[titanomachy]

Thank you for this. I sorted the "technology" and "science" sections and saw a few excellent books that I've read and a few that I would really like to read. This motivates me to start setting aside "reading time" again every day, since I've lost that habit.

The recent "society & culture" books gave me some good book club ideas.

Bug report: filtering by "award" appears to be broken for some awards. If I select Pulitzer or National Book Award, no books show up, but I can find books with these awards by browsing.

[benbreen]

Awesome, that's what I was going for. I originally made this for my own use and got kind of obsessed with building it out once I started finding unfamiliar books I enjoyed using the semantic search and category browsing. Glad to see it out in the world hopefully doing the same thing!

[titanomachy]

One thing that would make this information even more useful and searchable would be a JSON dump of your dataset. You could serve it statically on S3 or similar, to keep hosting costs to a minimum.

Of course, having created a cool thing generates no obligation for further work on your part! I'm grateful that you did this work and made it available for free.

Did you build your semantic search index based on the full text of the books, or just the reviews and descriptions?

[benbreen]

Already tried to do this in a basic form. Advice from experts would be welcome as it's my first time trying to make data and an API available: https://book-prize-index.vercel.app/data

Also I just had to upgrade my Vercel plan due to traffic, which is very welcome and appreciated, but if anyone wants to donate, that would be really helpful! There's a Stripe link at the site: https://book-prize-index.vercel.app

[maroonblazer]

Donated happily. Long-time book lover and am always looking for my next favorite read.

Thank you for building this!

[titanomachy]

Oh awesome, you're way ahead of me!

The JSON downloads quickly and had all the info I needed.

[inigyou]

> statically on S3 or similar, to keep hosting costs to a minimum.

Oxymoron. S3 and its clones are one of the most expensive ways to host files.

[joeguilmette]

I recently did this! I fixed my phone habit and my TV habit, and I just read no, the family has silent reading parties instead of movie night.

Here’s what I did: 1. Install Jomo on the phone. There are other apps, but basically it makes me wait 5s before I can open a brainrot app, and then I can only use it for 5min, and every time I do this I have to wait an additional 5s. It resets at midnight. This introduces the necessary friction.

2. Paper books. The house is now full of paper books. Book seems interesting? Buy it. Books everywhere. Real books.

3. The actual habit. I stack habits. Right now I have a daily workout routine. First thing I leave the house and either run or go to the gym. I bring my book, and afterwards go to the cafe across the street for a coffee. At night, I read before going to bed. Once you finish a few books this way, you’re in. TV now is actually hard to pay attention to, and I feel kind of… dirty doomscrolling now (like eating junk food, it tastes good but you feel gross during the experience).

If you want something to start with: https://bookshop.org/p/books/true-grit-charles-portis/5ac454...

[marcus_holmes]

I bought a tiny e-reader [0] and carry that as well as my phone. When the temptation to doomscroll triggers, I pull out the e-reader instead and read a book.

I tried attaching the book to the phone as their marketing suggests, but that didn't click somehow. Having both out means I would check the phone and then not look at the book.

Working so far, but it's only been a couple of weeks, so let's see.

[0] after reading this HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48662381

[joeguilmette]

Yea, for me my Kindle just didnt work. I always have had one since they were first released, but it was always hard to keep the habit between book.

Having a nice library of paper books, for whatever reason, has worked a lot better for me. I think it’s passively seeing them around the house and in the background always considering what is next.

This last round I couldn’t decide what to dig in to after I’d finished True Grit, so I spent a few minutes browsing what we had on hand and it was just… a very pleasant experience.

Also, unless you pirate ebooks or have access to a library that offers them, used paperbacks are actually much cheaper than buying ebooks.

[marcus_holmes]

Yeah I pirate my ebooks unless they can be bought DRM-free (which a few can). On principle, because I want to actually own the things I buy.

I used to have paper books. But I found they were just a massive pain in the arse to carry around, and move. They became very expensive, very inconvenient wallpaper. I gave them all away to a charity shop and bought an e-reader instead. Now I carry around 250 books in my pocket wherever I go. It's liberating.

[ingvay7]

Thanks for sharing jomo. My hack has been to read on my kindle while standing or even walking short repetitive steps (in surroundings or patterns where I can't hurt myself). This has been a game changer while waiting for kids soccer games to get done, lines in the mall, baggage claim etc. It also helps me avoid sedentary reading while sitting.