Show HN: I made a table comparer to quickly find a new book to read

3 points by HerChip 2 days ago

After a few weeks of programming a few minutes at the time, next to my full time job, I created this tool that helps you pick your next book from your long(er) want-to-read list. In essence, it is a table with filters and column sorters.

My problem was that the Goodreads website does not allow you to filter multiple columns at a time. That is why I created an alternative way to go through your books.

Unfortunately, Goodreads no longer shares API keys, so it relies on its export functionality for a csv file. Not all the required information for your book search is present in this CSV file. To solve this, the website scrapes Goodreads based on the book ID from the CSV file for the extra info.

Using the tool you can filter your want-to-read list. For example, I usually only read books that have been out for a few years, have an okay rating and have some reviews. Basically, a new book that has survived the hype and is still interesting.

I had the most trouble creating the front page and informing visitors what they could expect. I'm a more technical developer and found this part more difficult. I'm curious about your guy's feedback.

I hope there are some goodreads users as I was not sure if attaching a sample csv file was okay/possible.

For now, this website version is a basic trial version. It does not save any data in a database or in-memory. If people would find this useful, I could extend it.

Lastly, as I'm new to posting to hacker news, and wanted to share it. I read somewhere that you could add the "Show HN:" in front of it. I did this sadly after I posted this post earlier. So this is basically a repost, sorry about that. I have hide my previous (as deletion does not seem possible)