The embodiment of “don’t judge a book by its cover” lol.
IMO it’s cleaner to have the cover and then click into to read the description. But I do see your point, more information density can improve the overall UX flow.
Sweet, looking now to get some recommendations! I'm actually surprised more people don't have my two favorites overlapped more often (Mistborn and Name of the Wind)!
Question: when you don't search a book, it shows "Loved by X people", when you do, it shows "Book twins". I'd be really interested in seeing most frequently loved books, from people that like the book/books I'm searching. It would make it obvious I'm missing something!
We are working to do it based on frequency as part of the bigger app we are building right now. And show that. I'm hoping we might get that in this for next year.
So far, we only have ~5,000 votes for ~15,000 books over 2023 to 2025. We are still small but growing fast. Any chance you would share your 3 favorites this year and help us grow?
We are working on doing this on a much bigger scale and building a beta now too.
Sorry, nobody has picked one of his books as one of their 3 favorite reads of the year yet. We only have ~15,000 votes so far, but as we get more, that number will increase. We are working to improve this in 2026 as we grow.
We do have this if you want to see books like Glen Cook's:
I read ~130 books this year, and my 3 favorites of the year were:
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
I kept seeing recommendations for this book on Shepherd, but I was reluctant to try it. Many years ago, I tried a progressive fantasy book, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. This was a colossal mistake on my part because Dungeon Crawler Carl is AMAZING. This is one of the funniest and most beautiful books I have ever read. The satire is biting, and I love the characters from the bottom of my heart. If you love the TV show “Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” you will love the dark, absurd humor of this book. And this book isn’t all laughter; the characters often moved me to tears as they try to hold on to their humanity in the face of utter inhumanity and insanity.
The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
One of my favorite concepts in the book is called a “misogi.” It is this idea of taking on one massive challenge each year, with a 50/50 chance of failure (don’t die is rule #1).
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
This book series is pure magic. It’s hard to put into words what Ken Follett has accomplished. I read a LOT of historical fiction, and I’ve never found another series that lets you live through history with characters you love, while also showing the sweeping forces that shape the world.
It makes for intense reading because you will experience the day-to-day reality of fighting for women’s right to vote in England or resisting the Nazi party’s slow takeover of Germany, and you do this through the eyes of characters you have grown to love. You feel what it is like on a daily basis, frustrated with the pace of change, and also just living the regular ups and downs of your life. It feels like the life you are living right now.
At the same time, you can see the big waves coming and want to scream at them to do more, even though they might not be able to do more. And sometimes you watch as the waves break over them without any warning or care. But throughout it all, you understand why these waves are happening with incredible clarity.
Dungeon Crawler Carl has been on my TBR for some time. But your review saying it’s like Always Sunny made me want to read that next. I love the dark humour in that series.
IMO it’s cleaner to have the cover and then click into to read the description. But I do see your point, more information density can improve the overall UX flow.
Question: when you don't search a book, it shows "Loved by X people", when you do, it shows "Book twins". I'd be really interested in seeing most frequently loved books, from people that like the book/books I'm searching. It would make it obvious I'm missing something!
We are working to do it based on frequency as part of the bigger app we are building right now. And show that. I'm hoping we might get that in this for next year.
On the broader site, we do have "books like" Kingkiller Chronicles, and it does them based on the frequency they are associated together in the lists by humans: https://shepherd.com/books-in-order/the-kingkiller-chronicle...
(funny enough, the most recommended book alongside Kingkiller is Mistborn)
And Mistborn here: https://shepherd.com/books-in-order/mistborn/books-like
So we take the 12,000 book lists authors have made, and use that to generate these.
What do you think?
https://www.literature-map.com/
So far, we only have ~5,000 votes for ~15,000 books over 2023 to 2025. We are still small but growing fast. Any chance you would share your 3 favorites this year and help us grow?
We are working on doing this on a much bigger scale and building a beta now too.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Cook
Sorry, nobody has picked one of his books as one of their 3 favorite reads of the year yet. We only have ~15,000 votes so far, but as we get more, that number will increase. We are working to improve this in 2026 as we grow.
We do have this if you want to see books like Glen Cook's:
https://shepherd.com/books-in-order/chronicles-of-the-black-...
https://shepherd.com/search/author/10415
https://shepherd.com/bboy/my-3-fav-reads/login?next=/bboy/my...
You get a cool page like this:
https://shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/bwb
I read ~130 books this year, and my 3 favorites of the year were:
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
I kept seeing recommendations for this book on Shepherd, but I was reluctant to try it. Many years ago, I tried a progressive fantasy book, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. This was a colossal mistake on my part because Dungeon Crawler Carl is AMAZING. This is one of the funniest and most beautiful books I have ever read. The satire is biting, and I love the characters from the bottom of my heart. If you love the TV show “Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” you will love the dark, absurd humor of this book. And this book isn’t all laughter; the characters often moved me to tears as they try to hold on to their humanity in the face of utter inhumanity and insanity.
The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
One of my favorite concepts in the book is called a “misogi.” It is this idea of taking on one massive challenge each year, with a 50/50 chance of failure (don’t die is rule #1).
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
This book series is pure magic. It’s hard to put into words what Ken Follett has accomplished. I read a LOT of historical fiction, and I’ve never found another series that lets you live through history with characters you love, while also showing the sweeping forces that shape the world.
It makes for intense reading because you will experience the day-to-day reality of fighting for women’s right to vote in England or resisting the Nazi party’s slow takeover of Germany, and you do this through the eyes of characters you have grown to love. You feel what it is like on a daily basis, frustrated with the pace of change, and also just living the regular ups and downs of your life. It feels like the life you are living right now.
At the same time, you can see the big waves coming and want to scream at them to do more, even though they might not be able to do more. And sometimes you watch as the waves break over them without any warning or care. But throughout it all, you understand why these waves are happening with incredible clarity.