Confessions of a bookaholic (Alexandria Digital Literature)

Member Name: frannyfortune

Product:	Alexandria Digital Literature
Date:	01/06/01 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: BOOKS!!!, indulges your book obsession, s/f and fantasy focused, if you like that sort of thing

Disadvantages: site can be slow at times, encourages your book obsession, s/f and fantasy focused, if you don't like that sort of thing

Be gentle with me. Before I start, I just hope that 'Suggestions' means that you can write under this heading about a site that isn't yet listed by dooyoo. If I've got it wrong, I'm very sorry. But I've got a confession to make about an unhealthy obsession of mine, and that sort of thing just can't wait.

Alexandria Digital Literature (AlexLit for short, found at www.alexlit.com) is essentially an online bookshop, but with two main differences. Firstly, it only sells stories digitally, to be read on your computer (or to print out if you find the rustle of paper essential to your reading pleasure). Secondly, it has the cheek to try to tell you what you would like to read next.

I'll deal with the second aspect of the site first, as it’s the one I found most interesting (and dangerous). To get reading recommendations, you must first register as a member – quick, painless, and the first step on a slippery slope. Now it's time to own up to which books you have enjoyed in the past. After clicking on the 'Rate Stories' link, (by stories they mean novels, children’s books, short stories, plays, poems and even comics), you are given a random list of titles, to be rated by selecting from a drop-down menu ranging from 'Fabulous!' to 'Dreadful'. Sounds slightly familiar, perhaps. Unlike dooyoo, however, you can rate 20 titles on one page before you have to click on that annoying 'submit' button. You can get through this part quite quickly and you might even enjoy it (but hopefully not as much as I did). If you haven’t read a particular work, you can just leave it as 'Unread'.

Now the fun begins. When you have rated 40 or more stories (not including your ‘Unread’ ratings), click on 'Recommend' to get personal suggestions. My initial recommendations included an old favourite of mine. "Oooh, so it does work..." I thought, then
, "...oh, hang on, I just told it I liked that author, this is hardly Sherlock Holmes stuff." The rest were a mix of some interesting-sounding books, plus quite a few that mystified me, which I couldn’t honestly see myself ever wanting to read.

Many people would have given up at this point, but knowing when to stop has never been one of my strong points. Also, I can’t help it - I find it oddly satisfying to click boxes which ask me what I think of something (to see the full sad story, check the number of ops I have read in the few weeks since being a dooyoo member). I decided to abandon their lists of books to rate, and instead use the search facility to find authors I really liked. After a while I noticed three things.

1) I had lost several hours from my life, possibly due to alien abduction. 2) My carpal tunnels were screaming for mercy. 3) The recommendations were getting more interesting, and including more books I had already read and enjoyed.

I think it was at this point I started getting obsessive. "If I could rate every book I've ever read," I mused, "the recommendations would get scarily accurate...and oh wow! I'd have, like, a really cool list of all my books and what I thought of them. Hmmm..." (click, click, click...).

Unfortunately for potential book anoraks like me, you see, you can view your rated books at any time, by author, rating or date. I am sad enough to have considered keeping some sort of index system, on those little card things, of all my books. Luckily I am far too lazy and disorganised to have done anything other than thought about it, but that’s enough to worry me. It's the sort of thing you read about in the papers : "We would never have thought he was hiding all those horrors under the floorboards. He was always very quiet, and he kept his books in a lovely order and rated them all on those little card things." I never dreamt a we
bsite would tempt me into such a sinister scenario. You can also get statistics such as bar charts showing how many books you rated on each visit to the site. If any of this sounds remotely appealing, I urge you to do the sane thing and stay well away.

You may be wondering how this recommendation device actually works. AlexLit refers to it (or her, I suppose) as Hypatia, named after the first major female mathematician, and she does have a personality of sorts. Hypatia basically checks your ratings against those of others who have rated on the site, and tries to correlate them. So if you loved "War and Peace", for instance, and all the other people who rated it as 'Fabulous!' also liked "The Cat in the Hat", then Hypatia will recommend that you read that next.

She'll also give you an indication of how certain she is that you'll like a particular book, ranging from 'Almost Positive' to 'Pure Speculation'. You can fiddle about in all sorts of fun ways, such as asking her to be 'Daring', or even 'Reckless' and recommend things that she hasn’t a clue if you'll like, but thinks you may find superb. As in life, I found this method often got the best results.

The site has 75,000 titles stored, and if you don't find the title you want, you can add it yourself for you and others to rate. Apparently site members, as a whole, have clicked those little boxes 1.8 million times (I am responsible for, erm, let’s say, a number of those), and I'd imagine as this number grows, so will Hypatia's accuracy. She is certainly not perfect, as people’s reading tastes can be so eclectic anyway, but that seems to be an impressive database to draw on.

The main drawback for me was the site’s focus on fantasy, s/f, mystery and horror. I dabble in those sorts of books but they’re not my favourite. A lot of the stories you will be asked to rate, and
many of the recommendations at first, are from those genres. I know for a lot of dooyooers that will be a plus, however, and for those who prefer other sorts of fiction, the site has enough general titles to still make it worthwhile. The type of books you choose to rate will be reflected in the recommendations if you stick with it.

You may remember at the start of this op, I mentioned AlexLit is a bookshop site. Hypatia is really just a nice little gimmick to get you on there. If however you are a fantasy or s/f fan, you will be in heaven in the e-book section. They sell mostly short stories, or collections of stories, from both well-known writers and new hopefuls. The prices start from about 30c (prices are all American, sadly) for a 500 word story. The larger collections cost about $10 for 10 best-selling longer stories. I haven’t bought anything (yet), so I can't give much of an opinion, but it looks like an interesting and easy way to buy genre fiction. They accept Visa and Mastercard, and of course there are no postage and packing charges. The stories just pop up magically somehow on your PC. Don't ask me how. Ask them. There is a very good information section on this.

The thing I found most impressive was that despite their primary aim of getting your money, stories which they sell hardly ever appear on Hypatia's suggestions (unless you specifically ask her to recommend stories from their catalogue). They do have a link with Powell's if you want to buy other types of books. And as their revenue comes from sales, there are absolutely no banner ads, pop-ups or other nasty distractions to mar the experience of getting your clicking fix.

Let me see...Hypatia's recommending I should read Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 116'. She's pretty certain I'll think its 'Excellent'. Hmm...let’s see...I’ve got it here somewhere...

"Love is not love / Which alters when it alteratio
n finds"

Naaah, don't like that. We all have to rerate sometimes. Click, click, click...

Summary: