I admit when I saw the Sony blog post, my first impression was “you gotta be kidding me!” But then I suppressed my inner skeptic and took a closer look.

The idea is simple. Sony has looked at a bunch of well-known books and apparently analyzed writing style and genre to come up with a family tree of books, marrying up some odd crosses like “Romance” and “Sci-Fi.” The intent is to lead readers from one book they like to other books they might like.

Kind of a neat idea, although “marrying” “Fifty Shades” to “The Notebook” was decidedly odd.

I did follow the trees through, and I thought some of their recommendations were insightful. Yes, if you liked “Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret,” one of my favorite books as a kid, and “Ender’s Game,” you probably would also like “Hunger Games.”

I was glad to see they selected some older books, not just recent bestsellers. It’s both smart marketing to lead readers to backlist books, and it’s good for readers to discover some “classics.”

There’s not much more to say here. It’s an idea I haven’t seen before, and I’m glad to see Sony doing something to attempt to stay relevant in the e-book world. Competition is good, and while I don’t think this tactic is going to suddenly give them the lead on Amazon or Nook, it’s nice to see them trying.

Anyone else looked at the trees and found something you’d like to try based on their recommendations?

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