by Madeline Martin Avg Rating 3.99, 29 % 5Stars, 45% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Books about Books, Espionage, Non British Mysteries

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London comes a moving new novel inspired by the true history of America’s library spies of World War II.

Ava thought her job as a librarian at the Library of Congress would mean a quiet, routine existence. But an unexpected offer from the US military has brought her to Lisbon with a new mission: posing as a librarian while working undercover as a spy gathering intelligence."

I was drawn to this book because of the tags 'Books about Books' and 'Espionage'. Then, I realized I had read her last book and enjoyed it very much. Somehow, I wasn't disciplined enough last year to have designated the author as a 5 Star author.

These librarians are really something!

It is also important to note that this book only has 5 tags, but those tags are very much included in what I consider my core. For this book I personally could easily add more peripheral tags, such as Racism, Relationships, Family and even Romance.

The tag count must not be the final factor. It identifies the most likely candidates for me to consider, but actually reading the book is the required final step.

Book # 10 All the Broken Places by John Boyne is another example of a lower tag count for an outstanding book.

I plan to discuss tag counts and how my 5 Star authors came to me in a later posting.

Some of you might have looked at a new LT display comparing the site vs member genre distributions. Very interesting if you haven't seen yours.

In my case it demonstrates very clearly my concentration on history and mystery genres. Because the LT genre list is so broad I personally didn't learn very much. Of course, my whole analysis uses 39 tag genres to dive more deeply into what books I read and why so I decided to produce a similar display for the tag genres important to myself.

The first column simply lists how many of the 1411 books in my library contain each of the 39 tags. The second column normalizes those numbers into percentages of the 1411 books for each tag. The tags are sorted by descending percentages and, sure enough mystery is first.

The next percentage column provides the stats for the 785 books read which were authored by the 160 5 Star authors as I designated them. It is very interesting that approximately 55 % of the 1411 books were authored by about 25 % of the 650 authors overall.

If I select one book for each of the 160 5 Star authors, the tag stats are portrayed in the next column. By and large the more I concentrate on the 5 Star books the tag percentages increase all down the list. Many of the percentages are doubled from the whole library to the selected 160 top authors.

I also need to point out the two rows at the top of each column which are labelled Avg Rating and Avg Tag Count. For the 1411 books read the average rating was 3.75 and the average tag count was 8.04. The next column retains the 3.75 rating but increases the tag count by 1.21 tags. The top 160 authors are described with a 3.95 rating and a tag count increase to 10.53.

For several years I have been drawn to books with an average rating approaching 4 so the 3.95 isn't any surprise. The tag count average of 10 is a surprise because I never even thought of this tag genre counting until this year.

The designation of any book being included in the 5 Star list over the last 30 years has simply been: 'Did I enjoy this book enough that I want to read more books by this author?'



For me this is so much more informative about who I am as a reader. The classical genre profile provided by LT is lacking in two respects.

First, there is the implication that books are one dimensional once the major genre is identified.
Second, the genres are at a higher level than most books are described as. Mysteries are either suspense, or thrillers, which are appropriate as far as they go, but fall short of other commonly used categories.

I would hope that every member could specify a personal set of tags that they use which are like genres, but more descriptive of their interests, like my set. Given such a set of Personal Tags, LT could rapidly accomplish what I have done without any need for complex Excel spreadsheet maneuvers.

Within LibraryThing, genres are almost of biblical sacredness and I am not challenging that process. Just provide a member the options of listing favorite authors and favorite tags.

I'm not sure very many members are as interested in statistics as I am, but I was curious how my reading patterns changed over the years. So I determined the years that I actually found authors to add to my 5 Star list. That analysis is presented in the following display.

It is important that you understand that authors were placed first in 2021 when i ran through all of my books present in the library at that time. I made several iterations through the books, and one-by-one decided which ones I remembered fondly enough to add the author to the list.

Authors I discovered in each year were added to the list in 2021, so I had to look back for each author to find which year the author was first read by me. For 2021 up to current time I maintained the list and, in several instances, took a look back at all books to see if I needed to add, or subtract any author on any prior year.

My understanding of special tags was quite limited in 2021 and it wasn't until mid-2022 that I developed the understanding about myself used in this set of posts.



I have other statistics of interest to me, but I don't think they add appreciably to my story.

I have just finished a book strongly related to my newly discovered literary fiction genre.

Book #14: Companion Piece by Ali Smith Avg Rating 3.94, 31 % 5Stars, 40% 4stars. My Rating 4.0
Tags: Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Art

The GR blurb on this author is:
"A celebration of companionship in all its timeless and contemporary, legendary and unpindownable, spellbinding and shapeshifting forms...

It follows the unique achievement of her Seasonal cycle of novels - Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer - written and published in as close as possible to real time, between 2016 and 2020, absorbing and refracting the times we are living through: the 'state-of-the-nation novels which understand that the nation is you, is me, is all of us' (New Statesman).

'Ali Smith is lighting us a path out of the nightmarish now' Observer"

For the first half of this book I was absolutely enthralled and ready to assign the author to my personal 5 Star author list. Elements of poetry and writing which was so literary that I pondered every sentence. Then, for reasons I'm not sure about I started to lose my connections to the story.

Was this because of the pain pills I am taking from a fall I took a week ago, or was the author delving into a magical realism dimension I couldn't quite grasp?

At any rate I will pursue later her other books and encourage you to look at reviews of those books for your own interests.

My granddaughter asked if I had read this book and it was on my candidates to read for 2023 so I checked it out in audio form. It turned out to be a new 5 Star author for me. My granddaughter knows my reading fingerprint as well as I do!

Book #15: Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy Avg Rating 4.14, 39 % 5Stars, 40% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Relationships, Romance, Scotland, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Science

The GR blurb for the book is:

"From the author of the beloved national bestseller Migrations, a pulse-pounding new novel set in the wild Scottish Highlands.

Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska.

Propulsive and spell-binding, Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves is the unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves—if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge."

The book is a splendid blend of science about wolves, their nature and behavior, mixed with personal lives of scientists who want to save them, and the nature of the Scottish people with their lifestyle which will be intruded by the wolves.

I have a very personal interest in the subject, as I have seen the benefits and challenges that derived from their introduction into Yellowstone National Park. They have very seriously improved the ecology of the park, just as promised for Scotland.

Sad to say, but they haven't yet been introduced into Scotland and this book is a fictional account of such an effort.

A final comment is to draw your attention to the tags listed above. Having read the book, those tags are absolutely spot-on and validation for the tag mirror approach.

Book #15: OUT HERE ON OUR OWN: An Oral History of an American Boomtown by J. J. Anselmi Avg Rating 4.3, 0 % 5Stars, 0% 4stars. My Rating 5.0
Tags: Regional History

"J.J. Anselmi’s Out Here on Our Own tells the story of Rock Springs, Wyoming, a mining boomtown with a history of brutal racial violence, widespread addiction, prostitution, and a staggeringly high per-capita suicide rate—yet a place that has proved remarkably resilient. Anselmi stitches together an array of original interviews with people who’ve seen those things firsthand, tracing the boom-bust trajectory of a town known for its corruption, vice, and violence. Amid such horrors as the massacre of Chinese miners in 1885 and the ongoing methamphetamine and opioid epidemics, the town has fought hard to keep its identity of rugged individualism intact.

