I interviewed 1,201+ authors to ask them what their 3 favorite reads of the year were, and here are the results: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023

Plus, you can zoom in on why the author loved each book on their pages.

Julie Walker - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/julie-walker

Allan Comb - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/allan-combs

Louise Carey - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/louise-carey

Carolyn Porter - https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/carolyn-porter

And if you want to look up a specific book like Leviathan Wakes (Expanse series), you can get a list of all the authors who loved it and what book lists it is on: https://shepherd.com/books-like/leviathan-wakes

Or Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari https://shepherd.com/book/sapiens

We also have “books like” based on real human data, although this is fairly basic, and I am working to improve this feature in 2024. Books like Dawn Of Everything - https://shepherd.com/books-like/the-dawn-of-everything

Background: I launched Shepherd.com on a Show HN in April 2021 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871660), and it has come a long way since then! My goal is to create an experience that feels like wandering your local bookstore, along with little notes pointing out why an author/expert picked each book as a favorite. I am purely focused on book exploration and discovery.

Feel free to ask me anything :)

My email is ben@shepherd.com if you want to share some ideas.

Thanks, Ben

P.S. I have a newsletter for readers here where I share what I am building, early access to new features, my favorite book lists, etc: https://forauthors.shepherd.com/newsletter-for-readers