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Massive Bookshelf Upgrade

— Ben Fox

Massive Bookshelf Upgrade

What does this feature do?

This is a massive upgrade for our 3,000+ bookshelves. Bookshelves are groupings of books by genres, topics, or age groups, such as:

Right now, our bookshelves are a single page where you can filter to find books you want based on the book's DNA. So, things like the best kids' books on bullying or the most recommended sci-fi books that are detective stories.

What are we adding?

Best of All-Time Books

This section will show the most recommended books within that bookshelf. Plus, you can dive into the most recommended books by year, decade, age group, and more (depending on the book grouping). So, for science fiction, you can browse the most recommended science fiction books on Shepherd for the 1950s.

This page will update monthly and show you the books mentioned the most in the last month. It is a cool way to identify up-and-coming books and authors.

New Books

This section is similar to the Best of All Time section, except it is limited to books published in the last 3 years.

By Book DNA

This is the current bookshelf page; I just moved to a new section. It allows you to filter through our database of recommended books by genre, topic, and more.

Lists by Experts/Fans

This will show off book recommendation lists that authors and experts have created that match that bookshelf. For example, Dave's list of the best science fiction books with an everyman hero under the sci-fi bookshelf.

Status

We are building this now 😀!

I am super excited as this is what I have wanted as a reader (I've been dreaming of building this since I started Shepherd)!

Why is this update important?

  • Readers have repeatedly requested this feature. I can't wait to launch it, as testing the early mockups got readers visibly excited to start using it 😃.
  • We want to implement this before we improve the accuracy of our genre/topic system. The improvements to that system will allow us to add many missing genres and topics that readers expect. Plus, we will add themes, tropes, and moods to our system. I aim to reach 10,000+ bookshelves by December 2025 once these pieces are done.