[chrisweekly]

Agreed.

Related thoughts:

There are many authors whose future books I plan to read without bothering to check reviews.

When I enjoy something that has a sequel, I nearly always continue the series.

Beyond that, it's some mix of:

- A personal recommendation from a friend or colleague

- Awards / nominations (both as a quality signal, and for cultural literacy)

- Collaborative filtering (for both positive and, rarely, negative signal)

- Human-written reviews (heavily skewed towards one or a few reviews that are thoughtful and clearly indicate the book had meaningful impact on that particular reader, vs generic ratings or popularity per se)

/tangent