I believe The Storygraph is working on creating something relatively similar on the longer term. Currently they have « buddy reads » - I've never used them but from what I understand you can sign up for a buddy read on a book and get matched with someone else?
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Thanks for the lead!
It looks like the Buddy Read feature does in fact start with a specific book and organize a group around it, but it invites me to specify all the people that will ever be in the group right away, at group creation time. I get three ways to invite people:
- "Machine-learning powered reading buddy recommendations" - Unspecified voodoo. Three users are shown.
- "Community members who have this book on their radar" - Probably folks that have this on their public 'to read' list. Three users are shown.
- Specifying users directly by username
This doesn't quite fit the "I'm up for this, let me know when it starts" mechanic.
I could create a new group & invite all three of the users with this book in their public 'to read' list, but I think folks treat the the 'to read' list very, very casually -- not at the "I'm ready to commit to a reading group" level. These three users have 723, 2749, and 3771 books on their 'to read' lists respectively. I see that I somehow have have 46 books on mine, & haven't been thinking of it as a 'ready to commit to reading group' list.
Thanks for the detailed test! I thought it would be an option for people who already opted in and not just having the book on their to-read :(
I like the idea of this very much and I hope someone has made/does make it.
What's the book? Who knows, you might find the core of your group just by sparking interest in the book. Good luck :)