In 2022 Rock Springs is slipping into yet another bust. Anselmi’s narrative offers searing personal accounts of a community in crisis, whose problems are fanned by severely limited mental health resources, dying industries, and Wyoming’s still-pervasive idea that people should deal with their troubles alone. In a community’s own words, Out Here on Our Own depicts a place that’s as tough and weathered as the sagebrush and sandstone surrounding it."

I can imagine that some readers of this chat are wondering how this book qualifies as a participant in my searching for books in my reading fingerprint. The answer is that my physical fingerprint was created in Rock Springs.

I was born of Scottish and Slovenian parents and grandparents who emigrated to Wyoming in the early 1900’s. As Anselmi relates in this book, there are 56 nationalities represented there.

I was very saddened by the facts presented in the book as up to 1956 when I left, I never saw the drug issues from later periods. Of course, I remember the coal mining period which dominated my youth. Strikes and very intermittent workdays resulted in my parents and relatives being very careful about everything.

One uncle died from black lung, one from an accident in the mine, but several including my father got out of mining to become tradesmen, like electricians, welders and carpenters (my father).

The predominate factor in my childhood was the family activities out of Rock Springs. Camping, f1ishing, hunting and what was colloquially called arrowhead hunting in the desert. This last activity essentially was scouring hundreds of square miles for remnants and traces of native Americans.

These activities represent many of the specific tags in my personal tag genre list. Archaeology, paleontology, geology, age of the earth, when and where were migrations into North America etc.

The public school system was very strong in those days and my outdoor activities had an interesting intersection with that system.

The physics and chemistry teacher in high school was noted far and wide for her very demanding classes. One day I returned from an elk hunting trip with my father, after missing several days of school. Miss McCall launched into a tirade about it, which included phrases like ‘you’ll never amount to anything, why are you even in this class?’ That resulted, as she knew it would, in my showing her what I could do to prove her wrong.

At least she didn’t throw a Bunsen burner that day.

The only thing I can add to my childhood story is to mention the stories of Plainsong by Kent Haruf, Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury and the British TV series ‘Last of Summer Wine’. They capture various elements of my childhood in Rock Springs.

With this basic childhood I was never aware of activities such as Anselmi mentions. I did recognize that there were gathering in bars and a certain amount of drunkenness that occasionally was happening. None of our extended family were noted for drinking especially. I do remember that K street was a location that seemed to be somewhere I shouldn't go.

The only drugs that were ever mentioned was once a couple of boys in high school had been using, as best I can remember, something called mary jane.

I believe that most of what Anselmi describes came with the oil boom after I had been gone some years. Then Rock Springs doubled in population and many things changed. I do wish the book had more to separate Before Oil from After Oil.

The biggest tragedy of the book by Anselmi are the statistics about the suicide rate in Sweetwater County. That and the rampant alcoholism. I certainly was unaware about any of those factors.

To summarize the only thing I can really say about this book for me is Heartbreaking.

To close out this book review I will now present what Dudley Gardner, a local historian who rented a house from my father, says in the Section titled.

What We’ve Learned from the Sagebrush



I don't imagine that this book will be of interest to very many people, but this statement by Dudley Gardner should provide some concept of the beauty and value of that part of Wyoming.

Book #16: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng Rating 3.88, 29 % 5Stars, 38% 4stars. My Rating DNF

Tags: 5Star, Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Literary Mystery, Historical Fiction, Coming of Age, Speculative Fiction, Dystopian, Racism, Art, Relationships, Family, Non-British Mysteries, Science Fiction

"A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old."

This was obviously a very well written book, but I simply was not able to deal with the subject matter. Too dystopian, I believe.

Celeste Ng is one of my 5 Star authors but decided not to continue my tradition of a personal rating of 5 for any book by such an author. Thus, from now-on I will only give a 5 if this book deserves it.

I need to note that earlier I had a book as a 5, but talked about it being a DNF. pamelad asked a question about why and it was re-thinking her question that caused me to clarify my new policy. An author can be a 5, but every book by the author doesn't have to be a 5.

>89 pamelad: Please look at my latest post where I discuss that I have changed my policy.

Book #17: A Sliver of Darkness by C. J. Tudor Rating 3.95, 24 % 5Stars, 49% 4stars. My Rating DNF

Tags: 5Star, Mystery, Horror, Relationships, Family, British Mysteries, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Religion

"The debut short story collection from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man, featuring ten bone-chilling and mind-bending tales

Timeslips. Doomsday scenarios. Killer butterflies. C. J. Tudor's novels are widely acclaimed for their dark, twisty suspense plots, but with A Sliver of Darkness, she pulls us even further into her dizzying imagination."

Here I am with a second 5Star author that I get a DNF. This book had one strike against it because I have never been a fan of short stories. I really prefer to get deeply involved with characters. In addition, I am not a lover of thrillers.

Book #18: Wednesday's Child byPeter Robinson Rating 4.02, 31 % 5Stars, 44% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Fiction, Womens Fiction, Horror, Art, Relationships, Family, Romance, Scotland, British Mysteries, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Psychological Mystery, Science Fiction

"In New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Peter Robinson’s heart-racing tale of suspense the case of a missing child is inextricably linked to that of the murder of a young man, sending Chief Inspector Alan Banks down a harrowing road to uncover the truth behind the crimes.

It was a crime of staggering inhumanity: a seven-year-old girl taken from her working class Yorkshire home by an attractive young couple posing as social workers. Chief Inspector Alan Banks feels certain little Gemma Scupham is dead, yet the motive for her kidnapping remains a mystery. No ransom is ever demanded, nor could Gemma's tortured, guilt-ridden mother afford to pay one.

Utterly suspenseful and compelling, Wednesday's Child will leave readers guessing and on the edge of their seats."

Boy was I ever happy to get back to my foundation of British mystery procedurals! Not just any author, but one I have loved for decades. Ironically, this book was originally published in 1992 with an audio in 2011. I bought this on Audible when it showed up on my candidates to read.

I'm not sure where I found the suggestion, but I am guessing it came from one of the Books to Borrow from another member library.

I find that Peter Robinson is an author I can pretty much always depend on to deliver the goods!

>102 DeltaQueen50: I think I obtained the book reference from a books to borrow from your profile. Thanks so much!

>103 JoeB1934: Glad to be of service! :)

Jodi Picoult has a book that has several passages about wolves in it - they are not the whole story. Just thought I’d mention it, as she is one of my favorite writers. It's called Lone Wolf: a Novel. The tag doesn't seem to be working correctly.

>105 VictoriaPL: What did you mean when you said The tag doesn't seem to be working correctly?

Also, just recently I became aware of Jodi Picoult and intended to look at her books.

I mean that when I put brackets around Lone Wolf it wasn't pulling the book. It does now. Very strange!

