books2rec returns already-read books as recommendations

[davecahill]

Very cool project, I was happy to stumble upon it. I've been using Goodreads for many years, and always been disappointed by the recommendations - I don't think I've read a single book on their recommendations!

Just filing this to note that my recommendations included some books I had read.

For example, I was recommended this:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135479.Cat_s_Cradle

Whereas I have read that book and marked it read on Goodreads. My best guess is that books2rec is considering different editions of the same book as different books - this is the version I have shelved:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8699986-cat-s-cradle

Again, partly a guess, but maybe the system should check if the work_id of the book to be recommended matches the work_id of a book the user has read? (http://fastml.com/goodbooks-10k-a-new-dataset-for-book-recommendations/ talks a bit about work_id vs book_id).

In any case, thanks for the project - very cool.

[dorukkilitcioglu]

We're aware of this problem, and as you said, it has to do with the different editions of the same book. It's been on the back burner for a while, so hopefully we will end up having time to work on it soon.