'What should I read?' A new site called Bookish hopes to tell you
Folks looking for movie reviews and recommendations generally head for IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, or Netflix. Music lovers bookmark Pitchfork or Pandora. But where do bibliophiles turn for inspiration?
It seems our time has finally come.
Three publishers announced Friday a new venture called , a one-stop site for all things literary. The site will be a mix of social and editorial content, including book reviews, book excerpts, suggestions on books to buy, and news about authors.
8 best books of May: Amazon editors choose
Former Comcast digital media executive Paulo Lemgruber and NBC Universal鈥檚 Charlie Rogers will head the venture, which is being supported by Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA, and Hachette Book Group. (Although supported by these three publishers, Bookish will be editorially independent.)
Unfortunately, you won鈥檛 be able to find beach reads on Bookish 鈥� it鈥檚 expected to be up and running by Labor Day 鈥� but you鈥檒l have plenty to sink your teeth into come fall.
Bookish isn鈥檛 the first site to attempt to create an online community of bibliophiles. The social reading site offers that already and is growing at a rapid clip of about 100,000 new users per month. But Goodreads has suffered from problems like reviews posted for books that aren鈥檛 yet written and a tendency to spam users and their contacts. Complaints have been rolling in.
And with chains like Borders liquidating its stores and many independent bookshops closing their doors, readers have fewer places to find books and publishers have fewer places to promote books.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a frustration with book consumers that there鈥檚 no one-stop shopping when it comes to information about books and authors,鈥� Carolyn Reidy, the president and chief executive of Simon & Schuster, told . 鈥淲e need to try to recreate the discovery of new books that currently happens in the physical environment, but which we don鈥檛 believe is currently happening online.鈥�
Bookish hopes to become the IMDb of the book world, Mr. Lemgruber told . He said the site will include breaking news, author interviews, excerpts, reviews, marketing materials, and other tools that will help readers pick a book.
Like Amazon, Netflix, and Pandora, Bookish will recommend books to users based on information they provide and books they purchase, helping readers to home in on the handful of books they may like from the hundreds of thousands published annually. A recent question posed on the site asked, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 your favorite book from childhood?鈥� 鈥淭he more information readers provide the more customized the recommendations can be,鈥� Penguin Group USA CEO David Shanks told .
The site, which will have advertising support from Huffington Post, a staff of some 20 people, and books from at least 14 participating publishers, essentially exists to answer one question, said Mr. Shanks.
鈥淲hich book should I read next?鈥�
He hopes you鈥檒l always find an answer at Bookish.com.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
Join the Monitor's book discussion on and .