Book 19: We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker Rating 4.17, 41 % 5Stars, 38% 4stars. My Rating 5.0
Crime Novel of the Year Award Winner 2021

Tags: Literature, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Coming of Age, Relationships, Family, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Wyoming

"There are two kinds of families: the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released.

Duchess is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Her mother, Star, grew up with Walk and Vincent. Walk is in overdrive trying to protect them, but Vincent and Star seem bent on sliding deeper into self-destruction. Star always burned bright, but recently that light has dimmed, leaving Duchess to parent not only her mother but her five-year-old brother. At school the other kids make fun of Duchess―her clothes are torn, her hair a mess. But let them throw their sticks, because she’ll throw stones. Rules are for other people. She’s just trying to survive and keep her family together.

A fortysomething-year-old sheriff and a thirteen-year-old girl may not seem to have a lot in common. But they both have come to expect that people will disappoint you, loved ones will leave you, and if you open your heart, it will be broken. So, when trouble arrives with Vincent King, Walk and Duchess find they will be unable to do anything but usher it in, arms wide closed.

Chris Whitaker has written an extraordinary novel about people who deserve so much more than life serves them. At times devastating, with flashes of humor and hope throughout, it is ultimately an inspiring tale of how the human spirit prevails and how, in the end, love―in all its different guises―wins."

To me, this is the best book I have read in a long time. I missed it in 2021 because I was more focused that year on other parts of my reading. I am, as always unable to write a review worthy of the book, so I include one from GR that captures my thoughts a lot better than I can.

" Susanne 1,155 reviews 36.3k followers

February 27, 2021
Review posted to blog: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend...

My Cup Runneth Over and the Tears Spilled.

While reading this book, I was overcome with intense emotion and extraordinary heartbreak.

This is character-driven literary crime fiction about family, friendship, loss, and mystery that includes all of my favorite elements. Dysfunction; grief, heartache; humanity; humor; love; loyalty, pain, regret, and unrelenting tragedy.

It’s a novel that is dripping with heart and that heart resides in the characters. Characters that I love with all of my heart and then some. Characters who I’ve thought about every darn day since I turned the last page.

It’s the characters of Duchess, Robin, Walk, Hal, Dolly, and Martha who bring this book to life and made my heartache.

Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen (13) year-old self-proclaimed “Outlaw.” Tough as nails, she’ll do whatever she has to do to take care of herself and her five (5) year old brother Robin, seeing as her mom has never been all that reliable, much to Duchess’ chagrin. Unfortunately for Duchess, after trying just a little too hard to take care of her family, she finds herself in a world of trouble, the likes of which I can’t imagine.

The bonds shared between brother and sister here are absolutely soul-wrenching. As if the characters of Duchess and Robin were real, I too found myself in great distress when tragedy befell these two time and again. If I could have scooped them up and taken them to safety, I would have.

“Walk” is Chief of Police. Though he checks in on the Radleys from time to time, he’s not a miracle worker and he has other fish to fry, including helping his former best friend, Vincent King rehabilitate after spending 30 years in prison. Walk, of course, has his own troubles, none of which he can run away from.

The mystery here is devastating, heart-wrenching, and gripping. Though there is tragedy here, there is also humor. Surprising, shocking, brilliant humor. The writing is beautiful and is full of grace and grit.

In truth: “We Begin At The End” by Chris Whittaker IS the BEST book I’ve read so far this year and I would be stunned if another book surpasses it. It will of course be at the top of my Goodreads best-of-list for 2021!"

Now that I have been compiling this Talk for about two months, I have decided to summarize what I am trying to accomplish and how my process works.

First, I am searching for those books which match my personal reading interests as measured by the tag genres describing any book. I am sure that there are very few readers that match my profile, others than those who are peculiarly addicted to literary mysteries.

I use the LT Tag Mirror facility to assign tags to every book in my library, including books already read and books in my TBR list for the coming year. The process of going from the tag mirror results uses Excel to process the mirror outputs into tag genre assignments for every book. Those Excel results are used to import the tags for every book back into LT.

I just completed a rebuild of my library to include books read and my current TBR books. The complete library consists of 1247 books read and 177 books on my TBR candidates to read. The library contains 662 authors and, over the years I have compiled a list of 200 authors that possess the designation of being my personal 5 Star authors that I want to read more of.

The TBR list consists of upcoming books by those 5 Star favorite authors as well as other books that have my interest from any source. I started this year obtaining candidates from Books to Borrow from readers that shared a lot of book reading with me. The new LT feature of Recommendations shows considerable assistance to selecting books to read.

In 2022 I discovered, almost by accident, that if I ranked all my books simply by their tag count my most favorite books were inevitably associated with a high tag count. As the tag count decreased there was a drop-off in the prevalence 5 Star books.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT A 19 TAG BOOK IS BETTER THAN AN 18 TAG BOOK. It is more like a tiering of books by the correlation of tag count to 5 Star books.

If you go to my library and sort all books in descending tag count order my preferred books and authors are all at the top. I personally consider the tag count in tiers where the tiering is determined by the percentage of books in each tier that are 5 Star books.

Consider the following display of those books.



If I have a new book to consider that has, for example, 15 tags there is an 80% chance` it will turn into a 5 Star author. If I have a 9 tag book that drops to about a 50/50 chance.

In reality, any book with even 3 tags could be a 5 Star author. I won't know until I read the book. Faced with 177 books on my TBR list I want to concentrate my limited reading time on the books which have the highest likelihood of being a winner. This means I will process down the TBR list in order of their tag count.

An example of this process, to date I have read 19 books in the 2023 listing. The tag counts were :

2 books 16 tags, 2 books 15 tags, 2 books 14 tags, 1 book 13 tags, 1 book 12 tags, 2 books 11 tags, 1 book 10 tags, 1 book 9 tags, 3 books 8 tags,
2 books 7 tags, 1 book 6 tags, 1 book 1 tags.

The only miss was one 8 tag book, so the success rate is rather high. I personally am very inclined to read books with seven, or more tags. However, if you look at the Candidates to Read Collection there are many books with higher tag counts. Those higher books aren't out yet, or I can't get them because I don't have audio forms available to me by now.

(THIS CONVERSATION WILL BE CONTINUED TOMMOROW)

Since my last message I have added more books to the 'candidates to read' list. Mostly gleaned from the new feature of Recommendations provided by LT.
This necessitated a re-do of the Tag Mirror analysis I do for the Excel assignment of tags to every book.

My total library now has 1435 books and 188 books in the collection 'Candidates to Read'. I want to concentrate my reading time on those books which I perceive to have the highest likelihood of being successful for me.

I have read quite a variety of books as my reading has evolved, but at my core I gain the most enjoyment from books which are labelled 'Literary Mysteries'. I didn't even recognize that some books are labelled as such until 2021 when I discovered I had unknowingly read 30 of the top 50 books from a list I discovered on Goodreads.

During 2021 and 2022 I used LT tagmash facilities to explore more completely this category of book. One thing I have learned is that not every member necessarily recognizes that a given book fits the label.

