Goodreads, you should join.

[Datepalm]

Where are you guys finding this star rating distribution? In stats?

of course, it could rather mean that goodreads works as intended, and goodreaders with 5-star average ratings are simply using the site as intended to avoid reading stuff that they don't like. is goodreads an aesthetic superconductor? does it provide gustatory selection such that goodreaders are perfectly matched with their own goodreads, cutting out badreads, and so on, through the review/recommendation mechanisms?

Personally, (I'm not sure if i'm eccentric on this or not) I simply haven't bothered filing books I never got past the first 100 odd pages of, so that culls out a lot of what would be low star ratings right there. (my logic is that I usually don't know at that point whether its a bad book or just not my thing.)

[sologdin]

Where are you guys finding this star rating distribution? In stats?

i think on a person's main page, it should say how many books that they've shelved, with an average rating in parentheses; that average rating should lead to a distribution schema.

[Datepalm]

Where are you guys finding this star rating distribution? In stats?

i think on a person's main page, it should say how many books that they've shelved, with an average rating in parentheses; that average rating should lead to a distribution schema.

Ah, cool, thanks. I have an embarrasingly high 3.91 average.

[Lummel]

I like your "a good person reads good books therefore all the books I read are good " scheme Comrade, but personally it gets me awondering when I see somebody with a lot of one or two stars - do they just have bad-book judgement that they end up with all the dross or do they have high expectations or a hyper-critical reading sense?

I'll have to try and plug my self into the recommendations superconductor at some point to check your theory.

[jdiddyesquire]

Ah, cool, thanks. I have an embarrasingly high 3.91 average.

I'm 3.59 which sounds about right, no? There is certainly some selection bias in reading. For the most part we choose things we think we'll like. So being above 2.5 makes sense.

[Galactus]

My average is 2.98, which seems prety decent an average to me.

EDIT: I should not that to me ALL the star descriptions except for one star ("I didn't like it") are positive.

[Lummel]

Oooh. Yes that is a nice little feature with the graph.

Bit annoying that you can't drill down from that and be taken into a filter of, say, somebodies two star books.

Interesting to see just how much more some of us are as readers than others. The rating details chart on each book is also good clean nerdy fun.

[Datepalm]

Its just a bit breathtaking what a wealth of raw data there is here. They did some maps of relative popularity of books across US states (or something like that) in the blog once...

[ambyr]

My average is 2.98, which seems prety decent an average to me.

EDIT: I should not that to me ALL the star descriptions except for one star ("I didn't like it") are positive.

This--two stars, on Goodreads, is "it was okay." Three stars is "liked it." That pretty much covers the vast majority of what I read.

I try to keep my average right around 3, on the grounds that I should be comparing books to other books I've read, not to the super-ideal-everything's-perfect novel in my head. But sometimes it's hard.

[Datepalm]

I really should be studying, so naturally i'm trawling recommendations instead.

Chezzy wants to read: Paranormal erotic humorous book about two guys fighting for one girl involves alot of jealously,betrayal,love. Vampires, werewolves etc

I'm sure it exists, but if not...someone should write it.

[Lummel]

Its just a bit breathtaking what a wealth of raw data there is here. They did some maps of relative popularity of books across US states (or something like that) in the blog once...

Hmm, yes, but the sample is totally self selecting. In theory the bigger it is the less far it's likely to diverge from the mean, but with books being a fashion item, set text, reference etc people's reading habits could be skewed by all sorts of effects. Not to mention we have no reason to suspect that people are using goodreads in a consistent way.

This--two stars, on Goodreads, is "it was okay." Three stars is "liked it." That pretty much covers the vast majority of what I read.

I try to keep my average right around 3, on the grounds that I should be comparing books to other books I've read, not to the super-ideal-everything's-perfect novel in my head. But sometimes it's hard.

I was using this scale:

1 star - if this book is burnt and all copies utterly destroyed human life on earth will improve in my opinion.

2 star - if there is nothing else to read and nothing else at all to do then you can read this book

3 star - ok, useful, solid, decent read if it crosses your path

4 star - seek out this book to read

5 star - in the event of giant mutant star goats ravaging our bookshops and libraries: save this book for the good of humanity

I really should be studying, so naturally i'm trawling recommendations instead.

I'm sure it exists, but if not...someone should write it.

Why don't you write it now that you've finished with the adventures of the time traveling viking warrior woman and the highland sheik?

[jdiddyesquire]

Why don't you write it now that you've finished with the adventures of the time traveling viking warrior woman and the highland sheik?

Copyright infringement!!!

[ambyr]

I was using this scale:

1 star - if this book is burnt and all copies utterly destroyed human life on earth will improve in my opinion.

2 star - if there is nothing else to read and nothing else at all to do then you can read this book

3 star - ok, useful, solid, decent read if it crosses your path

4 star - seek out this book to read

5 star - in the event of giant mutant star goats ravaging our bookshops and libraries: save this book for the good of humanity

Genuinely curious (because I know a lot of people do this, and it always confuses me): why use a scale different than the one Goodreads explicitly assigns? (Which is: 1-didn't like it, 2-it was okay, 3-liked it, 4-really liked it, 5-it was amazing.)

[Datepalm]

That might be a better system than my rankings, which ran more like

5 - really good on almost everything

4 - has something interesting going for it

3 - basically acceptable but nothing particularly caught me, or something caught me but its otherwise not that good

2 - overwhelmed by its flaws with no particular redeeming feature

1 - actively offensive as well as simply incompetent.

Why don't you write it now that you've finished with the adventures of the time traveling viking warrior woman and the highland sheik?

Apropos, I just found the Goodreads creative writing section. I am...charmed, I think? In any case, the Epic Saga of the..etc may have found a new, appropriately zany, home to be archived in...