I have just completed an analysis of my library to identify those books which I would classify as literary mysteries. This involved finding those books identified by Tag Mirror using specific combinations of tags as follows:

1) Literary Mystery alone..............356
2) Literary Fiction plus Mystery......167
3) Literature plus Mystery.............344

Those book tags are highlighted in the following table. It is critical to remember that books are identified by many tag genres so it required sorting and isolation of those books which collectively match these three conditions. The easy one is the identity of the 356 tagged books as literary mysteries.

So, I project that of the 1435 books in my library 876 qualify by my criteria as literary mysteries. I haven't delved very deeply into these results, but I expect that many of the literature plus mystery are from my earlier reading of British mysteries. Literary Fiction has been a more recent focus.

It is also important to note that 559 books are not of my primary focus. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy those books, but they do indicate I spent a lot of time reading beyond my mystery focus.

The most startling result of this analysis is that only 98 books on my 188 book 'candidates to read' fit this focus. It doesn't mean the dropped books aren't good books as quite a few are literary fiction books. For the moment I will pass those by and read primarily from the 98 books that resulted from the analysis.

Of course, anytime I see value in these other books, or new ones I read about I will wander away from the path.

When I select a book to read from the collection 'Focus on Literary Mysteries' there are several factors at play. these factors are:

1) What is the Tag Count and which tag genres were assigned to the book?
2) Is the book available now in audio, or print?
3) What mood am I in? What tag sub-genre of the non-mystery type is especially interesting to me right now?

I much prefer audio, so that is paramount. If available in the next few weeks, I place a hold in Libby. If only available in print, I place a hold at the DPL.

I also will place a hold for a print edition at the DPL if I can acquire that sooner than the audio, which frequently happens.

Currently I have 19 books on hold in audiobooks at Libby and 20 books on hold in print at the DPL. The next two displays are for the books in Libby.

Book 19: A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino Rating 4.01, 29 % 5Stars, 44% 4stars. My Rating 5.0

Tags: 5Star, Literature, Mystery, Literary Mystery, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Relationships, Family, Crime Fiction, Suspense, Psychological Mystery, Science Fiction

This morning I have come to the conclusion that I have demonstrated to my own satisfaction that my process for achieving the objectives for this chat has been achieved.

Just to remind everyone the title for the chat is: JoeB1934 Searches for Books with Maximum Match to His Reading Fingerprint

I have attempted to show how 38 tag genres describe my reading interests, and that using the Tag Mirror plus Excel it is possible to assign to every book in my library which of my tag genres can be attributed to each book.

Additionally, based on observation alone it appears that the books I enjoyed reading the most tend to be described by a simple count of the tags for the book. I likened this counting system to be akin to a meal with entre, side dishes, desserts, flavors, and textures. However, I also enjoyed, maybe with somewhat a lower level of interest, books that have fewer tags.

This result does NOT mean that the tag count ALONE measures the value of a book. A book can be 5 Star only if the reading of it achieves that result.

This method provides a measurement of the likelihood that any new book will be of high interest to myself. Most importantly, where do I come up with suggestions to read additional books?

I have always chosen books to consider reading by media notifications, award winning books, New York Times book commentators, web sites like 'Crime Reads' and 'Lit Hub', etc. If I see mentioned keywords that belong to my tag genre list, I pursue the book in more depth. I imagine that this is similar to anyone building a TBR list.

I add the books to my library and use the Tag Mirror & Excel process to analyze the books as described above.

LT has a greatly expanded Recommendations feature which I have been experimenting with the past two weeks. I have learned how to use it to focus on books & authors I like by using the ability to search based on my favorite tags. For example, If I select the 'Mystery' genre and filter by 'Literary Fiction' I can find books which fit those criteria over time and with/without my authors.

The resultant books in many cases are ones I had identified using my prior methods. For any book on the set, I can click on the title and go to the page for that book to inspect the tags associated with the book, etc. If I like what I see, I can add it to my library.

If I like the book, I can also add the tags that I prefer on the book page. Or, if I have a group of new books, it only takes a couple of hours for me to use my extended Excel model to add tags to every book in the group. Then I can evaluate the tag count and whether the author is one of my 5 Star authors to help me decide to read the book.

When I read a book there are several issues related to the reporting of my evaluation on the book. I am in no way a qualified reviewer that can lay out a description suitable for anyone else to evaluate the book.

Up to now in this chat I have provided a brief blurb like the publisher might use to tout a book. Then, I have added commentary that I find matched my feelings about the book in GR complete reviews. I have been uneasy about this approach and in the future will only provide information like I did for Book 19: A Death in Tokyo by Keigo Higashino.

To some degree, I wonder if it is even worthwhile to post these simplified notes on future books I read. Now that I have completed the story of how I achieved the specified goal for the chat it can be argued that the selection of books I read are simply those that match my reading fingerprint.

Why should anyone else be interested?

I am considering starting a new chat listing the books I am reading under the label of 'Literary Mysteries' while suspending this methodological discussion.

If you think this would be worthwhile, please let me know.

I would be most interested to keep tracking the books that you are reading as I too have a weakness for "literary mysteries". I hope you do continue to list your reads here.

>115 DeltaQueen50: Thanks for the feedback. Still thinking about it all.

I'm fascinated by the analysis that you've described in this thread. I myself am highly influenced by new award lists and also reviews by fellow LT members. Because of that, I would indeed find helpful what you call "simplified notes" on the books you've read.

I've found that, having participated in this group for many years, I've been able to identify reliable reviewers. Basically, these are LT users whose tastes seem to align with mine and I can trust their recommendations (sometimes for specific genres). So even if a "trusted reviewer" writes no more than a brief, "I loved this book," I would still find it helpful.

I guess it's a different approach from, "If I liked this book, I will probably like this other one." Instead, the idea is, "If this LT member liked this book, I will probably also like it."

I have not been working on this thread for quite a while. Instead, I produced a different thread about finding and reading literary mysteries. You might find that to be interesting. The url is https://www.librarything.com/topic/349260#n8096182.

I now am going to pick this thread back up and am working out how to post about the books I'm reading. It will take me a few days to catch up with the books I haven't mentioned here yet.

I am posting all books read during 2023, (to date 03/20) My selection of these books was driven by:

(1) Their literary mystery content and the presence of members of my personal set of tag genres that are most important to me.
(2) The high ranking given to each book by Goodreads members. Important factors are the percentage of readers that give the book a five-star, or four-star rating.

It is very important to understand that the tag genres associated with any book doesn't necessarily mean that the book has a strong content in that tag.

As I have mentioned preciously these tags are meant to indicate the diversity of content, no matter how small that content is. It is those small details that add to my interest in the book.




I should add that as I read more books this display will be updated with the same detail for each book.

You've read some very interesting books so far this year, many are from series that I am also reading. There are some that I already have on my shelves or library list and I have taken note of a few that I am now going to look up and see if I want to read them in the future.

I would be interested to know how you personally would rate each book.

>121 pamelad: I'm sorry that I didn't provide that extra column. Will do so for all upcoming books.

For this listing my personal rating would be 5.0 for all books down to The Drift. I didn't mention that the books are ordered by the % 5-Star rating. The bottom four books would get a 4.0 as a way to indicate some degree of being a touch below those above them.

Every book on this list has the quality of being a 5, with a 4 in no way indicating a disappointment in quality to me. The two books by C. J. Tudor are excellent in most ways, but my current mood has drifted away from their subject matter.

The crowning point for A Sliver of Darkness is that it is a series of short stories, each of which is excellent, but I am not a fan of short stories.

I will make a conscious effort to put my rating on books coming up and make note of the enthusiasm, or unhappiness I have for certain books. I think I can do this by using the intermediate range of 4.0 to 5.0.

One example of this would be for The Angel's Game, which has an Avg Rating of 3.7. I personally would give it a true 4.8, as I find all books by Carlos Ruiz Zafon to be at the pinnacle of literary mysteries.

I guess I will have to think how best to score a book which, in my mind is somewhere between a 4 and a 5. I am so locked into the concept of integer ratings as promulgated by the industry that this is difficult for me.

I have read 5 books since my prior YTD reading. I am still using the same level of detail, but I have added a column where I can indicate my personal rating for the book. Just to repeat, a book receives 5 stars if I absolutely could see myself reading it again, or I would encourage others to take a look at it.

I also can indicate for an author that I have read before a lessor number if that author has produced a book that I prefer to this one. This is the situation with the Exiles by Jane Harper



Having just finished the bottom 3 books on the list, I am intrigued by how different they all were.

A Gentleman in Moscow is an exquisite characterization of a time and place of major historical significance. It provided me with far more understanding of the issues and people of WWII than anything I ever achieved from pure recital of history.

So Shall You Reap is by Donna Leon, the author that I have personally read the most of. Reading this book was like a visit with an old friend where I could catch up with the events in their life. To see what time, Covid and technology have brought about in Venice. All described by outstanding literary quality.

Where the Crawdads Sing is exposure to a region and a culture that is totally new to me. I found that people are still the same with prejudices and a historical cultural core. More than that, it is the incredible story of survival and ultimate success of one person that had every opportunity to give up, but, instead, used every opportunity to excel beyond what anyone could expect.

I have been building a list of the books I plan to read next. Over the last 3 months I actually created a list of candidates to read that ended up at 249 books! These suggestions came from several sources that I have mentioned before, as I followed many paths. Obviously, I must sort through that list and bring to the top a set of about 75 that I can read over the next 12 months.

The defining criteria that I most desire are literary mysteries, or literary fiction books with a mystery dimension. It turns out that my analysis shows that 127 of the books were written by authors that are on the combined LibraryThing and Goodreads top 850 literary mystery authors. The same analysis produced a list of 96 books that are my desired literary fiction list. There is a large overlap between the two lists.

I plan to display a list of 15 books that for my purposes will be the creme de la creme of my reading for the next few months.

Just as a sidenote to my searching for literary mysteries, the Sunday edition of the Denver Post has a reading section which lists the top 10 fiction and non-fiction book statistics for Colorado and nationally.

It struck me that 8 of the top 10 fiction books locally are on my finished reading list. Mostly from 2022. Even more importantly, 6 of the 8 are literary mysteries by my definition. That is, those books are all described as literary fiction with a mystery component. The other 2 books I have read are simply described as literary fiction.

I have learned that few readers categorize books as literary mysteries. I have also learned that readers that place genre-like tags on books are quite rare. Despite these facts, readers that do tag quite commonly will use the 'mystery' tag and a 'literary, or literature' tag. Also, I am seeing the label 'literary fiction' showing up in the book reviews.

This has led me to label a book as a 'literary mystery' for either of the two tag combinations of:

(1) Literary Fiction and Mystery
(2) Mystery and Literature

Of course, I will label a book as a literary mystery if it actually contains that tag from readers, or if it is by an author who is recognized as a literary mystery author on the master list I have obtained from GR/LT.

Prior times during 2023 I have added candidate books to read to my TBR. They came from LT Recommendations, Books to Borrow from other LT members and expected new books from my favorite authors. These all added to create a list of candidates with 249 books.

I applied the various tests to the list using the literary fiction focused criteria just mentioned. That process reduced the candidate list to 153 books.

The complete list was sorted by each book's membership in my list of favorite tag genres. Remember that I prefer books to read that have a broad set of attributes that focus on those favorite tag genres.

This process floated to the top of my current interests 21 books displayed next. I will now find some of those books in audio form to check out at the DPL.
I will read those unavailable in audio form by print, or Kindle.

Several members on this list are still to be published.

I need to emphasize that the tag genres attached to each book are NOT the strongest tags for the book. They are simply those tags that exist for the book that are key words for me when I inspect all the tags assigned to the book by other LT members.

This means that this list is just my preferences and might not in any way match your personal interests.

I have 3 additional books to report on, as each of them is very worthwhile for your consideration. They are:



You will probably be surprised at inclusion of Funeral Train as it is not a literary heavyweight like I prefer. It is included because it represents well the environment of my childhood during the depression. The characterizations of various community members, such as the Civil Conservation Corp men like my uncles is so memorable.

I grew up in Wyoming instead of Oklahoma, so I didn't experience any of the situations with black members of society as represented in this book. But, I am still incensed with that behavior against very important humans in our society.

This behavior is similar to the antisemitism exhibited in Eternal, but not at the same degree of consequences. From my perspective they are both horrific behavior from humans.

It is ironic that none of these books are listed among the books listed previously as being part of my favorites. I am still pursuing those books, plus others, but I need to read whatever passes my way if it contains an attribute that clicks with me.

I am considering closing this very lengthy chat and initiating a new one that simply tracks the books I am reading currently, with minimal presentation of my reading fingerprint rationale.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this concept.

I'd say you should use whatever format works for you. I will be following along whatever style you choose as many of your books I already have, or have read, or already know that I want to read.

I have mentioned previously that I have accumulated 260 candidates to read starting now. This TBR list clearly has to be pruned in order to identify books which absolutely will be worth reading in the time available to me.

Rather than continuing to read the books identified in Post 127 I decided to conduct a new review using my best perception of books that I truly will enjoy.

I have spoken enough about my love for literary mysteries so that will play a major role in my pruning exercise. A slightly larger criteria would allow books which are categorized as literary fiction, even if they aren't qualified as literary mysteries.

Such books should contain a reasonable number of my favorite tag genres. If I require at least 6 of my tag genres in a book there are still about 200 books matching my stated conditions. This really shouldn't be a great surprise as the 260 books became candidates because they qualified on many of my conditions.

You surely can see that the average rating for a book is very significant to me. In fact, the most significant number overall to me is the percentage of readers that will assign 5 stars to a book. Lacking a convenient way to obtain the 5 star rating for many books I am always looking for an average rating of close to 4.0 and above.

This doesn't mean that a book with a rating of 3.6 wouldn't please me. Numerous of my favorite authors are describe by that rating. However, when faced with a list of books which already qualify with my literary condition it is most reasonable to ask for higher ratings.

I achieved a 50 % reduction in the 260 books to read by requiring the criteria of an average rating of 4.0 and above. From that list I extracted 32 books with an average rating of 4.2 and above. This reduced list is presented in the following display. I will continue to read books from that list and will revise the list with updates from books that are lower than the 4.2 from this list.