[Lummel]

Genuinely curious (because I know a lot of people do this, and it always confuses me): why use a scale different than the one Goodreads explicitly assigns? (Which is: 1-didn't like it, 2-it was okay, 3-liked it, 4-really liked it, 5-it was amazing.)

Really only because I started to score them before paying attention to the prompt that you get if you hover over the rating stars. And if there is an introduction page detailing the goodreads scale then I missed it.

Looking at it now I don't like 'it was amazing' because that's about how I react to the book and not how I judge the book to my mind, maybe the language 'it was amazing' is just a bit too enthusiastic for me. I tend to think that the extremes of a scale should be rarely used, the five stars should be something like your personal nobel prize winners, something really precious and rare. But, yeah I accept I'm probably out of step on this one!

I'm not actually all that keen on scoring and prefer the free text option and telling you that I love it or think it stinks (and why).

[haLobEnder]

This is one thing that is annoying to me on goodreads. They don't appear to include audiobook editions!

They're usually there, you just have to do some hunting in the 'other editions' section. My big problem is that I don't know what version to list as the one I listened to -- pretty much all my audiobooks are downloaded via my local library's online resources, so it complicates things by having physical copy whatsoever.

[ambyr]

That might be a better system than my rankings, which ran more like

5 - really good on almost everything

4 - has something interesting going for it

3 - basically acceptable but nothing particularly caught me, or something caught me but its otherwise not that good

2 - overwhelmed by its flaws with no particular redeeming feature

1 - actively offensive as well as simply incompetent.

Hah, I actually like your scale. If I had to write mine out in more detail than Goodreads' short summaries, it would probably look something like:

5 - (it was amazing) Really good on almost everything (if it has flaws, they're of the "had vast ambitions and did not quite manage to reach all of them, but I'm in awe of the ambitions" sort) and had some profound effect on me, the reader (by which I mean not just "made me laugh or cry" but "made me rethink how I view the world in some way, however small"). Prose I enjoyed is also a must. Will try to convince everyone to read it.

4 - (really liked it) Either it's really good on almost everything but doesn't have a profound effect on me, or it has an effect but also has a few flaws I can't ignore. Must excite me in some fashion, if not the extent of a 5. Will try to convince many people to read it, although I'm aware some won't like it.

3 - (liked it) A good, solid book, but either deeply flawed in one fashion or slightly flawed in more than one--maybe the prose is pedestrian, maybe there's a plot hole I just can't rationalize away, maybe some of the characters seem to have contracted "I will do whatever is convenient to the plot"itis. Sequels to 4s often end up as 3s, because it's rare for me to find the second book in a series quite as exciting as the first. Also here: "this is a really good book, I can find no wrong with it, and yet it's failing to grab me. Maybe I'm just in the wrong mood." Will recommend it if it seems to fit the criteria of someone's request.

2 - (it was ok) Deeply flawed in more than one fashion, but still possessing features to admire. Includes page-turning adventures with the consistency of cotton candy; that is, books I enjoyed while reading but can barely remember once over. Also here: "this was probably a good book, but I am so completely the wrong audience for it that I cannot judge." May recommend it with heavy caveats.

1 - (didn't like) Either no redeeming qualities whatsoever, or some redeeming qualities overshadowed by other aspects that I found enraging. Will not recommend it except as a doorstop.

[Datepalm]

Hah, I actually like your scale. If I had to write mine out in more detail than Goodreads' short summaries, it would probably look something like:

I wonder how much my scale is genre-specific? I overwhelmingly read SFF, after all, and so I give a hell of a lot of importance to worldbuilding , technological/social ideas and philosophical stuff (and what the author manages to do with them to prove thought and emotion, of course, but still) in a way that someone ranking for, say, historical romances might not - there characterization and a really well evoked setting might be way, way more important, and a plot thats maybe been seen a hundred times before - so long as it well rendered - absolutely no detriment to a book, while we appear give a lot of credit to sheer ambition of doing something new...not sure, really.

[ambyr]

I wonder how much my scale is genre-specific? I overwhelmingly read SFF, after all, and so I give a hell of a lot of importance to worldbuilding , technological/social ideas and philosophical stuff (and what the author manages to do with them to prove thought and emotion, of course, but still) in a way that someone ranking for, say, historical romances might not - there characterization and a really well evoked setting might be way, way more important, and a plot thats maybe been seen a hundred times before - so long as it well rendered - absolutely no detriment to a book, while we appear give a lot of credit to sheer ambition of doing something new...not sure, really.

You're definitely on something there. Or rather, I would use the same scale no matter what kind of book I was writing, but it's the desire to find ambitious books, books that do something new, books with deep worldbuilding and ideas, that keeps me in SFF rather than, say, romance--and when I read books outside of my comfort area, I tend to rate them lower than people more accustomed to those genres would, because there are things I want that they not only don't have but aren't trying to have. Which is not entirely fair of me.

[jdiddyesquire]

I wonder how much my scale is genre-specific? I overwhelmingly read SFF, after all, and so I give a hell of a lot of importance to worldbuilding , technological/social ideas and philosophical stuff (and what the author manages to do with them to prove thought and emotion, of course, but still) in a way that someone ranking for, say, historical romances might not - there characterization and a really well evoked setting might be way, way more important, and a plot thats maybe been seen a hundred times before - so long as it well rendered - absolutely no detriment to a book, while we appear give a lot of credit to sheer ambition of doing something new...not sure, really.

I think worldbuilding may be the most important aspect to being successful in the genre. That's what the genre is all about - pushing boundaries.

What's even cooler is now some authors are starting to push those boundaries, and literary ones which is making for some really exciting stuff.