It is important to note that for new books with small numbers of readers the average rating is quite variable. This will require me to continually revise the average rating for such books. Such revisions will cause me to revise this list frequently.



I am displaying notation of which books qualify as being a literary mystery. If the column is blank it means that it is a book attributed to literary fiction. Also, note the number of my personal tags that are attached to the book. In general, the larger the number I am more likely to prefer the book.

If the Avg Rating is above 4.0 the book can still be a good candidate for me regardless of fewer tags.

I just read two books which, by all of my analysis would be equally interesting to me. The contrast between my reaction to these two books shows that, no matter the analytics, a person must read the book to complete the story.

The first book When I Sing Mountains Dance turned out to have more magical realism than I could handle. After spending a couple of hours with the book I concluded that there wasn't any reason for me to continue as I wasn't enjoying the experience. With all of the awards this could be of more interest to others so give it a try.

In contrast, the second book The Giver of Stars was absolutely captivating from cover to cover. The literary quality is stunning and introduced me to the history of rural Kentucky that was totally new to myself. Please give this book a try as I can assure you that it is a winner.

I just finished another fabulous book, Remarkably Bright Creatures that I just felt compelled to mention. It is certainly comparable to The Giver of Stars for importance to my reading this year. Please inspect the list of Tag Genres for each book to see how two quite different sets of genres can both result in 5 star books.



I also want to mention that I have been struggling all year with my format for displaying book descriptions as I read them. I am not by nature a reviewer that can convince anyone to read a book based on my reading preferences. I have, in some cases extracted partial reviews of a book along with other reader's commentary on the book, and I haven't been pleased with those efforts.

From this point forward all of my book reports will have a level of detail like this display. I hope these details will be sufficient for you to explore in more detail on LT/GR whether the book also appeals to you.

I have picked up a copy of The Giver of Stars and hope to slot it in to my next year's reading. Also I have Remarkably Bright Creatures on my Kindle and plan to get to it later this year.

I just finished another excellent book revolving around strong women and how their lives worked out in the midst of traditional male dominated situations.

Rhys Bowen has long been one of my favorite authors. Noted for outstanding historical mysteries with excellent plotting and vivid historical details.



If you inspect the list of books I produced at (131) you can see how my reading has been selected at various locations in the list. Some of these selections have been availability issues, like being available in audio format and that their release dates have actually occurred.

It is also important to note that there isn't any rank order to the list. All of them have avg rating above 4 and there is a huge variance in the tag genres involved. The other important factor is what mood am I in when it comes to reading subjects the day I actually 'pick a book to read'.

While scanning new releases for books that match my interests I came across The Trackers by Charles Frazier, an author that I have not been familiar with. This book is concerned with life during Great Depression times in my birthplace of Wyoming. What a lucky find!

The literary quality of the writing and the characterization of the individuals central to the story was so engrossing that I read it in record time. The story is described by the publishers summary as follows:

"From the New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain and Varina, a stunning new novel that paints a vivid portrait of life in the Great Depression

Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he's landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office.

A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations, but was once a WWI sniper--and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives.

One day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, and Long recruits Val to hit the road with a mission of tracking her down. Journeying from ramshackle Hoovervilles to San Francisco nightclubs to the swamps of Florida, Val's search for Eve narrows, and he soon turns up secrets that could spark formidable changes for all of them.

In The Trackers, singular American writer Charles Frazier conjures up the lives of everyday people during an extraordinary period of history that bears uncanny resemblance to our own. With the keen perceptions of humanity and transcendent storytelling that have made him beloved for decades, Frazier has created a powerful and timeless new classic."



This book is so much more than an outstanding capturing of the people and details of the time, as outstanding as they are. The phrases above about an uncanny resemblance to our own times and the keen perceptions of humanity and transcendent storytelling left me with a lot to think about.

In my everlasting search for the "best" books for me to read I recently expanded the list of candidates to include in my search. I used various searches for new books getting publicized, book announcements for my favorite authors and the LT recently developed process for suggesting books that match my library. All of these efforts have added up to a current set of 301 books to consider.

This is where the Tag Mirror process I have developed is of great assistance to rapid identification of which books hold the most promise for me. Just to remind you, the key is to attach to each book any association of the book with any of my 39 favorite tags. This doesn't mean that a book has a strong connection with any tag, but rather that the book includes at least some element of the tag.

Given that Tag Mirror can identify for every book in my library the presence of any of my favorite tags I use Excel to sort all books in the library in countless ways. The most important sort I have come to depend upon is the 'Literary Fiction' tag. Any book that can be described as literary fiction brings that book to my interest. This tag is actually superior to my favorite literary mystery tag because readers rarely assign the L-M tag to many books.

I don't want to become too analytical for you, but it is useful to discuss how I can separate the 301 candidates down to 186 candidates. Consider the following table which identifies the various categories of books that pique my interest.



The first point is that only 91 of the 301 books are from my previous favorite authors. This means I will need to be willing to consider authors I haven't read before. The second point is that there are 67 books (186-119) that are literary fiction books without a mystery component. Prior to this year I usually rejected such books, but I have come to realize that in doing so I clearly could bypass excellent books for myself.

Based on this analysis I reduced the candidate books to 186. I would prefer to identify about 35 books for my immediate serious consideration to read in the next four months, I would place holds on audiobooks on such a list at the DPL, or purchase from Audible any books not available at the library.

I have made considerable progress on creating such a list but need to refine it a bit more. This will be discussed in my next posting within the next few days.

One very important point is that this process has already identified quite a number of very interesting new authors to read.

I have just finished reading 3 books written by favorite authors that I have accumulated over the years. This reading resulted in one loser The London Seance Society, one middling OK book Storm Watch and one rousing success Standing in the Shadows by Peter Robinson

Commentary about each is as follows:

The London Seance Society was a follow-on to a 2022 book The Lost Apothecary that was a good experience for me. I simply could never attain any feeling of connection with the characters in the book as it seemed just a discourse on the history of the subject. My current attitude is to abandon a book early on, instead of plowing through to a painful end. The 3.55 average rating on the book was an early warning signal.

Storm Watch by C. J. Box, who is a favorite author because of his outstanding representation of Wyoming, somewhat lived up to my expectations but disappointed me in the overall theme.

In this book C.J. Box injects right-wing views into his characters and tends to portray the people of the mountain West as uniformly conservative. He does portray, what I believe to be true, a serious threat to our democracy from very well entrenched survivalists and other similar groups. While he does beat-back such groups there isn't any feeling I was left with for optimism on the eventual battle outcome.

Peter Robinson, in contrast has written a book with a very plausible ending that left me with good feeling about the ultimate success in defense of justice even when some in authority are part of the problem.

I am most sad because the author Peter Robinson has died, and I assume this will be the last Inspector Banks novel. This was the 28th book in the series and all of the characters are like old friends to me. He first published about 35 years ago and in those intervening years I would have a hard time to identify any other authors that have meant so much to me.

One overriding memory is how large a role music played in his portrayal of Inspector Banks. I am wondering if that music was a real part of Peter Robinsons life. It certainly seems to be true to me.

I find only 19 of his books in my library so I need to review the missing 9 to determine if I missed them, or just lost memory of them.

I have now completed the latest book from one of my most favorite authors, Elly Griffiths. This book The Last Remains is another one where I need to say goodbye to characters I think of as familiar friends.

This case is different from Standing in the Shadows because Elly Griffiths has just announced that she is ending the Ruth Galloway series at this final 15th book. I have read 22 of her books that are part of her three series.

The Last Remains is an incredible conclusion to the series as many loose ends and connections to early stories are brought to a very satisfactory conclusion. I read an interview of Elly Griffiths in which she said that, as an author it just seemed right for a conclusion for the series.

The reasons I have been so interested in the last two books are illuminated by the list of tags associated with each of the books. They both touch on many of the tags that express what I am looking in for any book. It isn't necessary for other books to contain all of these tags, but I have found that my most favorite books tend to contain large numbers of the tags.

Of course, the tag count isn't sufficient to define my evaluation of a book as is demonstrated by my reaction to The London Seance Society, which has as many tags. The tag count simply improves the likelihood that I should 'like' a book.

One of my most favorite authors is Jacqueline Winspear who has written the Maisie Dobbs series. From 2003 to 2022 there have been 17 books with an average rating of 4.06.

She has now brought on to the scene a new character unrelated to Maisie Dobbs. Whether this represents an end to the Maisie Dobbs series I am not aware, but I certainly hope not.

The promo for the new book is provided as "The White Lady introduces yet another extraordinary heroine/sleuth from Jacqueline Winspear, creator of the best-selling Maisie Dobbs series. This heart-stopping adventure follows the coming of age and maturity of former wartime operative Elinor White—veteran of two wars, trained killer, protective of her anonymity—when she is drawn back into the world of violence she has been desperate to leave behind."

At the beginning of The White Lady I was somewhat dismayed, and I had difficulty relating to her new story, which covers time between WWI and WWII. After a couple of chapters I was able finally to form a connection with the story and appreciated it as being as enjoyable as Maisie Dobbs. However, I can't quite see this story as being a long running series.

I have been processing my 280 books to consider reading next. I have selected 9 books that are available on Libby/Audible. They are an interesting set of books, all of which have avg rating above 4.0 and my required literary fiction, plus mystery in some cases.



I also have a larger list of 16 books which are described in my On Hold in Libby Collection which you can inspect. Going to that collection adds valuable additional information, such as avg rating and defined special tag genres for each book. Please use Style C for these additional details.

The Colony is great.

>142 dianeham: Thanks for that comment. It is always very encouraging to me to hear that a book I plan to spend 10 hours listening to will be worth it.

In a post I will put up later this afternoon I will discuss a bit more how I came up with this 'short list'

You have probably been bored to tears with my bringing up analysis of my library in terms of literary fiction, mysteries, etc., but I need to review some aspects of that thinking in order to illuminate how I came up with this Libby short list.

My reading can be partitioned into 5 different Tag Genre combinations. These are

Literary Fiction
Literary Fiction & Mystery
Non-Mystery Literary Fiction
Literary Mystery Authors by GR/LT List
Favorite Authors

Given the lack of guidelines on assigning an attribute to a book, I have determined that books I like are most frequently classified as literary fiction. That category some of the time, are also classified as possessing a mystery dimension.

Another dimension I have firm control of is a list of authors that have been my favorite over the years. This list has about 150 authors on it.

Another list of authors is the one based on Goodreads and LibraryThing designating them as authors that write Literary Mysteries. This list has about 850 authors on it.

If I am very interested in a book I want to determine if the book fits into each of these measures. For your interest, if I analyze the 281 books on my candidate list the following statistics are developed. Of course many books are categorized as belonging to more that one of these.

In my current analysis I used Literary Fiction as the key dimension. So, my choice of books to read is narrowed down to 167 books which can be identified as Literary Fiction.



The second column in the figure presents how books in my Libby Holds list of 16 books divides into these categories.

Other important measures of any book in my system are:
1) The Avg Rating assigned by readers of the book.
2) The number of my personal Tag Genres can be used to describe the book.

I have always had a preference for books which have an average rating of 4+, but I have read and enjoyed many with lower ratings. If I want to reduce this list, I feel it is reasonable to concentrate on 4+ books.

I have also discovered an excellent correlation with a simple tag genre count and my preference for a book.

These facts do NOT mean that a 4.4 rating for a book is better than a 4.1 rating. If a book enters 4+ that is good enough. Similarly, a 15-tag book is not better than a 10-tag book. Of more importance would be is it a book on my favorites list?

All of these analyst stats finally run aground because they only serve to narrow down the list of books I choose to read. I can't display for you a brilliant method to achieve a spotlight on the books I do choose.

All through my reading life I managed to find books that really appealed to me without stats like these. What they do for me is to focus my attention on descriptions of and reviews of each book I am considering. When I see a promo for a new book I can read about the book and look for key words, like literary fiction, mystery and who the author is.

Ultimately it is a match of the plot for the book and my current level of intrigue in that plot. Remember that the process helps me to focus on books of high literary content, along with a preference for a mystery content. The choice is always simple for me if the author is one of my favorites. New interesting authors are more difficult to evaluate, but the words literary fiction always gets my attention.

A final complication is that I strongly prefer audio books and some books actually haven't yet been released. I can place 15 books on hold at the DPL so I often have to wait 12 weeks to obtain the book I want. If I get impatient enough and have a very high interest in a book I can and do go to Audible to acquire the book.

I urge you to go to my On Hold in Libby Collection to see how these various measures are further displayed using Style C. Study for each book for the mix of collections that book belongs to.

Please question me about details that I haven't explained very well. I often worry about expounding about this process in a way which isn't very useful to others.

I realize that few members viewing this discussion will ever go to my collection as suggested, so I will now show how that short list looks when sorted by book avg rating.



You can see that the non-mystery literary function books tend to have a few tags. They do have high avg ratings. These are the books which appeal to me based on the plot details.

I have mentioned many times that the books I really like tend to have a high count of tag genres. If I sort the short list by tag count I obtain the following display.



At the top of this list is the book Homecoming by Kate Morton. This author is one of my most favorite ones and the plot of this book is my most favorite one. I will discuss this book later when I finish it, but it is truly a 5-star book.

Note that these books all have 4+ rating by readers and any of the books on this list are capable of attaining 5-stars for me. The descending tag count on this list doesn't signify a lower expectation for the book.

Fascinating! I’ve never even heard of Kate Morton.

ETA: I see her books tend to be very long. I try to stick with books 400 pages or under.

>147 dianeham: The main feature of Kate Morton as a favorite of mine is the historical mystery focus. Her mysteries are not thrillers, nor bloody. I agree that they tend to be long, but her character developments are very important. I was a little concerned at the length of the audio version of Homecoming, but the story line is quite complex and very worthwhile. If you are reading a hardback I can see that the number of pages might be a deterrent.

I have read 8 of her books and every one has been terrific for me. You could pick other of her books, and I am confident that you would enjoy it, with a big question .. do you like historical mysteries?

If you like Louise Penny you would also like Kate Morton

>148 JoeB1934: I love Louise Penny. I read ebooks but I’m afraid I’ll lose interest if the book is too long. I used to read long books. You rated the current one higher than the previous ones. So which would you suggest?

>149 dianeham: Either The Secret Keeper, or The Lake House, but truly I would go to Goodreads and see what the plotting is in order to intrigue with the story. Both were nominees for awards in their year of production.

>150 JoeB1934: thank you.

In my 'review' of Standing in the Shadows by Peter Robinson I mentioned how music seemed to be a major part in his stories. Today I found the answer to that issue in a crimereads interview of Sheila Halladay, Peter’s wife, to whom he dedicated almost every novel.

Any reader of his books should read the complete interview at https://crimereads.com/peter-robinson-remembered/ The complete interview is very worthwhile but I have extracted below the section about his references to music.

"A particular joy of the series for many readers is Robinson’s use of a very wide range of music that Banks listens to. From obscure folksingers to punk bands to classical composers, opera—Robinson demonstrates a depth of knowledge encompassing decades, all effortlessly incorporated into the novels. On Robinson’s website, readers can access “playlists” from several of the novels. Additionally, several of the titles in the series are from well-known songs: Piece of My Heart, Many Rivers to Cross, Bad Boy, Friend of the Devil.

“Music was always a big part of Peter’s life,” acknowledges Halladay. “He was lucky to have been a student at the University of Leeds during the heady 70s and saw popular groups like The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Wings, as well as more traditional music like Lindisfarne and Fairport Convention. He would brag about actually being at the original Who, Live at Leeds concert at the Refectory of the University in 1970.

“He always felt that the music was an integral part of his books and enhanced the atmosphere. Many people told him that his playlists were remarkable, and they were often introduced to new artist merely by reading his books. Even though he included a lot of musical references in the books he was very casual about it.

A few days before Peter died, I heard music playing when I went into his into his room in the ICU. When I asked him what it was he said ‘Chopin. My nurse is Polish and I want to get on her good side.’ He always kept his sense of humour.”

His greatest love was probably The Grateful Dead. During the pandemic he discovered a number of their concerts were available on YouTube and I would often find him listening in awe to Jerry Garcia riffs. What a long strange trip it’s been…”"

I just finished listening to Homecoming by Kate Morton and all I can say today is WOW!

This book comes as close as anything I have read to matching my most favorite storyline. I became interested immediately with the multi-generational time period and a backbone provided by a mystery that isn't resolved until the last few pages of the book.

The book promo is as follows:

"Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959: At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek on the grounds of the grand and mysterious mansion, a local delivery man makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia.

An epic novel that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love, and how we protect the lies we tell. It explores the power of motherhood, the corrosive effects of tightly held secrets, and the healing nature of truth. Above all, it is a beguiling and immensely satisfying novel from one of the finest writers working today."

This story seems so plausible to me, one with Jane Eyre, or Jane Austen dimensions.

This book gave me so much reading pleasure that I have embarked on a refinement of my search for books to read.

The next book that became available with Libby was The Bullet That Missed: (The Thursday Murder Club 3) by Richard Osman. After a few chapters I thought to myself: "why am I reading this book, i don't care much for the characters and I don't even care about the mystery involved". I then returned the book to the library.

I have enjoyed previous books by this author, and it is very highly rated. It seemed so much less real to me than Homecoming that I simply wasn't motivated to finish the book in spite of it scoring very high on all my usual metrics.

I then opened the next audio book available to me on Libby. It is a very anticipated literary fiction novel Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins. The GR ratings for this book is almost identical to Homecoming and it is also multi-generational over decades with many of the same type of family factors and relationships.

BUT, I am struggling with the entrance to the book in spite of the incredible literary quality of it. I am setting the book aside until I determine why I am reacting this way. Maybe, I need to read a different book dissimilar to Homecoming. I will keep you posted.

I decided to scan my candidate books to read to find a book which is quite different from Homeland to get my brain on a new track. I found 3 books which are all available on Libby in audio format and I was drawn to the book Touch by Olaf Olafsson.

What a fantastic choice as it is also a 5-star book, but having a totally different nature. The promo provides the essential description

"A mesmerizing, panoramic story of one man's search to find a lover who suddenly disappeared decades before

When the pandemic hits, Kristofer is forced to shutter his successful restaurant in Reykjavik, sending him into a spiral of uncertainty, even as his memory seems to be failing. But an uncanny bolt from the blue--a message from Miko Nakamura, a woman whom he'd known in the sixties when they were students in London--both inspires and rattles him, as he is drawn inexorably back into a love story that has marked him for life. Even as the pandemic upends his world, Kristofer finds himself pulled toward an answer to the mystery of Miko's sudden departure decades before, compelling him to travel to London and Japan as the virus threatens to shut everything down.

A heart-wrenching love story and an absorbing mystery, Touch delves into the secrets of the past to explore the hidden lives that we all possess, the pain and beauty of our past loves and friendships that continue to leave their mark on us. Searching and lyrically rendered by acclaimed author Olaf Olafsson, Touch is a stunning tribute to the weight of history and the complexities of the human heart."



This story isn't unique as there are millions of people who have had lives of equal complexity. What is unique here is an author capable of writing a story in the first person with a totally convincing level of details and emotions as a person who actually lived this life would achieve if they had the skill.

I was engrossed to the last page.

After contemplating this action for some time, I have decided to end this chat about the books I am reading as part of what I call my reading fingerprint. I was hoping there would be more dialog about the books I am reading, but I do understand that every reader has their own reading objectives that have their attention.

This really isn't a surprise as my main reason for calling it a 'reading fingerprint' was that no two readers have the same mix of genres that excite themselves.

I plan to maintain the various Collections that I use and if anyone has the time/interest in knowing what I have read recently the 'Books in 2023' Collection will summarize the books.

Most importantly, thank you for having followed along with me to this time.

Thank you!

>156 JoeB1934: Thanks Joe. Fingerprint aside, I'd be interested in reading what you thought about the books you read.

This has been quite a long set of messages so I thought it might be useful to list all of the 5-Star books I have read this YTD. In the display below there is a column providing for each book my personal favorite tag genres so you can get some idea why each book appealed to me.

In those tag genres there is one labeled FV Auth which means that it is a book by one of my 160 most favorite authors accumulated of the decades.
Another tag is LM Star which means that the author has been designated a Literary Mystery author by either GR, or LT.



You need to realize that these are 5-Star books for me, by my personal definitions. However, the 5 Star and 4 Star percentages for each book should give you a general idea of the quality of each book over the universe of other readers.

Hi Joe, I enjoyed looking over your list of 5 star reads. Most of the ones that I have read before were also 5 stars for me, so I have taken note of the ones that I haven't read yet.

I have decided to discontinue maintenance of this conversation and concentrate from now on through 2023 at:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/349260#n8157963

If you arrive at this chat please go to that location from now on.